Only a handful of families – and a rattlesnake products store – remain in this one-time copper boomtown east of Tombstone on the slopes of the Dragoon Mountains. Marooned on the far side of the Santa Catalinas opposite Tucson, this blink-and-you-miss-it farming village sported “only a few inhabited adobe homes” a decade ago, according to. When completed, the I-11 freeway connecting Vegas to the Valley will bypass Wikieup. If you’ve driven to Las Vegas from the Valley, you’ve driven through this tiny hiccup of a town on SR- 93 – and therein lies the problem. Can Mother Road-loving Euros keep it going? Originally settled by Spanish Basque immigrants, this micro-settlement north of Show Low is one stiff recession or non-procreating only child away from winking out of existence.Ī single family, the Griggs, kept this Northern Arizona town upright through six generations of mining collapse and freeway bypassing. Which barely hanging on Arizona towns are most likely to join the ranks of ghost towns in the next 50 years? It’s not terribly remote, but the excitingly craggy Dragoon Mountains are nearby, along with the many wonderful wineries of the Sulphur Springs Valley. Not every ghost town has its own website and caretaker, but with 25 buildings, the Santa Cruz County town gives ruin-porn addicts much to admire Located at 7,200 feet in the Huachuca Mountains near the Mexican border, it requires a hairy drive on a one-lane switchback. Largely functioning structures, some or all of which have been converted into museums or tourist attractions has a full-time population, but much smaller than in peak years of operation.Īpproximate number of places in Arizona that meet the minimum criteria for a ghost town in Arizona. May have standing houses or buildings, but all or most are abandoned no population.īuilding or houses are still standing, and a few residents may remain. Little more than rubble remains, and sometimes dilapidated, roofless buildings. Site no longer exists in any tangible way, with the possible exception of hidden foundations and footings. Generally, preservationists use the following terms to classify ghost towns: In this salute to Arizona’s bonanza of abandoned places, we’ll introduce you to the dark, the dangerous, the charming, the odd and the once vibrant spots whose borders and buildings hold the secret history of our state’s hardscrabble past. Other ghost towns are faded relics of Route 66 tourist attractions, left and forgotten as motorists opted for faster, more convenient byways. In Arizona, many of our ghost towns were once mining camps built in the 1800s by fortune hunters who sought the state’s most remote outposts at which to pick and ax their way to riches. The stories of how, why and who are where things get interesting. It’s been abandoned, and all that remains is the crumbling detritus of the past. If you were to judge by TripAdvisor reviews, visiting a ghost town is a lot of “nothing to do” and “just old buildings on the side of a road.” Well, of course.
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