CHLORIDE-AZ; Active Ghost Town & Painted Rock Murals

March 9th: Today we got out of Kingman, and drove to Chloride - this was a new experience for both of us. Neither of us had ever heard of it, until last year, when a friend of mine mentioned we might like to visit there when we return to Arizona. So, Holland researched it … and scheduled today's visit into the day 😘

We did not know what to expect.

Chloride, AZ in 1906

I did not get dolled up.

I did not style my hair.

I planned on jumping in and out of Betsy to snap pictures and make videos … today would not be a makeup and hairspray day 😉

The day was very pleasant; warming sun rays, a nicely sunny day with a hint of high altitude nip on the breeze, refreshing mountain air. The exploratory drive was wonderful from beginning to end 😁

Chloride-AZ from Kingman-AZ; 27 min (23.1 mi) via US-93 N

A huge painted boulder; our introduction to what was to come.

Chloride is a free range community; cattle roam freely.

The Cemetery is very expansive; I stayed in the first section, which was about a city block.

American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project:  (https://www.apcrp.org/BLOCK_KATHY/CHLORIDE/Chloride_Cem_Article_060310.htm)

Holland said this vintage vehicle is a 1949 Studebaker Bus - he knows vehicles; and he was right ;- )

Chloride - located in the foothills of the mineral-rich Cerbet Mountains, got its name from the silver chloride found in abundance throughout the local mountains. Silver was first discovered by miners in the 1860's. Silver Hill is named after its' rich ore deposits. In addition to silver, the miners found zinc, copper, lead, molybdenum, and turquoise.

Chloride-AZ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloride,_Arizona & https://www.chlorideaz.com/history

After silver chloride was discovered in 1862, mines sprang up throughout the region. The Butterfield Stage and the Santa Fe Railroad came through town. The population topped 2,500 during the boom years.

Businesses such as hotels, a bank, a pool hall, barber shops, saloons, and restaurants thrived. Several churches and a hospital served the residents' needs. A railroad spur connected Chloride to Kingman-AZ, for ore and passenger transport. The most productive mine, the Tennessee Mine, produced zinc and lead into the 1940s. When the mines closed, miners and their families left, leaving Chloride almost a ghost town.

Today, some of the mines are privately owned, while others are controlled by the federal government.

Chloride also has one of the longest running Post Offices in the state of Arizona: it opened in 1873, closed for a bit, and then reopened in 1893 - it still operates effectively today.

The "Immortal Gunfighters" of Chloride, a re-enactor group (a group of people who perform a recreation of a historical event), built Cyanide Springs in 1997 … a ramshackle replica of an Old West town smack in the middle of Chloride. Most of the buildings of Cyanide Springs, are hollow false-front structures - but there are a few authentic buildings that include the Silver Belle Playhouse & the Unwin Schoolhouse.

Cyanide Springs ghost town mock up was frivolously named as there never was cyanide used here here.

The Chloride 'Ghost Town' seemed pretty active …

Relics of a bygone Era staged to look like an authentic layout; the rails did not originally go with the Gas Station.

Main Street~W. Tennessee Ave.

Cyanide Springs; Chloride-AZ

This cracked me up. LOL

The Unwin Schoolhouse; Chloride-AZ

Gordon B. Unwin: 

(http://obits.arizonagravestones.org/view.php?id=86513)

Silver Belle Playhouse - a former vaudeville theater, more than 100 years old.

We had left Independence without eating - our stomachs were complaining, so we decided to sample the offerings at the easily seen restaurant from where we stood.

I noticed the high ceiling beams and thought that perhaps the restaurant had at one time been a barn, or warehouse of sorts .. then, while glancing around the beams - I noticed large, heavy-duty, silver metal rings; so, when the waitress came back around, I asked her if she knew the background history of the building. She said she understood that it had at one time been Shep's Stagecoach Stop … with the stagecoaches coming in the front entrance to get a quick repair, and leaving through the back. I suppose that could have been a possibility if the building had been an open-ended, roofed, structure.

Looking at the extra-wide floorboards & spacious room, I was thinking more along the lines of a warehouse store, or butcher shop, given the heavy metal rings and metal brackets along the ceiling beams. 

Later internet research at home, reports that Yesterdays Restaurant was originally Shep's and the building has been many different businesses over the years including a meat market and mercantile store and is one of the oldest remaining buildings in Chloride.

Yesterday's Steak House & Saloon; Chloride-AZ

We went inside for lunch …

Just 'because': I'm a sucker for chickens & bones ;-)

Huge period piece wall mural; very nice.

Spacious interior …

We both ordered the Chili Cheeseburgers w-fires, 2 Cokes, and 2 dinky Cinnamon Rolls for a whopping $40; good thing I had put money aside for this daytrip.

Extra-wide, heavy, real-wood floorboards.

Tools of the trade = hoofing implements.

I like this vintage low-key vibe.

Large, heavy, metal hooks & brackets along beams …

Chili Cheeseburger & Fries = YUM! And, of course I just had to ring the bell 😁

The grumblings of our stomachs satiated, we started looking for the road that would lead us to the painted murals Holland was keen to view.

It was not as easy as we were led to believe … the streets are tightly packed together, and though marked - easy to miss because they are also so short in length one has to keep eyes on the road, instead of swiveling up and about to read road markers …

Looking for the street that will lead us to the painted rock murals …

The only info I could generate about the Russell building, is the date 1928.

Desert humor - side of the 'Mineshaft Market'; Chloride-AZ

Funky artistic designs on a private home.

This little Baptist Church is 134-years-old, and one of the oldest churches in Arizona & still active; in this living ghost town of Chloride, AZ

A vintage grinding wheel - brought back memories of my Uncle George sharpening everyone's knives every Sunday afternoon; on the Brockway homestead in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

People in Chloride believe in 'individualizing' their homes 😉

A Stamp Mill; it was used to crush ore and separate valuable metals like gold and silver from waste material.

A Water Wagon & a Covered Wagon.

A Water Wagon: (used for military purposes, construction work, sprayed on dusty roadways to keep dirt settled, and for emergency fire control) & A Covered Wagon: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covered_wagon)

A mining cart & a man bucket for lowering men into mining pits.

I found humor in this desert display 😉

Oh my Lord! We've done a loop drive to finally find the road we need - right back where we started!

Free-range cow enjoying a salt lick block.

Eureka - we are finally on the right trail ;-)

The defunct Tennessee-Schuykill Mine operated between 1898 through 1948 and is credited with a production of $7.5 million in materials.

Tennessee-Schuykill Mine: (https://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/mine-tales-town-of-chloride-was-centerpiece-of-a-mining-district-near-kingman/article_40b3b8b2-6cf3-5a59-a761-0c73dafd838c.html)

Most boys started working in the mines around the age of 13; silicosis killed many hard rock miners in the area.

Silicosis: https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/silicosis/learn-about-silicosis

The entire drive to the murals site, the hillsides were covered with mining sites and abandoned mining equipment - the drive to the murals from Tennessee Ave. in town, is 1.3 miles; there must have been 3 or 4 mining sites every quarter of a mile along the way. We even saw evidence of a dilapidated aerial tramway to transport ore.

And up we gingerly goad Betsy to climb …

The mountainous landscape of Chloride-AZ, is littered with volcanic rock:  (https://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/mine-tales-town-of-chloride-was-centerpiece-of-a-mining-district-near-kingman/article_40b3b8b2-6cf3-5a59-a761-0c73dafd838c.html)

I like jarring explorations 😊

Tina Turner - 'Land of Thousand Dances': 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD2n80BAJss)

The roadway was very rough; primitive for about 3 quarters of the way in - with several very deep drops, and steep inclines.

A little free roaming red calf.

Betsy was a trooper - this part of the road was serious hard-going.

Encouragement …

The roadway was a smoother grade at the junction turn, but the drops were very deep - and Betsy is very long: it was still a tip-toeing venture. Movement forward was approached with extreme caution, inching forward very carefully and delicately.

We weren't sure which side of the junction to go = we turned left and made an agreement …

The agreement was that if we didn't find it in 15 min's, we'd quit punishing Betsy and turn back.

The end result of the hell ride was a stupendous display of artful technique.

The beginning: as soon as you drop a tummy-tickling depth to the floor of the 'Chloride Murals Wall'.

A detailed painting of Chloride’s Tennessee Mine and several buildings.

This angered me. If this is ancient petroglyphs - did he paint over some??

Signature …

Message; the guy could have been tripping on LSD - or Peyote: this was painted in 1966, and he was reported to be "a hippie".

This is very colorfully expressive.

Fertility symbolism.

I have no idea - this doesn't seem to fit with the murals theme 🤔

The artwork is spectacular; but also more than a little tinged with psychoactive hallucinogenic proprieties.

Roy Purcell; he looks more like a beatnik to me, than a hippie - I was raised in both environments.

On the opposite side of the dirt road, I spotted a natural heart shaped rock 😁

Holland, with his eagle eyes, spotted these petroglyphs … directly across the road from the Painted Murals.

Why Were The Petroglyphs Made?:  (https://www.nps.gov/petr/learn/historyculture/why.htm#:~:text=Petroglyphs%20are%20powerful%20cultural%20symbols,and%20integral%20to%20its%20meaning.)

Driving a car out to the murals area, seems very risky to me.

The paintings were done in enamel automotive paint - and covered an area of 200 ft. rock formations. The murals were completed in 1966; and touched up again, in 2006, when Purcell - aided by his children & grandchildren - refreshed the stunning imagery.

In 1964, Purcell, an art student on leave from Utah State, was living with his wife and children in a small wooden home in the historic community of Chloride-AZ. Working at a local mine by day, Purcell spent his evenings painting colorful images that seemed to spill from his imagination. However, he felt the works needed something more. As he later wrote in his own documentation, “I needed something far larger to properly understand the relationships of my images.”

He was drawn to some cliffs located a mile and a half from the township of Chloride. Inspecting the stone cliffs, he recalls that he was impressed by the way the shapes of the rocks perfectly fit the images in his paintings.  For the next several months, Purcell worked on the massive paintings; while still laboring at the mine. Finally, in September 1966, he completed the work.

The result is a complicated collection of realistic and surreal images, which Purcell later interpreted as representing stages of his life and conflicts within his subconscious.

Even Purcell wasn't sure what he created. He wrote, "Finally in September 1966, I stood paint-splattered, ragged and tired on the rocks across the canyon to view the finished work. I understood only remotely what had erupted so violently out of myself. I felt more like an aged Samson with a sun-bleached jawbone in my hands than an artist with a paintbrush."

The eye-catching and imaginary grabbing images, boldly covering towering slabs of granite, launched Purcell's celebrated artistic career.

Retracing our route to the murals, we got a birds eye view of Chloride nestled in the mountain hollow that embraces it, 'round about (hollow = a small, sheltered valley that usually but not necessarily has a watercourse; mountains, themselves, are not hollow creations).

Chloride, nestled in the mountains …

Cerbet Mountains: 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerbat_Mountains)

The air was getting cooler, and the roaming cattle are coming out of hiding; in droves.

Reportedly there are no active mines in Chloride - but that looks to me, to be activity, over there.

A chuckle as we left Chloride-AZ

On our way back to Independence parked at the Zuni RV Park, Holland drove through Kingman's historic district … and it seems, there is always something to see that was missed last drive through 😉

Passing through Historic 'Old Town' Kingman-AZ

Another thing I like about AZ

After Supper, I was relaxing by cruising Blog posts, and saw a few of my designs had been showcased on a couple crafting Blog Pages - it's always a nice surprise to know that I am not the only one who appreciates them, and will utilize my patterns 👍

A lot of time, effort, writing (& rewriting when corrections are needed), goes into each of my designs. I can't stand to be idle - if my feet aren't in motion, my hands are; and Holland doesn't complain - no doubt because when I am in the process of designing, drafting, and crafting … I am very quietly focused. Hahaha

My designs were featured on my Israeli friend's Crafting Blog Hop: 'Craft Schooling Sunday' @  (https://www.creativejewishmom.com/) 😊

And also on the Stone Cottage Adventures Blog Hop: 'You're The Star' @ (http://www.stonecottageadventures.com/2025/03/?m=0) 😊