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Map of Cochise County, Arizona, showing
localities around Gleeson, Courtland, and Dos Cabezas. Map from Stephen Christian.
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The State of Arizona has a long history of mining
activity with resulting "ghost towns" and abandoned mines. Over
the years I had some opportunities to visit mines and collecting areas and
along the way found a few of the semi-abandoned towns. Unfortunately, many/most of these old mines
are posted and/or closed to individuals collectors. For example, the Courtland-Gleeson-Pearce area
east of Tombstone is often listed under the category of “ghost towns” and old
mining districts.
Pearce was a gold mining town and the Commonwealth
Mine produced over 15 million dollars in gold (much more at today’s prices) in
the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The
boom town had a 200-stamp mill but a 1904 cave in at the Commonwealth was the
“beginning of the end”. The town barely
hung on until the Great Depression when the town finally folded, or almost. Today there is some movement in the area with
new business and restored buildings and attempts are being made to attract
tourists.
Gleeson was the site of copper, and some lead and
silver, production in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. In fact, a gentleman in Tombstone told me
that the area had produced in excess of 75,000 oz. of gold. Let’s see, at ~$1400 oz. that amounts to ……!! The town suffered greatly due to a fire in
1912 and that event, plus the “playing out” of the rich copper ore, was a death
call for the town. However, some
activity is still going on due to the small scale mining of turquoise. In fact, the original name of the town was Turquoise;
however, the stone was not really valued in those early mining days.
Courtland came about a few years later as surficial geological
clues indicated an extremely rich copper ore body and for a time in the early
1900’s the area was thought to have the most promising copper vein in
Arizona. Two railroads served the area
and by 1909 four major mining companies had constructed in excess of 8000 feet
of underground shafts and the ore was being mined at ~7.5% copper. Newspapers opened up and by 1911 over five
miles of water mains were in operation---the boom was on (2000 people). By 1920 the mining companies were losing money
and the town literally disappeared! It
seems as the “mother lode” disappeared at about the 300 foot level, probably
the result of faulting, and, the mines also were flooding. Above information on the district is from
Ghost Town Trails (2011).
Mineralization at Courtland-Gleeson-Pearce is of
several types: (1) copper carbonates and oxides in irregular blanket deposits
where the Cambrian quartzite is thrust over Mississippian limestone creating a
fault breccia (broken rock) close to a contact with an igneous intrusion; (2) lead
and zinc carbonates, lead sulfates and zinc silicates with silver chloride,
manganese and minor copper and gold in irregular ore bodies in
Pennsylvanian-Permian limestones along fractures and faults; (3) turquoise in
near-surface stringers and lenses in altered granite and quartzite—solution in
fracture zones; (4) manganese oxides in irregular masses along fractures in
limestone; and (5) spotty base metal ores with gold and silver values in veins located
in intrusive rocks (MinDat, 2011). What
all this means is that faulting in the area created fracture zones that allowed
heated (from the igneous intrusions) and mineralized solutions to travel
through and deposit the metallic ores.
I was intrigued by geologic descriptions of the area
and of the many mines and recovered minerals.
However, upon traveling to the mining areas I was disappointed in that
essentially all of the land is private and I could not locate owners who would
allow me access. However, I was able to
purchase a nice piece of polished turquoise labeled “Courtland”.
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Turquoise polished slab, ~4.5 X 4.5 cm., labeled
“Courtland”. Turquoise is a secondary
mineral caused by an alteration of rocks rich in aluminum.
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A similar situation (private land without access) occurs
to the north in the Dos Cabezas Mining District, an area that was booming in 1880’s. Wilson (1927) stated “practically all the
gulches in the vicinity contain gold-bearing gravels”. That statement was enough to get me off and
running to the area. The Dos Cabezas
Mountains are a typical “Basin and Range” horst (uplifted block of mountains
with down-dropped valleys on either side).
The mountains have a wide array of rocks cropping out ranging from
Precambrian granite to Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks to Tertiary volcanics and
intrusive. However, it seems the entire
area is covered with no trespassing signs and the land owners I could locate are
quite unfriendly. Perhaps they are just
tired of out-of-state treasure hunters? I
did manage to grab several bags of sand from along the road (without
trespassing) but was unable to confirm Wilson’s statement about the gold.
Two “ghost towns” that are friendly to visitors
include the settlements of Charleston and Fairbanks; both are managed by the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) so collecting, including metal detectors, is
off limits. These towns grew up along
the San Pedro River in southern Arizona due to the proximity of the mines at
Tombstone. It seems as if Tombstone, 10
miles away, suffered from a lack of surface water so several stamp mills were
established at Charleston and one at Fairbanks; ore was hauled by wagon. A railroad was constructed to the mill towns and
later two more were added. Fairbanks, six miles north of Charleston,
became a major train stop between Guaymas, Mexico, and Benson, Arizona. The Fairbanks depot became a major transport
area with the travelers coming and going from Tombstone, and cattle being
shipped out of the area. Both communities
were thriving towns in the late 1800’s, but they owed their existence to the
rise and fall of Tombstone’s fortunes. Fairbanks existed into 1900’s;
Charleston was essentially destroyed when the U. S. Army used the buildings as
a training base in World War II.
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Fairbanks, Arizona ca. 1890. Photo courtesy Arizona Historical Society. |
Both communities are part of the San Pedro Riparian
National Conservation Area (NCA) with a mission of enhancing and protecting the
ecosystem along the river. The NCA is
managed by the BLM and the agency is slowly restoring many of the well-preserved
buildings in Fairbanks. I have visited
the communities and have hiked along the river for many miles and have found the
area fascinating. First, the river is
unique (at least to me) in that it flows north from Mexico into the U. S. Therefore, it offers an interesting bird
flyway with several tropical species fluttering north; one of my favorites is
the Vermillion Flycatcher. Second, the
river flows in a large graben and is filled with late Tertiary lake and stream
sediments and sedimentary rocks. These units
have produced a spectacular array of vertebrate fossils, hold the Desert Roses
near St. David (see Blog posting February 4, 2013), and are the source of the
glauberite pseudomorphs near Camp Verde (see Blog posting September 2, 2012). And finally, the community of old Fairbanks is
well-preserved and the buildings contain much history. You can locate the old cemetery and stamp mill
at Fairbanks and some of the old mining structures at Charleston. Until visiting the area I had always assumed,
although not much personal thought was given to the matter, that Tombstone
produced its own stamp mills! An
erroneous thought!
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Remains of Rockland Hotel at Sasco.
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One of the more interesting accessible “ghost towns”
to visit is Sasco, an acronym of its parent company, the Southern Arizona Smelter Company. The town was
established as the smelter site for the mining operations at the nearby Silver
Bell mining complex. Silver Bell was the
site of major copper mining in the late 1800’s (minor silver, gold and lead)
but seemed to suffer from a lack of potable water. In the very early 1900’s the owners built a
new smelter about 10 miles away and named it Sasco. By 1904 the Arizona
Southern Railroad was built from Silver Bell to Sasco and on to Red Rock and
Sasco boomed with over 600 residents.
Numerous buildings were constructed including houses, hotels, a jail,
post office and several saloons.
Unfortunately, mining at Silver Bell went south and the smelter closed
in 1919 and Sasco started its demise.
Today Sasco is vacant but there are really good remnants and foundations
of the former buildings are numerous.
Unfortunately the site has been trashed—literally and figuratively. Visitors have hauled in a tremendous amount
of trash and debris and the ground is littered with shell casings. Paintballers have discovered the place and
walls are covered with the remains of the spent balls. It is unfortunate that Arizona and/or BLM
passed up the opportunity to stabilize an area of important historical aspect.
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Railway (tracks on top of concrete pillars) ore dump
at Sasco. Railroad with ore came in from
west (up) and dumped ore (right) where it was hauled a short distance to the
smelter.
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Silver Bell, the original town at the mine has been
completely destroyed since ASARCO begin open pit operations in 1954 and
continues today as a major copper producer.
I was able to poke around in the desert and dumps and actually came up with some interesting specimens: azurite [Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2] and malachite [Cu2(CO3)(OH)2], chalcanthite [CuSO4·5H2O], turquoise [Cu(Al,Fe3+)6(PO4)4(OH)8·4H2O], and what I believe is chalcoalumnite [CuAl4(SO4)(OH)12·3H2O].
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| A |
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B
Chalcanthite (A: ~3.5 cm.; B: ~3 cm. length), a hydrated copper
sulfate found in the oxidized zone of copper deposits.
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Encrusting (on calcite) botryoidal ?chalcoalumnite, a
hydrated copper-aluminum sulfate. Length
of light green encrustation (lower part of rock) ~7 cm.
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Azurite and encrusting malachite, both hydrous
copper carbonates. Specimen ~5 cm. in
length.
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REFERENCES
CITED
Ghost Town Trails (2011): www.arizonaghosttowntrails.com
MinDat, 2011, Turquoise District (Courtland-Gleeson District), Dragoon Mts, Cochise Co., Arizona, USA:
http://www.mindat.org/loc-3316.html
Wilson,
E.D., 1927, Arizona Gold Placers, 2nd. ed. (revised), University of Arizona
Bull. 124: 51