The rough-and-tumble days of the Old West may be gone in the Arizona of today, but the ghost towns it’s left behind are sometimes just as fascinating. Arizona is full of places that once thrived and then, for reasons sometimes not fully understood, were deserted. They’re ruins that come from a time much more tangible in memory than, say, ancient pyramids, but still notably lost from the present, except for whatever relics remain: old signposts, crumbling houses, empty jails, and sometimes even outhouses.
A ghost town, according to T. Lindsay Baker, a retired history professor at Tarleton State University, is “a town for which the reason for being no longer exists.” For the majority of ghost towns visible around Arizona today, that “reason for being” was mining. Many of the once-booming towns sprouted up rapidly during the 19th-century mining rushes, but they became futile or neglected once they ran out of ores to mine or resources to keep going. What remains of them are strangely compelling places to visit, whether you’re a lover of Old West lore or making ghost town stops on an unforgettable Arizona road trip.
We chose five of the most fascinating ghost towns in Arizona that have noteworthy surviving sites and intriguing backstories, and are accessible to the public. Following Baker’s definition of ghost towns, we only included towns that are no longer viable as a community, although they once were — that is, they don’t have any services or governance, and there are fewer than 10 permanent residents.
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Swansea
Abandoned worker huts in the ghost town of Swansea, Arizona – Eric Poulin/Shutterstock
If someone were driving through the Arizona desert, surrounded by a sea of nothing but cacti and arid hills, they might stumble across the ruins of Swansea and ask: How could a town have ever been established here in the first place? It’s a remote site, with the closest populated town, Parker, being over 30 miles away. Nevertheless, in the early 1900s, some miners who saw promise in the area began building up Swansea, with mine shafts and a water pipe (which needed to extend 3.5 miles to reach the nearest river). The town had about 500 residents by 1909. Interestingly, the town got its name from Swansea, Wales, where the ore was shipped.
The first bad omen for Swansea came in 1911, when the town’s founder went bankrupt due to a succession of bad business decisions. The town’s copper mines were bought up by another company and operated until 1937. By then, copper prices were dropping, and the town couldn’t survive the Great Depression. Once the mines shut down, the railroad connecting to the town was dismantled, and its residents left it behind as a ghost.
Though it’s a bit of a journey to reach, one of the great things about Swansea is that it’s managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), so it’s free for the public to explore. The closest commercial airport is the Lake Havasu City Airport, about a two-hour drive away, which has flight connections to Phoenix. In the ghost town, you can see some abandoned mine shafts, building foundations, and well-preserved workers’ huts. A Tripadvisor reviewer noted, “There’s more here than the readily available photos show,” adding that informational markers help guide you around the sites.
Fairbank
Abandoned ranch shed in the ghost town of Fairbank, Arizona – Zane Lewis/Shutterstock
The remains of Fairbank are a quintessential, well-preserved ghost town layout: a schoolhouse, an adobe mercantile, and even intact outhouses with wooden toilets. Fairbank was an inhabited town between 1881 and 1973. It was established as a kind of gateway to Tombstone, a Wild West Arizona city full of unique activities and history, which is about a 10-minute drive east of Fairbank. When Tombstone was experiencing a silver mining boom in the late 19th century, the closest railroad depot was at Fairbank, where silver and mining supplies were shipped in and out of. By 1889, Fairbank had a schoolhouse, five saloons, three restaurants, and even a hotel — the Montezuma Hotel (of which only the foundation remains).
Despite having its origins in the silver mining boom of the 1880s, Fairbank reached its peak population around 1910, when most of its residents were working for the railroad or a ranch just south of the town. The population started dwindling after World War II, eventually becoming no longer viable as a town when the post office closed in 1973.
Fairbank has been a territory of the BLM since 1986 and is now part of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, meaning that it’s free and open to the public. You can reach the ghost town in about an hour’s drive from the Tucson International Airport. The Fairbank Schoolhouse is a must-stop that’s been converted into a museum, open Friday through Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m (at the time of writing). There’s also a 4-mile Fairbank Loop trail that passes along the old, eerie Fairbank Pioneer Cemetery and ruins of the Grand Central Mill.
Gleeson
Restored jail building in the ghost town of Gleeson, Arizona – Ingrid Curry/Shutterstock
You won’t find any precious gems there today, but before it became a ghost town, Gleeson was a highly sought-after turquoise trove by prospectors. Before settlers turned it into a mining town, the area was part of Apache territory, and Navajo tribe members arranged with the Apache to mine for turquoise here. By the 1880s, the Apache had been displaced from the land, and settlers took over the turquoise mines, initially naming the town “Turquois.” The town’s first stint was brief — lasting from 1890 to 1894 — but it had a renaissance in 1900, when a mine worker named John Gleeson discovered copper in the area.
For the following decades, Gleeson shifted from a turquoise mining town to a copper mining town, with a population that reached around 500. A schoolhouse, hospital, and jail were built during this time. At first, the jail was merely a tree with a cable around it, to which prisoners would be chained by the wrist. A concrete jail went up in 1910, which was used to hold both prisoners and confiscated liquor during Prohibition. As with other towns that revolved around copper mining, Gleeson’s fate was sealed by the prices of copper dropping after World War I. The post office closed in 1939, and the town was abandoned — today, just one person lives within a quarter-mile radius of Gleeson.
The town is about a 1.5-hour drive from the Tucson International Airport. Many of the derelict buildings of Gleeson are on private property, though they’re still viewable from roads and public paths. The restored jail doubles as a museum of the ghost town, but note: It’s only open on the first Saturday of each month (at the time of writing).
Agua Caliente
Neglected resort building in the ghost town of Agua Caliente, Arizona – Cactus Atlas / YouTube
The story of Agua Caliente is a bit different from the bulk of Arizona’s ghost towns — towns that saw their rise and fall shaped in tandem with the mining industry. Agua Caliente’s trajectory, however, revolved around its local hot springs, which were cherished for their recreational benefits by Native Americans, Spanish missionaries, and cowboys alike. A resort was built to profit from the hot springs in 1897, with 22 rooms and an outdoor pool supplied by natural spring water.
The resort’s popularity dipped after its initial surge, but it had a brief comeback during World War II, when soldiers were camped in the area for military training. They used the resort and its pool for relaxing between training exercises. After the war, though, with no more soldiers and with the springs having dried up, the resort closed down, bringing down the town with it.
The best access point for getting to Agua Caliente is via Yuma, where the Yuma International Airport is located, about a 1.5-hour drive away. In the abandoned town, you can climb among some dilapidated stone structures. The old resort itself has “no trespassing” signs posted around its doors, but the standing white buildings are right off the road and can be easily admired without infringing. Visitors can also explore the Agua Caliente Pioneer Cemetery, just to the east of the resort. Lending another ghostly note, most of the graves are unmarked.
Two Guns
Old zoo building for mountain lions in the ghost town of Two Guns, Arizona – Jeffgoulden/Getty Images
Two Guns is one of the strangest ghost town destinations in Arizona. It’s rife with lore, from a legend of a massacre to a roadside zoo on Route 66, America’s most iconic highway. Its story starts in 1878, when a group of 42 Apache tribe members were cornered in a cave by the Navajo, who then set fire to the cave entrance. The 42 Apaches were all killed, either from the fire’s smoke or by getting shot when they tried to flee — that’s how the legend tells it, at least. Though Dust Bowl Highway is at least one source that questions the story’s accuracy, since only accounts told decades after the event exist, and the cave’s small size seems unlikely to have sheltered 42 people.
Nevertheless, the Apache Death Cave (as it came to be known) forms the central core of Two Guns’ narrative. The town rose thanks to its trading post in the 1920s along the main crossing over Canyon Diablo. When an eccentric man named Harry E. Miller became the post’s proprietor, he capitalized on the legend of the Apache Death Cave, giving tours of it and even, allegedly, selling skulls he found within to tourists. He opened a zoo at the stop, housing mountain lions, snakes, and Gila monsters (in 1928, Miller was attacked by one of his own mountain lions).
Two Guns started to wither when a new interstate bypassed the town, and its service station burning down in 1971 was the nail in the coffin. Still, many ruins remain to be explored in the ghost town, including a graffiti-covered former campground, the old zoo enclosures, and the Canyon Diablo bridge. You can get to Two Guns in about a 35-minute drive from the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport.
Methodology
A cow skull centered on an entry gate in the Arizona desert – Cavan Images/Getty Images
With over 100 ghost towns in Arizona, we honed in on five sites that offer something especially compelling for visitors, including a mix of intact ruins, standout stories, and historical significance. Only places that are truly ghost towns — identified as having less than 10 inhabitants and a clear story of boom and bust — were considered. The selected towns also had to be realistically accessible to the public, meaning they can be visited both legally and safely. Information about the towns was gathered from historical archives (like the Arizona Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project), Arizona tourism boards, and travelers’ experiences documented in reviews or videos.
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Read the original article on Islands.