GRAFTON — Ruggles Mine is headed to auction after its current owners stopped paying the mortgage and halted tax payments.

The former mineral mine — which includes around 235 acres spread over five mostly forested lots — was a popular Grafton tourist attraction from the early 1960s until it was closed in 2016.

In 2019, Exciglow, a New York-based production company, paid an estimated $500,000 for the mine. The public auction is scheduled to take place at 11 a.m. on Friday, July 21, at the mine, located on Ruggles Mine Road.

The properties, which are in current use, are assessed at $274,700. Exciglow did not pay taxes from 2021 to 2023 and currently owes around $7,800 in back taxes, according to town records.

The winning bidder must provide a $25,000 deposit and then will have 45 days to complete the sale.

“A lot of our auctions will have a $5,000 deposit. This one is higher because they want it to be someone who can cover whatever the bid ends up being,” said Tiffany Leighton, a legal assistant with Laconia, N.H.-based law firm Minkow & Mahoney Mullen, P.A., which is representing the mortgage holder. She added that because it is a public auction, anyone is welcome to attend and bid.

In 2018, Ruggles Mine was added to the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance’s “Seven to Save” list in an attempt to get the N.H. State Parks Department, which is part of the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, to turn it into a state park, said Andrew Cushing, community preservation services manager at the nonprofit organization.

The state ultimately passed on the proposal, citing concerns about liability and taking on another property for a system that is funded mainly by user fees.

“My goal is just that it doesn’t become some private, hidden-away compound for someone with lots of bucks,” Deb Clough, a long-time Grafton resident who supported the effort, wrote in an email. “It’s such a beautiful site, with spectacular scenery outside and otherworldly inside.”

Many Grafton kids had their first jobs at the mine, and it was also a place retirees worked, she added. The mine also helped support Grafton’s economy.

Grafton Planning Board Chairman Angus Gorman said that the ideal buyer of Ruggles Mine would allow for public access for recreational purposes while also keeping the property on the town’s tax rolls.

The biggest complaint he has heard from residents about turning the property into a public resource like a state park is “if it’s public, you won’t get tax revenue from it,” he said. If someone buys the property and applies for tax exemptions, it likely would not go over well with some residents.

“Just keep it in current use and pay the taxes like any other large landowner,” Gorman said. “My expectation is if that was what was done, people would have less of a problem with it.”

Area nonprofit organizations are closely following the auction. Cushing, who is also president of Mascoma Valley Preservation, a nonprofit organization focused on preserving historic buildings in the area, said the organization would support efforts to conserve Ruggles Mine.

“MVP certainly wants to see a good outcome for Ruggles — one that keeps the cultural landscape intact and ideally open to the public,” Cushing wrote in an email. “Given its location amidst a network of protected land in Grafton and Enfield, we believe it’s an important property to conserve. As an all-volunteer group with many important projects on our plate, though, we would need a strong partner or angel investor to make this acquisition happen.”

Members of Mascoma Valley Preservation have been in touch with the Upper Valley Land Trust, said Jeanie McIntyre, president of the Hanover-based nonprofit organization. She noted that it could be hard for nonprofit organizations — which often rely on longer fundraising campaigns and grants to take on large projects — to get funding pulled together in a short period of time.

“These situations are really tough, but when the resource is a high-quality resource such as this one is, of course the nonprofit community and the community-community is going to come together to figure out what can be done,” McIntyre said.

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.