Mom and Dad drove down for a visit before spending some time with Dave's parents in San Diego. Since the weather is nice and mild right now, I thought it would be a fun day trip to go to the Castle Dome Ghost town. Here is a brief description of the town:
Castle Dome, 40 miles northeast of Yuma, contains the longest-working
mine in Arizona. It operated from 1862 to 1979. During its heyday,
3,000 residents lived here despite blistering summer temperatures. Jacob
Snively, who had served with Sam Houston, is credited as the first
American to discover the rich silver and lead deposits. Yet he followed a
trail blazed by Spanish conquistadors who mined here in the 1600s.
The district holds the second mine to be patented in Arizona, the
Flora Temple in 1871. The Castle Dome Mine was patented in 1876. With no
railroad access, tenacious ingenuity was required for ore shipments. In
1878, Castle Dome Mine built the world's largest wagon with a capacity
of 20 tons. The wagon required a team of 40 horses or mules to pull.
Castle Dome didn't follow the predictable boom-bust cycle of most
mining towns. An ebb and flow of activity swept the town along.
Large-scale lead mining erupted during both world wars to meet the
demand for bullets. During World War II, miners extracted 9 million
pounds of lead ore, making Castle Dome one of the largest wartime
producers in the country. The mines closed for good in 1979.
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