Alamo County and the towns of Esperanza and Riata are strictly fictitious. If they did exist, I think they’d be along the western edge of the Rio Grande Valley in south central New Mexico, where mountains edge down to the lower terrain. Copper mines seem to be most common in rugged ranges of red-hued, steep hills, so that’s where I see Esperanza. Riata is lower in the valley, near the base of the foothills leading to taller mountains. Alamo is a small and poor county, with mining and some agriculture as its main industries. One or two town marshals or village constables represent the law in incorporated communities, and perhaps twelve or fifteen deputies patrol the rest of the county. A lot of the Old West still exists in such places with drug and human trafficking added in modern times. It’s a tough place for law enforcement officers to operate. Alamo means cottonwood (as in the tree) in Spanish, while Esperanza is hope, and Riata is a lariat or cowboy’s rope.
The practice of big mining companies to raze or relocate towns in order to create or expand an open pit mine is not an unusual one. Phelps Dodge relocated parts of Bisbee, AZ, in the fifties to open the Lavender Pit, and another firm completely eradicated the town of Santa Rita, NM, when they created the Chino Mine in the last century. In this tale, Ike’s hometown vanished while he was away for nearly twenty years.