A Day In Santa Cruz County
Santa Cruz County is still sparsely populated and remains an excellent destination for bird and wildlife photographers, hikers, ghost town hunters, kayakers, and other outdoor enthusiasts.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Ghost Towns
Guided Hike to Charleston Ruins
For all you Ghost Town fanatics. On Sunday, January 27, 2013, the Friends of San Pedro River conducted a Members-only guided hike to Charleston Ruins. Charleston was a town on the west bank of the San Pedro River, directly across from Millville, which processed ore from Tombstone. When the mines in Tombstone were flooded with water, the towns met their demise. Docent Richard Bauer and local author John D. Rose guide the hikes. Mr. Bauer is an expert on local history, while Mr. Rose has recently published two books (available at San Pedro House and Fairbank Schoolhouse) on the history of the San Pedro River Valley and is an authority on Tombstone, Charleston, and other early settlements along the river. Charleston was perhaps the wildest of the local ghost towns. This easy hike is just over four miles, takes around three hours, and entails one river crossing. Non-members can join … Continue reading
Fairbank AZ: Ghost Town
Fairbank is a Southern Arizona ghost town, and one of the best preserved, thanks to numerous conservation efforts. It’s located in the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area about 10 miles west of Tombstone. Here conservation efforts have saved the San Pedro River, a haven for dozens of species of critters and birds.
Continue readingKlondyke Arizona: (Almost) Ghost Town
Klondyke is a near-ghost town in western Graham County. In the second decade of the 21st century, the only roads out there are still unpaved. The Klondyke cemetery is just southeast of town. There you will find the graves of the Thomas Jefferson “Jeff” Power and his family. Few know the sad story of these [...]
Continue readingKentucky Camp, AZ: A Ghost Town With Accommodations!
More than a hundred years ago, Kentucky Camp was the headquarters for the Santa Rita Water & Mining Company, which was formed to extract placer deposits from the Greaterville Mining District in the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains 9 miles NW of Sonoita.
Continue readingMescal AZ: A Pictorial
I had been waiting months to return to Mesca AZl and photograph the old western movie set with dramatic monsoon clouds.
Continue readingGhost Town Slideshow – Gleeson, Pearce, Courtland, Cochise, AZ
Ghost Town Trail: A road trip through Southeastern Arizona from Gleeson to Courtland to Pearce to Cochise.
These were all mining boomtowns in the early decades of the 20th century. While each had its own distinct character, they all succumbed to the same fate. When their mines played out, the inhabitants left for better pickings.
Tombstone: The Town Too Tough To Die Almost Did
By the 1930’s, Tombstone was dying. The mining boomtown of the 1880’s was long gone. In 1882, Tombstone residents numbered between 6,000 and 7,000. By the time these photographs were taken, the nation was deep in the Great Depression, and Tombstone was almost a ghost town.
Continue readingGleeson Ghost Town & Rattlesnake Oddities
Our April 2012 road trip took us first to the ghost town of Gleeson (yes, that’s how they spelled it). After a look around at some of the ruins, we headed west toward Tombstone on a dirt road for just a few miles until we saw the sign for Rattlesnake Crafts, one of Southern Arizona’s stranger places. John & Sandy Weber make and sell wallets, belts, and other items out of rattlesnake skins. They also have a significant collection of gems and Old West artifacts.
Continue readingMescal Arizona: A Slideshow
Mescal Arizona is a faux Old West town 50 miles east of Tucson that was built as a movie set. A lot of Westerns were filmed here, including Quick & The Dead …
Continue readingIn The Middle of Nowhere: Rattlesnake Crafts & Rocks!
One of the stranger places we visited on our tour of Southeastern Arizona is John & Sandy’s Rattlesnake Crafts & Rocks. John makes wallets, belts, and other useful items and souvenirs out of rattlesnake skins and sells them out of an old trailer. He also collects a lot of stuff others have discarded as junk. Here you will find literally tons of Old West artifacts lovingly horded for decades and on display for your amusement. Old signs, bottles, tools, boots, lanterns, you-name-it.
Continue readingGhost Town Trail: Pearce To Cortland To Gleeson!
On a recent Road Trip, we stopped at a few ghost towns, namely Pearce, Cortland, and Gleeson along the Ghost Town Trail. These are all located near Sunsites east of Tombstone.
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Ruby Arizona: Our Best Ghost Town
Ruby Arizona is about 12 miles from Arivaca. About half way there, the road goes from pavement to dirt. But it’s well-maintained and a standard sedan can easily travel on it (unless of course the area gets a hard rain). Again, do not rely on your GPS. ******************** Ruby was a mining [...]
Continue readingThe Village of Arivaca, The Ghost Town Of Ruby, & Sweet Peas Cafe’!
The road from Amado to Arivaca winds through rolling, mesquite-covered hills. It’s obviously very popular with cyclists, motor and otherwise.
Just before we arrived in town, we came to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge where, by appointment, we met and interviewed Richard Conway, a local geologist and Mary Scott, a seasoned birdwatcher and wildlife photographer.
