Just down the road from Lost Dutchman State park in Arizona is a little tourist trap of an area called Goldfield. They took a bunch of old buildings moved them to the hill and rebuilt them so they were safe, air conditioned, but still old looking. They have a train, zipline, a mine replica they built and give tours in, a bunch of really neat stores, gold panning, a church and some restaurants. I didn't expect to like it, but I went back 3 times and started Christmas shopping there. They hire really good people who go a long way to make the "town" what it is. I went on the mine tour (air conditioned also). They built a pretty long tunnel of gunnite with an elevator to go down and stairs to go up at the end. They sectioned it with blast doors and had all the apparatus the miners used, and a couple long gone miners. The tour guide was excellent and seemed to enjoy talking and telling stories. Mining history was interesting.
The miners lived in shacks spread across the dessert, They had to be at work when the mine whistle blew. They were lowered down the three story shaft in a little metal box cramming in 8 or more at a time. There was no electrifier so they had a candle. If they wanted a spare they brought their own. They also had to bring water. It was hot down in the mine, over 90 sometimes over 100 degrees. They picked out deep holes in the rock with pick axes to put the dynamite in. Then the guy in charge of lighting the fuses after everyone left lit the fuses and ran past the blast doors and shut the doors before the dynamite went off (He got paid $3/day, the rest got $1/day). They then shoveled the rock into mining carts and pushed it to the elevator where the winch man hauled it up. Once up the ore was processed with mercury and arsenic to extract the gold from the quartz. The gold in Arizona didn't come from nuggets like other places, it was combined with quartz so it was a process to get it pure. Stealing from the mine was a death sentence for the miner, but they never had to hang anyone at the mines in the area. It probably wasn't work the likely death sentence to get a bunch of rock you still had to process. The mine goldfield was based on and the other mines in the area are now flooded. They dug too deep and hit the aquifer. There is still gold in the mines,, but it costs more to pump out the water than the gold is worth. My opinion is the water is worth more than the gold, especially in the desert.
We went to church at the little church at the top of the hill on Sunday. One of the ladies made sure to talk to us. They talk a lot to each other. The songs were fast, but the sermon was good. I was sidetracked by people watching. It was a "cowboy church" with real cowboys. The wore their guns and knives, spurs and well used chaps. (They weren't actors). Two of the ladies had dogs and all the kids had to sit in the front row of the balcony.
We stopped at another museum down the road. It had a model train set up. It was closed for the summer and they were remodeling the museum. But we met some volunteers in the barn. They were great men who really enjoyed what they do.
We also drove to Canyon Lake. It is a very busy lake full of people enjoying the water. Past it is a little town where we got ice cream. We had to turn around there because the road was closed. There had been a fire in the Tonto National Forest and they were keeping it closed for wildlife recovery. It opened back up the week after we left.
This is an awesome area of Arizona. I could have spent a week or more here and enjoyed all but the meltingly hot afternoons.
