Ghost Towns of Route 66 (19 page)
Read Ghost Towns of Route 66 Online
Authors: Jim Hinckley
Littering the roadside from Truxton to Hackberry are remnants that reflect more than a century of western Arizona history. The Crozier Canyon Ranch dates to the 1870s, and the tourist cabins that were a part of the 7-V Ranch Resort provide a tangible link to the infancy of Route 66 and an alignment bypassed in 1939.
In Valentine, the towering red brick schoolhouse of the Truxton Canyon Indian Agency is shaded by the flanks of looming buttes and mesas. The structure stands in mute testimony to the dark era when Native American children, removed from their families, were kept at boarding schools and taught to be “white.” Just down the road, the empty garages, service stations, motels, and post office with their darkened neon and glassless windows appear as a movie set in a post-apocalyptic world.
The bypass of Route 66 and the murder of the Valentine postmistress epitomize the decline of a town once famous for its postmark.
Jim Hinckley
The Hackberry General Store, with its eclectic collection of roadside Americana that serves as the backdrop for a bevy of vintage vehicles, has become a Route 66 icon.
Hackberry, circa 1916, was a town that from its rocky main street to its false-fronted stores reflected its territorial origins.
Mohave Museum of History and Arts
Against this background of forlorn abandonment framed by breathtaking landscapes is the rustic and colorful Hackberry General Store, a Route 66 time capsule transformed into a cornucopia of roadside Americana circa 1960. The town of Hackberry is located on the south side of the tracks along the original Route 66 alignment, the National Old Trails Highway. The general store is authentic, but it dates to the early 1930s, making it a relatively recent addition to the town of Hackberry.
Near the springs shaded by a large hack-berry tree that Lieutenant Beale designated Gardiner Springs on his 1857 expedition, prospectors discovered a rich vein of gold ore in 1871. The rush was on.
By 1874, a five-stamp mill was transforming ore from this and other mines in the surrounding hills into profit, and the town of Hackberry was such a bustling community that the territorial legislature considered designating it the county seat. However, the promising future quickly grew dim, and by 1876, with depletion of the primary ore body and closure of the main mine, the town began a rapid slide into oblivion.
As it turned out, the slide was a very long one. In late 1881, the tracks for the new westbound railroad reached Hackberry, and the springs took on a new importance that again spurred growth of the little town. (Interestingly, signage at the cemetery indicates origins dating to 1884. However, weathered monuments in the graveyard provide stark evidence that the hilltop was used for this purpose much earlier.)
In 1883, the tracks reached the site of Kingman, a town located directly between the mining boom in the Cerbat Mountains and the vast ranching empires in the Hualapai and Sacramento valleys. Hackberry was again eclipsed. The slide resumed, and by 1900, only a few ranching families called Hackberry home.
The next glimmer of hope arrived in the dust of motorists traveling the National Old Trails Highway (Route 66 after 1926) and slightly dimmed with the realignment of the highway to the north side of the tracks in 1936. The bypass of the highway by Interstate 40 in 1978 proved to be the town's swan song.
Today, on the north side of the tracks, the Hackberry General Store and various ruins stand as a monument to that final chapter. On the south side, the old mission-styled two-room schoolhouse, a tiny post office, an old boardinghouse, the towering water tanks that supplied steam-powered trains, and a picturesque cemetery are often-missed memorials to the first chapter.
The quaint little Hackberry post office, nestled against an old boardinghouse-turned-residence, speaks volumes about how far Hackberry has slid from the boom times of the 1880s.
Jim Hinckley
CHASING LOUIS CHEVROLET
F
ROM
K
INGMAN
, R
OUTE 66
follows two distinctive routes to the Colorado River. The first is, arguably, the most scenic section of Route 66 that remains intact. It follows in the tracks of Louis Chevrolet through the Black Mountains, since this was the path of the 1914 Desert Classic “Cactus Derby” race. The second is the 1952 bypass of this mountainous course, now largely erased by Interstate 40.
On the pre-1952 alignment of the highway, which was also the path of the National Old Trails Highway through the Black Mountains, there are two classic Western mining towns. One is a true ghost with a population of zero. The second is a mere shadow of what it once was, but it is more re-creation than authentic.
Prospectors had wandered these mountains since at least the 1850s and on occasion even found color, but it was the discovery of a major ore body on the west side of Sitgreaves Pass in 1902 that sparked a boom that gave rise to Acme and, a few miles to the west, Oatman.
Within twelve months, the town that rose around Joe Jenerez's discovery was large enough to warrant a post office, but the narrow, rocky canyons severely restricted growth. Three years later, in 1906, the name changed from Acme to Goldroad, but growth remained almost stagnant.
The following year, the primary mine closed after the high-grade ore bodies were exhausted. Only limited mining operationsâand, after 1912, tourism traffic on the National Old Trails Highwayâprevented the town from vanishing.
From the summit of Sitgreaves Pass, it is easy to see why growth in Goldroad was severely restricted by the canyons and steep slopes of the Black Mountains.
Jim Hinckley
A boom of sorts in 1937 came with improved extraction methods and new ore discoveries. The mines closed again in 1942, reopened in 1946, and closed permanently in 1948. Spurred by a new Arizona tax law, which held property owners liable for taxes on structures regardless of occupancy, led to the razing of almost the entire town.
An interesting Route 66ârelated footnote pertains to a garage and service station in Goldroad. The station offered towing service, or a driver, for those heading east over the steep grades and sharp curves (the sharpest and steepest found anywhere on that highway) to the summit of Sitgreaves Pass. Jack Rittenhouse notes, “At last inquiry their charge was $3.50, but may be higher.” As perspective, consider that gasoline averaged around twenty cents per gallon.
The sharpest curve found anywhere on Route 66 winds above Goldroad and is seen through the guardrail on that highway's predecessor, the National Old Trails Highway.
Jim Hinckley
A vintage Goldroad postcard shows just how steep the pre-1952 alignment of Route 66 through the Black Mountains was.
Joe Sonderman collection
In 1925, the year before the designation of U.S. 66, Goldroad was a mining boomtown about to be transformed by a sea of automotive traffic.
Mohave Museum of History and Arts