The walls of the assay office were built out of rock hauled from the mine, and they are estimated to hold six hundred thousand dollars in gold and silver.
The Vulture Mine in Maricopa County, Arizona, began in 1863 and became the most productive gold mine in the state's history. Between 1863 and 1942 it produced 340,000 ounces of gold and 260,000 ounces of silver, drew more than 5,000 people to the area, and is credited with founding the town of Wickenburg. The settlement that served it was Vulture City.
It started with one man and an outcrop. Henry Wickenburg, a prospector out of the California gold rush, found a quartz deposit carrying gold and worked it himself. Vulture City went up around the mine that same year and eventually held 5,000 people. Wickenburg later sold the deposit to Benjamin Phelps, acting for a group of investors who organised as the Vulture Mining Company.
The knock-on effect is the part most people miss. The desert around the mine grew almost nothing, so a man named Jack Swilling went into the Phoenix Valley and reopened the irrigation canals the native peoples had left behind. Agriculture came back to the valley, a grain route was established to feed the mine, and Phoenix grew up around that agriculture. The grain route is still there, and it is now called Grand Avenue.
When the mine closed the city was abandoned and became a ghost town.
One practical warning, and it matters here more than most. The Arizona ghost town record for this site states that the Vulture Mine has been closed to the public and that mining operations were to resume, making it impossible to visit, and advises skipping it while the claims are being worked. It is private property and metal detecting and relic collection are prohibited. Access has changed before and may have changed again, so confirm the current position before driving out.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
