In Search of Ghost Towns

Today Bill and I went along with Rich and Ronda to visit some Arizona ghost towns in the Patagonia Mountains.  It was a beautiful day for a drive, and since Rich and Ronda have a Jeep, we weren't worried so much about the condition of the Forest Service roads.

The first stop we came to was Harshaw, AZ.  This town was established in April 1880, and the Post Office closed in March 1903.  The town grew up around the Hermosa Mine, a silver ore mining operation.  At one time there were over 200 buildings in town.

Now, however, there is a big "private property" sign on the road that enters Harshaw.  We had to be content to visit the town cemetery across the street, where most of the graves dated back to the 1800's.

 

According to Ronda's 4x4 Guide Book, our next stop should have been the town of Mowry.  You noticed I said "should have been."  We were driving along, when we finally came to some road signs.  The signs indicated Mowry was five miles behind us.  Apparently we past it without realizing it.  To make matters worse, we had gone way off our planned route.  We studied the signs and determined which way we should proceed.


We were driving through a beautiful part of Arizona heading to our next town, Lochiel.

 

 

After a few miles, we come to a fork in the road.  There is a big sign giving the direction to lots of different ranches, but nothing about Lochiel.  Finally, a Border Patrol agent pulls up alongside us and asks if we need directions.  (Speaking of Border Patrol agents, they were all over the place...in vehicles and helicopters.)  The agent was very friendly and gave us directions, and we continued on.  We had to make two turns.  When we got to the second turn, our Border Patrol agent was parked on the corner.  He was standing outside his car pointing the way we were to turn.  I guess he didn't want a car load of gringos getting lost on his watch.  : )

The town of Lochiel is very close to the Mexican border.  In fact, we could see the border fence off and on as we drove along.  There was an active post office in Lochiel from August 1880 until September 1911, and the town had 2 smelters, 3 saloons, a butcher, a bakery, livery stables and 5 stores.  Lochiel was also a favorite place of Pancho Villa to steal cattle and take across the border back into Mexico.

Today's main attraction was the one room school house.

 

The school was locked, but I was able to get a pretty good picture through the window.

 

Our next point of interest was the town of Duquesne.  There were many dilapidated buildings, but everything had big "NO TRESPASSING" signs on them.  Like the other towns, Duquesne was also a mining town.  Here is a remnant of the mining past.

 

The final town listed for today's drive was Washington Camp.  We did not see any old buildings, dilapidated or not, but we did see this sign posted at the entrance of someone's property.

Now it was lunch time.  We found a nice area to pull off the road and enjoyed our picnic with a beautiful view.

 After lunch, we were back in the Jeep and heading on down the road towards home.

 Wow!  Another fun day of exploring southern Arizona.