Goldfield is a State Park near Apache Junction, Arizona, not far from Phoenix and…
…nestled up against the Superstition Mountains.
Goldfield is billed as an authentic ghost town, and it is, more or less.
Authentic, if you don’t count the ice cream parlors and souvenir shops, that is. However it is authentic in that it has many old original buildings still standing and some are in use…primarily for the aforementioned ice cream parlors and souvenir shops.
These little ghost towns often have a church…(got to have someplace to hold the funeral after the shoot-out…)
Invariably, they are at the end of the main street and up a hill as well.
They are still having services in this church so it has been maintained and has some updates, like electricity.
One building housed a small museum about mining, Goldfield and the Superstition Mountains. There was quite a bit of information concerning people who hunted for the famous Lost Dutchman Mine that is supposed to be (lost) somewhere in these mountains.
Don and his long-time buddy, Steve Campbell, when they were 20 or 21, used to talk about coming here and finding the mine. Of course all they ever did was talk and dream about it, never actually tried to find it. Ah, the dreams of young men!
This wall of photographs and short stories catalogued numerous pictures and histories of prominent, “Lost Dutchman Hunters.”
Don regretted that he and Steve’s pictures were not there. Of course all these guys pictured are now dead…many died searching in the mountains, many others had been murdered…
I found it interesting that there was one guy pictured on the wall from Florence, Kansas, who in 1950 hunted for the Lost Dutchman. After not finding it, he retired to Florence, Arizona, just a few miles from Goldfield.
Besides the fact that the guy was apparently stuck on towns named, Florence, in 1950, I lived in a little town just a few miles from Florence, Kansas. I didn't know him, but it was an interesting coincidence.
The man in the museum told us that people are still searching for their fortune in those mountains. Four men have died up there in the last year looking for the mine. Three of the bodies were just recently recovered and the fourth one is yet to be found.
He also said the land is now owned by the government, so if the mine was found, you couldn't keep the gold anyway. Don was quite disappointed when he heard that. Another dream down the drain...
From Goldfield, the Superstition Mountains are very, very close, only a mile or so away. The lure of gold and the looming mountains must have been impossible for many with gold-fever to resist.
As we left Apache Junction, I noticed a building next to the highway that said, "Barleen's Arizona Opry." It was a dinner theater.
I was amazed as I recognized the name as that of a family that I had known when in high school in a small town in Kansas. Jan Barleen was in my class. I had heard that the family in recent years had been performing in Branson, Missouri, so this made sense.
We stopped at a restaurant for lunch a little further on and I found a flyer about them and the dinner theater. There were pictures and schedules, all the usual stuff. Twin girls looked just like my friend, Jan, when we were all younger, confirming that it was the family that I thought.
On the back of the flyer was an old lady in typical hillbilly garb with the quote, "Granny says, 'We're easy to find!'" I looked at that somewhat familiar face again and again, and suddenly realized that "Granny" was JAN!! How could she look that old?? We still look like we're 17, don't we? OK, maybe not...but they made her look so much older than either of us are, I'm sure...or at least, I hope so!!
On our way back to the RV, we came across the Tom Mix Memorial.
For anyone reading this who doesn’t know who Tom Mix was, well, not to worry. That means you are waaaay younger than we are. Tom Mix was an old radio/early TV/cowboy movies/Wild West star. In other words, we grew up listening to Tom Mix catch the bad guys on old-time radio.
We wondered why there was a memorial (complete with picnic table and fireplace) to him out in the middle of the desert, and the words on the memorial really didn’t clarify anything. Thankfully, Google filled in the blanks.
It seems that on October 12, 1940, Tom Mix was speeding along this desert highway in his convertible and didn’t stop fast enough for the “Bridge Out” sign and crashed into a shallow wash.
Tom's suitcase that was on the back luggage rack of his car, smacked him in the back of the head. He stepped out of the car and dropped over from a broken neck.
The little ditch nearby where the accident took place is designated as, “Tom Mix Wash.”
So now you know. They just don’t make cowboys like they used to.
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