This 1860s Arizona mining town survives on junk art and sheer desert grit

It’s been alive since the 1860s

Chloride, Arizona, sits on the southwest side of the Cerbat Mountains, about 23 miles northwest of Kingman. The town got its start when prospectors hit silver in the early 1860s, and people have lived here ever since, making it the oldest continuously inhabited mining town in the state.

Today, about 229 people call it home. Despite that tiny number, thousands of visitors show up every year to walk its streets, and the reason has nothing to do with silver anymore.

75 mines ran here before it all went quiet

Prospectors first found silver, gold, lead, zinc and turquoise in the Cerbat Mountains back in the 1840s. Growth came slow at first, but after a treaty with the Hualapai in the early 1870s, mining took off fast.

By the early 1900s, about 75 mines operated in the area, and around 2,000 people lived in town. A railroad linked Chloride to Kingman in the late 1890s, moving ore and supplies in and out.

Then the mines shut down in the mid-1940s, and the town nearly vanished. Artists and creative types started moving in during the 1950s and ’60s, giving Chloride a second life.

A miner painted 2,000 square feet of desert rock

About 1.5 miles east of town, bold murals cover roughly 2,000 square feet of granite boulders. The whole site is free.

Roy Purcell painted them in 1966 while taking a break from fine arts studies at Utah State University to work as a miner nearby. He called the collection “The Journey: Images From an Inward Search for Self.”

You’ll see a goddess figure, the Tennessee Mine, and symbols like the sun, moon and serpent spread across the rock. Some panels stand 30 feet tall.

Purcell came back in 2006 with 10 other artists and restored all 19 panels using automobile paint to keep the colors sharp.

Hualapai rock carvings sit right across the trail

Directly across from Purcell’s murals, ancient petroglyphs carved by the Hualapai people mark the rock.

The Hualapai used this area as a gathering place long before any miner set foot in the mountains, and the carvings predate the town by centuries.

You can stand in one spot and look from 1960s painted murals to rock art that goes back further than anyone can date for certain.

Ancient and modern desert art, facing each other across a dirt trail.

Gunfights break out at high noon on Saturdays

Right in the center of town, locals built a replica Old West settlement called Cyanide Springs using lumber from the old Golconda Mine.

You’ll find a jail, a sheriff’s office, a bank, a saloon, a church, and a doctor’s office placed right next to the undertaker. Four of the cabins actually housed mining families back in the day.

The Chloride Historical Society runs the site now and keeps a few cabins open as small shops to raise money for upkeep. Most Saturdays during tourist season, free gunfight reenactments break out at high noon.

Jim Fritz’s kitchen fed the miners next door

Inside Cyanide Springs, the Jim Fritz Museum sits in the home of a longtime Chloride resident who lived to 95.

Fritz and his sister used to feed local miners from their small kitchen, and after his death, the home became a museum. The rooms look just the way Fritz and his sister left them.

Mining-era artifacts and memorabilia fill the space, giving you a close look at daily life during the town’s working years. The museum opens on the first and third Saturdays of each month.

The post office has a billiard rack above its door

Chloride runs Arizona’s oldest continuously operating post office. It first opened in 1873, closed for a stretch, then reopened in 1893 and has stayed open ever since.

The building has moved at least five times around town, and its current home on the corner of 2nd and Tennessee used to be a pool hall and bar. A billiard ball rack still hangs above the front door.

Step inside and you’ll see old photographs of Chloride that may date to the 1930s, plus a display of historical mailboxes lining the wall.

One church survived out of six on Payroll Avenue

Six churches once served Chloride. Only one still stands, on Payroll Avenue.

It started in 1891 as a Methodist Episcopal Church, became Presbyterian in 1902, and got its current building in 1916 under Pastor Franklin Day. It has served as a Baptist church since 1947.

The simple wooden frame, classic steeple and whitewashed exterior make it one of the most photographed buildings in town, and it remains one of the oldest continuously used structures in Chloride.

A gas tank flamingo guards someone’s front yard

Nearly every occupied yard in Chloride doubles as an art installation. Residents turn scrap metal, old gas tanks, kitchen tools and other found objects into sculptures.

You’ll spot a flamingo made from a gas tank, a caterpillar built from bowling balls, and a tin man wearing a blue hat. One home has a bottle tree strung together from old broken bottle necks and wire.

Walking or driving through town feels like touring an open-air gallery, and the tradition traces straight back to the creative types who settled here in the 1960s.

The cemetery has telephones sitting on headstones

West of town, the Chloride Cemetery predates the town itself. Some graves go back to the 1800s.

What sets it apart is what people leave behind. Old telephones, dishes and other odd items sit on top of headstones.

Hand-carved inscriptions and rustic ironwork mark the older plots. Every Memorial Day, volunteers replace flags on the graves of known service members buried here.

Plots are still available for purchase, so technically, you could stay in Chloride forever.

Old Miners’ Day brings a parade down the main street

Every October, Chloride holds Old Miners’ Day to honor its mining roots.

The celebration fills the main street with a parade, gunfight reenactments at Cyanide Springs, a bake sale and a raffle. Locals and visitors gather for food, live music and handmade crafts.

Year-round, you can also check out the old jail on Merrimac Avenue, built around 1917, and the historic train depot nearby.

Chloride once ran Arizona’s oldest all-volunteer fire department, which proudly displayed a 1939 Ford fire engine.

Cowboys still ride in to pick up their mail

Stop by the Mineshaft Market on Tennessee Avenue to grab a self-guided walking tour map. It doubles as the town’s general store and visitor center.

A block west of the post office, an old gas station sits colorful with vintage pumps and hand-painted signs.

The town park on 2nd Street holds a historical marker that traces Chloride’s story from the 1860s through its mining peak.

Stone markers near the cemetery honor early settlers killed in conflicts during the town’s first years.

Ranchers from the surrounding open range still ride into town for their mail, and you might spot a cowboy arriving on horseback.

Drive Out to Chloride, Arizona

You can reach Chloride by heading northwest from Kingman on U.S. Route 93. The elevation runs about 4,000 feet.

The turnoff sits between mile markers 52 and 53, well marked, and from there it’s about four miles east on a paved road into the center of town.

To find the murals and petroglyphs, follow Tennessee Avenue east until the road turns to dirt and continue about 1.5 miles on a maintained dirt road.

Most attractions cost nothing, including the murals, the cemetery, the junk art and the Saturday gunfight shows.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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