Ghost Town of White Hills

Northeast of this spot lie the ruins of White Hills, a mining camp that blazed to life and burned out in less than a decade. The ore body was discovered in eighteen ninety-two, and within months a full town had materialized in the Mojave Desert foothills north of the Colorado River. At its peak, White Hills supported hotels, saloons, a school, and a post office, all sustained by hard rock silver and gold mining.

The district is said to have produced millions of dollars in precious metals, an enormous sum at the time. Then the ore thinned, the investment dried up, and by the end of the eighteen nineties the boom had passed its peak and the town was in decline. What remained after the last miners left was swiftly swallowed by the desert. The adobe walls crumbled, the timber was salvaged or rotted, and wind filled the shafts. Today only foundations and tailings piles mark one of northwestern Arizona's brief, brilliant booms.