LOST ARIZONA... In Photographs

"LOST AMERICA"GHOST TOWNS IN ARIZONA

CHARLESTON On an improved road nine miles southwest of Tombstone. Located on the banks of the San Pedro River, Charleston was the mill point for Tombstone's fabled silver mines. Though badly ruined, many of the old town's buildings still stand.

CONGRESS Three miles north of Congress Junction on U.S. 89. Site of rich Congress gold mines visited by President McKinley in 1900. Ruins of many old cabins and acres of rubblestrewn flats.

COURTLAND One time thriving mining camp about half way between Willcox and Douglas on county road about six miles off U.S. 666. Named for Courtland Young, a mining engineer. Town's single resident is somewhat hostile toward sightseers.

DOS CABEZAS Once a wild and colorful hangout for both miners and cowboys. Located 15 miles east of Willcox on State Highway 186. Name is Spanish for "two-headed," the label coming from two huge skulls of rocks atop nearby Dos Cabezas Mountain. Now probably the greatest concentration of crumbling adobe walls in the state.

DUQUESNE One of three mining camps which flourished in the border country south of Patagonia shortly after the turn of the century. The others were Washington Camp, Harshaw and Mowry. Duquesne was named for Ft. Duquesne. The ruins can be reached by a rather rugged mountain road east from Nogales or by an even rougher road south from Patagonia.

EHRENBERG On the Colorado River a mile south of U.S. 60-70. A famous river port trade center which was founded in 1863 and reached its full growth in the early '70's. The old Boothill Graveyard lies just north of the main highway.

FORT LINCOLN About five miles south of what is now Camp Verde. Established in 1864 and renamed Camp Verde in 1868. Pauline Weaver, the famous Mountain Man and Indian scout died there. Abandoned as a military installation in 1890.

GLEESON Built on the wealth of the old Shannon Copper Mine, Gleeson was once a booming copper camp but is now faded away. It is located 20 miles east of Tombstone on a county road near Courtland. The few residents of the area still have hope that the Shannon's old tailings, reported rich in lead and zinc, will bring the town back to its former glory. Crumbling Adobe walls. GOLD ROAD - Located just two miles over the ridge from Oatman. Here three weather stained structures and a patchwork of crumbling foundations are all that remains of what was once a reckless boom town.

HARSHAW Ten miles southwest of Patagonia. Settled about 1875, it soon had a newspaper, The Bullion, and in 1913 is said to have embraced 28 saloons and numerous stores, with 100 working mines in the vicinity. Stone and adobe ruins.

JEROME - Located on U.S. Highway 89-A between Prescott and Oak Creek Canyon. Founded in 1883 on the wealth of the famous United Verde mine, Jerome at one time boasted a population of 15,000 and was Arizona's third largest city. Today the town is deserted except for tourists and the few "diehards" who refuse to admit defeat.LA PAZ About five miles north of Ehrenberg on the lower end of the Colorado Indian Reservation. A bustling steamboat port until the river channel shifted, it also ranked as one of the territory's richest placer diggings. It was founded in 1862 and only two years later missed becoming the territorial capital by a scant two votes.

MCMILLANVILLE Eighteen miles northeast of Globe (inquire there for directions). A lawless silver camp which was in its glory around 1880. Remnants of adobe buildings still stand and near one of the mine shafts, a gallows frame still stands out grimly against the sky.

METCALF On U.S. 666, seven miles northwest of Clifton. Settled in 1872 as a gold-mining camp but achieved its chief fame from later discoveries of copper. The first railroad in Arizona Territory linked Metcalf and Clifton in 1878. Ruins.

MOWRY Fifteen miles southeast of Patagonia. A small town grown up around old silver-lead-zinc mine purchased in late 1850's by Sylvester Mowry, U.S. Army Lieutenant. In short, while Mowry took out ore to a value of $1,500,000, mule-freighting it to Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, whence it was shipped to San Francisco and London for processing. These operations were cut short in 1862 when Mowry was charged with supplying lead for Confederate bullets, jailed at Fort Yuma and his mine confiscated by Uncle Sam. Extensive ruins.

OATMAN - Twenty-five miles southwest of Kingman on old Highway 66. Oatman still appears to be sizeable little city when you approach it from the east. It is only when you drive down the deserted main street flanked by rows of boarded-up buildings and overgrown walkways, that you realize you are in a ghost town instead of a gold mining center.

PEARCE - Just off U.S. 666 between Willcox and Douglas and only 10 or 12 miles north of Courtland and Gleeson. It was discovered by Johnny Pearce in 1894 and in its heyday the old Commonwealth was the richest gold diggings in Southern Arizona. Water at lower levels caused the mine to close in 1918.

SILVER KING Seven miles northwest of Superior. The town was founded in the middle 1870's around the fabulously rich mine of the same name, producer of an asserted $10,000,000 in silver. Ruins.

STANTON About 8 miles off U.S. 89 between Wickenburg and Yarnell. The town and its nearby neighbors of Weaver and Octave were all products of the storied Rich Hill, the boulderstudded mountain where early day prospectors could make $1,000 a day plucking nuggets off the ground.

SWANSEA A flourishing gold mine and camp owned by Welch financiers and named for the seaport and smelter center of Swansea, Wales. The site is deep in the Buckskin Mountains about ten miles south of the fork of the Bill Williams River.

WALKER Six miles south of State Route 69 from a point 4 miles east of Prescott. Gold-mining camp dating from 1863. Mill and mine ruins, tailing piles, caved mouth of the 8,000 foot Poland tunnel and a few old buildings.

WASHINGTON CAMP - Located 20 miles south of Patagonia, it once was the major residential and service community for Duquesne, Mowry and Harshaw. At its peak in 1905 it had a population of 5,200 miners and their families. Ruins. Check road conditions.

WHITE HILLS Located about 75 miles north of Oatman, ten minutes off the Kingman-Hoover Dam Highway. In the 1890's it was the rowdiest silver camp between Globe and Virginia City. In a brief six years, the 15 now-forgotten mines which surrounded it, gave up $12,000,000 in silver bullions. Ruins.

PHILIP C. CURTIS

A special selection of paintings based on realities (see pages 36 through 38)

Courtesy Walter R. Bimson

Courtesy Philip C. Curtis

it is a nostalgia tinged with the realization that the seemingly simpler lives of the American frontier had the same complexities as those faced by a generation exploring outer space.

HENRY J. SELDIS Art Critic, Los Angeles Times absence and the passage of time are as if they had never been. ... a painting by Curtis preserves something once seen - or once imagined.

JOHN RUSSELL Art Critic, London Sunday Times Courtesy Jerome H. Louchheim, Jr.