Back Road Adventure

ack Road Adventure Charlie Stanton's Long Dead But His 1880s' Town Lives on Beneath the Bradshaws

This is a story about an excursion to an isolated gold mining region in Yavapai County, so we are not going to spend a lot of time debating whether the dead can hear. We're just going to assume that if such a thing is possible then Charlie Stanton must hear gunshots every New Year's Eve.

Stanton was a real live person until 1886 when his various misdeeds caught up with him, and he became indisputably dead. Before his demise, he was known to many as an opportunist who feigned piety while directing a gang of thieves and murderers. His worst mistake, however, was to make a vulgar remark about a teenage Mexican girl. For that bit of insensitivity, the girl's brothers turned Stanton into Swiss cheese.

Members of The Lost Dutchman Mining Association, a prospector's club that now owns the Stanton townsite, reenact the shooting of Charlie Stanton every New Year's Eve in the original saloon-opera house adjacent to the stagecoach stop where Stanton was killed on November 13, 1886.

Anyone can visit this place. The club members, recreational prospectors, will happily show visitors around the stage station, the dilapidated remains of an 11-room hotel, and the saloon. Free tours are available daily between 8 A.M. and 5 P.M.

These prospector-hobbyists are still finding gold around Stanton. In 1991 one of them picked up a nine-ounce nugget. In October, 1992, a threeounce nugget was found about 40 feet from the Butterfield

stagecoach stop that originally was called Antelope Station, but which Stanton renamed for himself after obtaining it by subterfuge.

That gold should still be found in this area some 35 miles north of Wickenburg is not surprising. Stanton is six miles east of Congress at the base of 5,340foot-high Rich Hill, so named because prospectors in 1863 made a fortune raking nuggets of gold from its surface soils.

Nowadays the area may be more abundant in lore than ore, but between 1863 and 1894, the gold discoveries in the Weaver Mining District, which included Stanton, attracted droves of prospectors from California. One historian reported that Abraham Harlow Peeples, who headed the first group of California prospectors, "picked up $7,000 worth of gold before breakfast." Both gold mining and violence dominated life in the area until the 1930s, but fires, scarcity of water, and declining productivity took their toll.

The area was largely forgotten until 1959, when the SaturdayEvening Post purchased 10 acres of Stanton. At that time there were only two people living in the town, which once boasted a population of about 2,000. The magazine changed Stanton's name to Ulcer Gulch (which never stuck). It said it would award Ulcer Gulch a nickname for the Madison Avenue advertising district in Manhattan to the person who provided the best last line of a promotional jingle.

Evening Post purchased 10 acres of Stanton. At that time there were only two people living in the town, which once boasted a population of about 2,000. The magazine changed Stanton's name to Ulcer Gulch (which never stuck). It said it would award Ulcer Gulch a nickname for the Madison Avenue advertising district in Manhattan to the person who provided the best last line of a promotional jingle.

What the jingle was all about, we couldn't say, but newspapers from 1959 did record that Mrs.Anne Foster, a 30-year-old employee at the New York advertising agency of J. Walter Thompson, had won herself a ghost town out in Arizona.

Anne Foster, a 30-year-old employee at the New York advertising agency of J. Walter Thompson, had won herself a ghost town out in Arizona.

"She was a real New Yorker," recalled Dan Jacobs, owner of the Arrowhead Saloon near Congress. "I remember she came out here with a pet monkey she used to carry around on her shoulder. I think she was trying to do something out at Stanton I have a vague memory that someone wanted her to stage a beauty pageant there, if you can picture such a thing. But nothingever got going, and she was gone after about two years.

In December of 1992, Stanton was populated by a bunch of grizzled recreational prospectors in dusty boots, cowboy hats, and wide suspenders, many of them taking the sun on the porch of the faded wooden structure that once had been the camp's hotel. Except for their late-model trucks and campers, these prospectors looked like a rustic bunch from the 1880s.

The plaque on the old stage station adjacent to the sunny porch now says that Charlie Stanton once was the wealthiest man in Arizona Territory. Bill

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

Back-road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country, be aware of weather and road conditions, and make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water.

Don't travel alone, and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return.

Esenwein, an intelligent eccentric who wandered these hills until just a few years ago, undoubtedly would have reacted to that boast with, "Big deal!"

Esenwein, who wrote an account of Stanton's life, titled "The Private Empire of Charlie P. Stanton, King of Con Men," said most of Stanton's wealth was obtained through premeditated murders and the exploitation of hardworking settlers. The author was born long after Stanton was gone, but it's clear from the tone of Esenwein's biography that he was outraged that someone as evil as Charlie Stanton had ever walked the Earth.

Because Esenwein appears to have been the exact opposite of Stanton, his outrage is understandable. Esenwein was an asssayer and animal lover. People called him Rattlesnake Bill.

Saloon owner Jacobs knew him well.

"For several years, Bill lived at Rattlesnake Haven, which is a mining claim between Stanton and Octave," he said. "He lived in a stone building that had no windows, doors, or roof. He loved rattlesnakes and had no fear of them. He had them all over the place. Once, when I was a sheriff's deputy, I went out there in the summer and found him laying out in the sun with his shirt off and a rattlesnake sleeping on his chest. He said the snake was keeping him nice and cool."

Esenwein used to put on public displays of his snake handling and once appeared on television's "Tonight Show" when Steve Allen was host. He fed rattlesnakes as though they were pets, with hamburger, cod liver oil, and strips of meat. He also was inclined to help snakes, centipedes, and other creatures cross the road.

A few years ago, he died the way many of his rattlesnakes did. He was run over by a truck as he crossed a road after dark.

An area rich in stories and perhaps still rich in minerals, the high desert around Congress and Stanton is worth seeing and is easy to get to.

To reach Congress and Stanton from Phoenix, go north on Interstate 17 to Exit 223, then head west on State Route 74 for 31 miles. At Morristown, turn north onto U.S. 60 for 10 miles to Wickenburg. Seven miles west of Wickenburg, turn right onto State Route 89 and go 10 miles to Congress. As you pass Congress, watch for Frog Rock on the left. This prominent "frog" is painted green with a white stripe for its mouth.

The cutoff for Stanton is on the right, two miles beyond Congress. The road is marked with a highway sign. From the sign, it is six miles on a graded dirt road to Stanton.