Chloride Arizona Ghost Town - Back Streets

In my last post, I was ranting against some of the "cheesy" things that are presented in some ghost towns. In truth, the places that hold staged "gun fights" are really not quite ghost towns yet. There are people still living and working in these places. I also said that my next article would be related to what I love about them. If you get off the main street, you will see that they are very much alive. Alive, with history, interesting people that are only found in the desert, and an amazing mix of creativity and art.  Chloride is one of these towns.

The Back Streets of Chloride Arizona

Bowling balls

Industrial whimsy

Scales?

Not necessarily historical, but I love the old RV. 

Cowboy boots as yard art

Many of the homes on these streets have some kind of display, either along the road, or in their yard

At first glance, it may just look like a bunch of rocks and junk. Upon closer examination, there are some really cool items and displays in there. A cross between folk and yard art.

This house has some bottle trees. Some bottles were old and some were a bit newer. 

Certainly not art, but pretty odd that these two boats were just sitting there. This is pure high desert and there is no place in the area to use them.

Stuff...

Motorcycle parts

More stuff

New house and sculpture

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Some folks might not like this stuff at all. To me, it is quirky, whimsical, and very creative. There is a lot more, but I wanted to keep this post reasonably short.


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Chloride AZ Ghost Town

Chloride used to be a silver mining camp in the state of Arizona. It is said to be the oldest continuously inhabited mining town in the state. Valuable minerals were first discovered here in the early 1840's. The town was founded in 1863, but mining did not really take off until they found a way to cheat the local Hualapai Indians out of their land. The town then prospered and became the county seat. By the mid 1940's it was considered a ghost town (or close to it). Today, there are still a couple hundred people living in the area. 

Allegedly, some of these buildings date back to the early days of Chloride and some were moved here from somewhere else. To me, it looks like most were built on this site from old wood. 
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Allow me to rant for a bit...
Don't get me wrong now, I love history and I certainly love ghost towns. However, I'm not terribly fond of mining camps and/or ghost towns that are created, or allowed to exist primarily for tourists. An example: This little western "cul-de-sac" is not here for historical significance, it's here for theater. During the tourist season, mock gun fights are staged every Saturday at noon. That is so darn cheesy! Most of the folks who are interested in this, don't even see the back streets of the town. Many of the buildings on the actual main street of town, although newer, are much more historical and real, than this "contrived" history side show. The best parts of Chloride are either outside of town, or on the back streets. 

 Can you imagine two gunslingers pacing towards each other ready to shoot it out? Yuck!

Below are two photos from the early 1900's (thanks to Wikipedia)

 Some of those same buildings today

 Another (there are plenty more)

The next few don't really have any historical significance, but the scenes really appealed to me and I snapped them.

The next post will be about the part of Chloride that I loved...


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Boriana Mine (abandoned) - Hualapai Mountains - Yucca, Arizona

First off, I apologize in advance for my TERRIBLE proof reading. I just now corrected a ton of errors in this post. 
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Last week we were once again in the (Ghost) town of Yucca, Arizona (more on that in a later post).

A very nice young lady working at the little market on the Golf Ball House property told us about an old abandoned mine up in the mountains. Not too many minutes later, we were headed there. I have to admit that it was pretty hairy in parts and we weren't sure if we were going to make it without breaking something. The only way to make it up that road is to have high clearance and four-wheel drive. If we had broken down, we had everything we needed for the long hike out of there. You should always have a second vehicle on a trek like this. Of course we didn't, but as mom and dad always said, "do as I say, not as I do...

The primary production years of the mine were from 1915 to 1943. The mine produced Tungsten, Copper and Gold (in that order). It seems to have been quite an operation in it's day and there were at least a dozen out-buildings in the area. 

Then

 (photo courtesy of: Library of Congress and Wikipedia)

NOW

Our little trek originated pretty close to the base of that far mountain range. As you can see, the mine is in ruins. When I took this photo, I was standing on a HUGE mound of mine tailings.  

We are just a couple of miles off the I-40 here and were pretty happy to see what a great dirt road this was. 

 As usual, that nice road didn't last long.

 The road was deteriorating rapidly.

 This was not a very reassuring sight.

Yep, there are people actually living out there. "There" is in the middle of nowhere. I think this stuff belongs to some miners. That little blue trailer is an old classic. 

 Not much of a road anymore

You can tell by the wildly swinging "no headache" charm hanging from the rear view mirror, that this is not a smooth ride.

This is where we considered getting out of the jeep and hiking the rest of the way. We didn't, but only because we thought we were pretty close by then.

At last! After about 14 miles of that road we spotted our destination. All of that orange/yellow and grayish material is mine tailings.

 The obligatory abandoned vehicles

 A lot of old equipment was just left here to deteriorate.

 One of the few, still standing (sort of) structures around the mine.

 This was on the drive in. Some folks really want to get away from it all. 

A stove and oven, now in it's second career as a target.

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While I was looking for info on this mine, I saw an article from the Kingman newspaper advising people to stay off the Boriana Road. Apparently, rescuing people off this road (especially in winter) is a normal occurrence. If we had known about this first, I'm sure we'd have done it anyway.


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