If we were to describe this year's trip, it would be "Fill in the Gaps".

We tossed around several routes. The day before we left, we still hadn't decided. East was experiencing the worst floods of the century - scrap that idea.  Karen had driven down the west coast through Los Angeles and she really didn't want to do it again - or at least not with her as the passenger and me driving.  Regardless, the west coast was experiencing torrential downpours and wildfires so scrap that idea too. We were having the worst spring in years in Calgary and "wet" wasn't what we were looking for.  The only place not snowing, flooding or pouring cats and dogs was "South".

OK, so South it was. But where? We decided to get to Salt Lake City as fast as possible and then make some more plans.

For many years Karen and I have wanting to go to Tombstone.  We've wanted to work Route 66 into our itinerary.  We have been forever saying "this is an area we should come back to" especially the ghost towns of Utah and Nevada.  We always said we would go back to Ely and explore and stay again in Torrey at the Chuckwagon Motel.  Karen, being Karen, searched the maps to find wiggly roads to scare the hell out of us (which seems to be the one steadfast criteria of a great trip).

This was the year we filled all those gaps. And, of course, we found some new wiggly roads to add to the excitement and the tales to tell.  This was also the year that we adopted "Willie".

Calgary To Butte

Despite our late start, we managed to make it to Butte just at dark. 

The bad weather didn't disappear.  When it was raining in Calgary, it was snowing in Montana.  There was frost on the road when we headed out the next morning - not typical middle of June weather. We didn't leave the snow capped mountains behind until we were well into Utah.

And then it was "hot".

Tooele June 14

Ely, Nevada - Saturday, June 14th

Somewhere along the way, we firmed up our plans to go to Tombstone and travel Hwy 191 north from there.  We decided to swing west a bit and stay again in Ely. 

We left Tooele travelled south down Hwy 36 to Hwy 6 and connected to Hwy 50 west to Ely. From frost on the road in in the morning to 107° F in Ely in the evening, it seemed like an impossibility but we weren't complaining.  We got ourselves settled into the motel and headed over to the Hotel Nevada for supper.

After supper we met a couple just arriving on their motorcycle - hot and tired.  Pete and Bonnie were from Vancouver and had just travelled down the west coast through all the rain.  They were happy to get into the warm weather too.

Coincidentally, it turned out they were heading to Tombstone too.

Ely to Boulder City

Connors Pass

Connors Pass (elevation 7,722 feet) is a pass through the Schell Creek Range southeast of Ely. It is one of only two fractions of Hwy 93 in Nevada that climb above the tree line. Karen keeps trying to get pictures of the golden rocks but either we've been unable to stop or the sun isn't right.  Oh well, a good excuse to return to the area.

I spotted an "old road" and wanted to investigate.  The chopped up, rutty, bumpy, twisty short trail was to say the least a jolting experience.  There were areas that we wondered if the road would simply end leaving us no where to turn around. We managed to get through it and exited just behind Majors Station and Hwy 93 junction.

Bristol Wells Ghost Town

Bristol Wells is about 15 miles north of Pioche six miles off of Hwy 93. In 1880 the population was about 400. It had a post office from 1878 - 1887. All that remains are two buildings, a windmill, and the three charcoal ovens.

Pioche

In 1864, William Hamblin, a Latter Day Saint missionary, was led to silver deposits in the vicinity of Pioche by a Native American Paiute. In 1868, San Francisco financier Francois L.A. Pioche purchased claims and constructed a smelter in the area, forming the Meadow Valley Mining Company. The mining camp was called "Pioche's City" and later became known as Pioche.

Guns were the only law, and Pioche made Bodie, Tombstone, and other better known towns pale in comparison. It has been reported that seventy-five men were buried in the cemetery before anyone in Pioche had time to die a natural death. Nearly 60 percent of the homicides reported in Nevada during 1871-72 took place in and around Pioche.

The town rapidly became the largest mining town in southeastern Nevada in the early 1870's. Population estimates showed 10,000 people by 1871.

One of the worst fires in the West took place in Pioche in 1871. It began in a restaurant during a celebration commemorating Mexican independence and quickly spread. When it reached the Felsenthal Store, a stone fireproof structure where 300 barrels of blasting powder were stored, the subsequent explosion shot nearly 400 feet into the air, blowing a 1,000-pound door clear out of town and showering the town with flaming debris. The explosion of debris killed thirteen and injured forty-seven, and the accompanying fire left virtually the entire population homeless.

The fortunes of Pioche diminished in the 1880's due to the shutdown of the principle mines in 1876. During World War II, an economic boom occured when Pioche was the second largest lead and zinc producer in the nation. Present day Pioche has little mining activity, and in being the county seat, the main focus is now government.

Valley of Fire

Valley of Fire is located six miles from Lake Mead and 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas. It is Nevada's oldest and largest state park, dedicated 1935.

The valley derives its name from the red sandstone formations and the stark beauty of the Mojave Desert. Ancient trees and early man are represented throughout the park by areas of petrified wood and 3,000 year-old Indian petroglyphs.

Lake Meade

Construction of Boulder Dam, later to be named Hoover Dam, began in 1931.The reservoir created by the damming of the Colorado River became Lake Mead, named after Elwood Mead, the Bureau of Reclamation commissioner at the time.

Boulder City

Boulder City was designed to be a model city, it was built by the Six Companies and U.S. Government to provide homes for the men building Boulder (now Hoover) Dam. The Federal Government owned the entire town for nearly 30 years until January, 1960 when the town was turned over to the State of Nevada. Boulder City is still very much a Government town, with many of its residents working for the National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Nevada Department of Fish & Game, Department of Energy, Bureau of Land Management, and Western Area Power Administration.

Laughlin, Nevada

Laughlin's current location was established in the 1940's with the South Pointe due to its proximity to Nevada's southern tip. The settlement consisted of a motel and bar that catered to gold and silver miners who dotted the map, and to the many construction workers who built Davis Dam.

Davis Dam was designed to help regulate the mighty Colorado and to provide electricity to the Southwest. Once the dam was completed, construction workers left and the motel fell into disrepair.

Laughlin's name comes from Don Laughlin who bought the southern tip of Nevada in 1964 (informally called South Pointe). Laughlin operated the 101 Club in Las Vegas. He opened what would become the Riverside Resort which offered all-you-can-eat chicken dinners for 98 cents, 12 slot machines and two live gaming tables, and 8 motel rooms.

The Colorado Belle is a fixed building made to look like a six-deck replica of a 19th century Mississippi paddlewheel riverboat.

Lake Havasu and London Bridge

My hubby, Steve, had visited Lake Havasu and wanted Karen to see it.  Before striking out on Route 66, we took a side trip down there to see the sites. 

Lake Havasu City was established in 1964 by Robert P. McCulloch (of McCulloch Chainsaws) as a planned community. McCulloch had purchased 3,500 acres (14 km²) of property on the east side of Lake Havasu along Pittsburgh Point, the peninsula that eventually would be transformed into "the island". The city was incorporated in 1978. The present city grew around an old mining town established in the early 20th century.

A popular tourist attraction in Lake Havasu City is the London Bridge, which crosses a man-made canal that leads from Lake Havasu (on the Colorado River) to Thompson Bay. It was bought for US $2.5 million from the City of London when the bridge was replaced in 1968. The bridge was disassembled, and the marked stones were shipped to Lake Havasu City and reassembled for another US $7 million. It opened in October 1971.

The lake was formed in 1938 by Parker Dam on the Colorado River. One cannot reach the Grand Canyon from Lake Havasu, however, due to the dams: Davis Dam (creating Lake Mohave) and Hoover Dam (creating Lake Mead) and Parker Dam.

Route 66 - Needles to Williams

U.S. Route 66 (also known as the Will Rogers Highway after the humorist, and colloquially known as the "Main Street of America" or the "Mother Road") was a highway in the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66, US Highway 66, was established on November 11, 1926. However, road signs did not go up until the following year.

The famous highway originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles, encompassing a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km). It was recognized in popular culture by both a hit song and a television show in the 1950s and 1960s.

Needles

The city was founded in 1883 as a result of the construction of the railroad, which crosses the Colorado at this point. The name is derived from pointed mountain peaks at the south end of the valley.

Historic U.S. Route 66 passes through the city, lined with motels and other shops from that era. Needles is a tourism and recreation center, a tradition going back for decades.

Our excitment grew when we hit the "turn here" sign.  I had researched Route 66 for many years on the net and finally this was it.  Route 66 was now happening!

Oatman

We we progressed slowly along Route 66 stopping around every turn and taking pictures so just about missed this sign.  I hit the breaks and backed up to get another look. Surfing the net, we already knew there were donkeys in Oatman but this sign struck us as rather unique - unlike anything we had seend before that's for sure. As we rounded the corner into Oatman, it was everything we expected and more - a truly facinating place basically out in the middle of nowhere. It is authentic old western town with burros roaming the streets and gunfights staged on weekends. The burros are tame and can be hand fed.

Our first stop was in front of a kiosk selling carrots ($1.00 a bag) and Route 66 Beer. We no sooner had a bag of carrots in our hand that the entire herb decended upon us.  We had to buy more carrots just to keep them happy.  Brenda moved to Oatman 15 years ago from Massateutes.  She knew all the donkeys by name and gave us a bit of history about them.  One donkey was off to side.  Apparently the male stole her from another herd and she was afraid of the town.  Brenda said that this happens often - nature's way of keeping the herd from getting too inbred. 

Oatman's "Wild" Burro's are the descendants of burro's brought here by the miners late 1800 hundred – when the miners no longer needed then were turned loose. Each morning they come into town looking for food. They wander the streets and greet the tourists. Burro pellets and carrots are for sale at many of the shops. The burros will eat all day if you feed them. Shortly before the sunset they will wander back to the hills for the night.

Oatman began 0ver 100 years ago as a mining tent camp and quickly became a flourishing gold-mining center. In 1915, two miners struck a $10 million gold find, and within a year, the town's population grew to more than 3,500.

Oatman was named in honor of Olive Oatman, who was kidnapped as a young girl by Mojave Indians and later rescued in 1857 near the current site of the town. Oatman was served by a narrow gauge rail line between 1903 and 1905 that ran 17 miles to the Colorado river near Needles, California.

But both the population and mining booms were short-lived. In 1921, a fire burned down many of the smaller shacks in town, and three years later, the main mining company, United Eastern Mines, shut down operations for good. Oatman survived by catering to travelers on old U.S. Route 66. But in the 1960s, when the route became what is now Interstate 40, Oatman almost died.

The Oatman Hotel, built in 1902, is the oldest two-story adobe structure in Mojave County and has housed many miners, movie stars, politicians and other scoundrels. The town was used as the location for several movies such as How The West Was Won, Foxfire and Edge of Eternity.

Clark Gable and Carol Lombard honeymooned at the Oatman Hotel March 18, 1939. Their honeymoon suite is still one of the major attractions at the Oatman Hotel. Gable returned there often to play poker with the local miners and enjoy the solitude of the desert.

Sitgreaves Pass

Route 66 rises to a peak of 3,550 feet between Kingman and Oatman as it breaches the Black Mountains. The pass through that mountain range was named for Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves

Backing up the mountain. When Route 66 came into existence on November 11, 1926, not all cars could speed up the mountain through the pass. The most widely sold vehicle of the time was Ford's Model T which was produced from 1909 to 1927. The Model T, like other vehicles of the era, lacked a pump to bring the gasoline from the gas tank to the engine. Gravity was quite adequate to bring the fuel to the engine unless the tank was low and the vehicle was traveling up an incline. The solution to this problem was to back up the steep and winding mountain road.

Cool Springs Mile 45

Cool Springs Camp. Cool Springs Camp gave early westward bound Route 66 motorists a welcome break before they tackled the treacherous winding ascent through the Black Mountains. Built in the 1926, its amenities included a cafe, garage, a Mobil Oil gas station and tourist cabins.

As with the other businesses catering to Route 66 motorists along the original alignment east of Kingman, the tourist bubble burst when the road's alignment was changed in 1952. Cool Springs was converted to a poultry operation called "The Chicken Ranch." After a fire, that enterprise was also abandoned.

Chicago real estate agent Ned Leuchtner and his wife Michelle purchased the Cool Springs Camp in 2002. They began a slow reconstruction project and planned to eventually locate to the desert. By 2004, there was again a recognizable building that could have housed a service station and cafe with the promise of more coming.

Seligman - Mile 140

It’s the town where Arizona’s revival of Route 66 began. It’s the town that marks the beginning of Arizona's Historic Route 66, the longest continuous stretch of Route 66 still in existence. It’s the town where the past and the present exist in harmony. It’s a main street community with eclectic charm.

Seligman was established in 1886. The town takes its name from two New York bankers.

Seligman was located more than a mile southeast of its present location. Houses and structures were moved piece by piece to where they are today.

In November 1987 Arizona officially deemed old US Route 66 from Seligman to Kingman as Historic Route 66.

Between 1889-1891, Seligman was established by the Theut and Moultrie families. Both were prosperous slaughterhouse owners in Southern antebellum families who lost everything in the Civil War and the following Reconstruction periods. They moved West hoping to find a new life in the largely uninhabited territory of Arizona. They took over the area of Seligman Campsite from the Cherokee Indians. The Theut family gained notoriety for presiding over the Applebaum/Buser Hangings of 1914.

Seligman, Arizona is a Route 66 town all the way. This delightful town retains all the flavor of the old road. A trip down Route 66 in Seligman is a trip back in time to the days when Route 66 was the Main Street of America. Founded in 1895 after the completion of the "Peavine" Railroad (see Ash Fork) the railroad camp known as Prescott Junction officially became Seligman and was an important railroad stop along the line. Seligman embraced Route 66 wholeheartedly upon its arrival in the late 1920’s. The railroad and tourist traffic from Route 66 became Seligman's main source of economic security. In the late 1970's Seligman was bypassed by the Interstate and the Santa Fe Railroad ceased its operations in the town in 1985. Many old towns with similar histories would have faded away once they were bypassed, but not Seligman.

Williams - End Route 66

Founded in 1880, Williams was named for the famous trapper, scout and mountain man, "Old Bill Williams." A statue of "Old Bill" can be visited at Monument Park, located on the west side of the city. The large mountain directly south of town is named Bill Williams Mountain.

In the beginning, Williams, like so many other towns of the Old West, gained a reputation as a rough and rowdy settlement filled with saloons, brothels, gambling houses and opium dens. Restricted by a town ordinance to Railroad Avenue’s “Saloon Row,” it didn’t stop the numerous cowboys, railroad men and lumberjacks from frequenting these many businesses.

In 1926, Route 66 was completed through Williams, which spurred several new businesses along the highway. It was this increased automobile traffic that would eventually shut down the rail service in Williams in 1968.

Williams lies on the route of Historic Route 66, Interstate 40, and the Southwest Chief Amtrak train route. It is also the southern terminus of the Grand Canyon Railway, which takes visitors to Grand Canyon Village.

Williams will go down in history as being the last town to have its section of Route 66 bypassed. Lawsuits that had been filed kept the last section of Interstate 40 from being built around Williams. After settlements called for the state to build three exits for the town, the suits were dropped and I-40 was built. In 1984, Interstate 40 was opened around the town and newspapers the next day reported the essential end of the famous US 66. The following year, Route 66 was decommissioned.

Flagstaff to Tombstone, Arizona

Morman Lake

Mormon Lake is a shallow, intermittent lake located in northern Arizona. With an average depth of only 10 ft (3.0 m) the surface area of the lake is extremely volatile and fluctuates seasonally. When full, the lake has a surface area of about 12 square miles (31 million square meters), making it the largest natural lake in Arizona.[1] In particularly dry times, the lake has been known to dry up, leaving behind a remnant marsh.

Cacti Along the Road

The vegetation was like none we had seen before.  I didn't realize that Karen had not seen saguaro catus.  I saw them first many years ago in Pheonix.

The Saguaro, pronounced "sah-wah-roh", is a large, tree-sized cactus. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The saguaro blossom is the state flower of Arizona.

Most cacti have a short growing season and long dormancy. For example, a fully-grown Saguaro cactus can absorb up to 3,000 litres of water in ten days. This is helped by the ability to form new roots quickly.

Saguaros have a relatively long life span. They take up to 75 years to develop a side arm. Some specimens may live for more than 150 years. Harming one in any manner is illegal by state law in Arizona, and when houses or highways are built, special permits must be obtained to move or destroy any saguaro affected.

Fairbank Ghost Town

Fairbank, founded in the 1880s, was originally called Junction City, Kendall and then Fairbank after Chicago investor Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank, who provided funds to open the silver mines in nearby Tombstone. On February 15, 1900, it was the scene of a gunfight between lawman Jeff Davis Milton and members of the Burt Alvord gang, resulting in gang member "Three Fingered Jack" Dunlop being killed, and both Milton and gang member Bravo Juan Yaos being wounded, and the gangs attempt at a train robbery being thwarted.

During Fairbank's short heyday the town was home to a post office, established on May 13th, 1883, mills, several rail lines, a school and a hotel. By 1970 almost nothing was left at Fairbank. The last few residents were evicted when the buildings were declared unsafe. An effort to preserve the remains of Fairbank has been only partially successful. Some buildings remain at the site, but several are in extremely poor condition. The largest remaining structure, a hotel, collapsed in 2004.

Tombstone - The Town Too Tough to Die

Tombstone was founded in 1877 by a prospector named Ed Schieffelin. Ed was staying at what was then called Camp Huachuca (wa-chu-ka) as part of a scouting expedition against the Chiricahua (chir-i-cow-uh) Apaches. During his time there he would venture out into the wilderness "looking for rocks", all the while ignoring the warnings he received from the soldiers at the camp. They would tell him, "Ed, the only stone you will find out there will be your tombstone". Well, Ed did find his stone. And it was Silver. So, remembering the words of warning from the soldiers, he named his first mine The Tombstone.

By the mid 1880's Tombstone's population had increased to around 7,500. This figure includes only white male registered voters over 21 years of age. If you take into account the women, children, Chinese and the many "ladies of the evening" the estimates are that the population was between 15,000 and 20,000 people. At its peak, it was the fastest growing city between St. Louis and San Francisco. There were over one hundred saloons, numerous restaurants, a large red-light district, an even larger Chinese population, schools, churches, newspapers, and one of the first public swimming pools in Arizona (which is still used today).

While the area later became notorious for saloons, gambling houses, and the famous Wyatt Earp & Clanton Gang shoot-out at the O.K. Corral, in the 1880s Tombstone was larger than Tucson and had become the most cultivated city in the West. In 1886 massive amounts of underground water filled the near 200 miles of mines and combined with the falling silver prices ended the boom. Having survived the Great Depression, removal of the county seat to Bisbee, and numerous city fires, Tombstone became known as the "Town Too Tough To Die."

Fires swept through Tombstone twice. Legend has it that in June of 1881 a cigar ignited a barrel of whiskey at the Arcade Saloon. The subsequent fire destroyed over 60 businesses in the downtown area. But the town rebuilt itself and kept on growing. In May of 1882 another fire ripped through downtown Tombstone destroying a large portion of the business district. Again, the town rebuilt.

The Bird Cage Theatre is another story. It was a saloon, theatre, gambling hall and brothel. No self-respecting woman in town would even walk on the same side of the street as the Bird Cage Theatre. It opened its doors on Christmas Day 1881 and ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year until closing its doors in 1889. In 1882, The New York Times reported, "the Bird Cage Theatre is the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast." Evidence of this can still be seen in the 140 bullet holes that have been found in the walls and ceiling. The Bird Cage was named for the cage style crib compartments suspended from the ceiling. It was in these "Bird Cages" that the "ladies of the evening" entertained their customers. They were the inspiration for the song, "She's only a bird in a gilded cage", which was quite popular during the early 1900's.

The Bird Cage is perhaps the most authentic tourist attraction in Tombstone AZ. It still contains most of the relics, furniture, window coverings and even poker tables that existed in its wild west hey day during the late 1800s. During the peak of the silver boom, it was opened on Christmas Day, December 25, 1881.

For the next eight years the Bird Cage never closed and ran continuously 24/7 every day of the year. When water began seeping into the major mines in the area and other mining veins dried-up, Tombstone died a gradual death and became a ghost town. The Bird Cage was closed and sealed-up in 1889.

Originally it was called the "Elite Theatre" and was quickly changed to the "Bird Cage Theatre." It was also sometimes called the "Bird Cage Opera House." Fourteen "cages" called "cribs" were suspended from the ceiling of the main floor. These were "bawdy cages" with drapes that were drawn closed when the "ladies of the night" entertained their customers.

Boothill

Tombstone is also the home of Boothill Graveyard. Boothill began in 1879 and was used until 1884 when the New Tombstone City Cemetery was opened on west Allen Street. After the opening of the new cemetery, Boothill became known as "The Old Cemetery". The City cemetery is still in use today.

Legend has it that Boothill was named for the fact that many residents there died violent or unexpected deaths and were buried with their boots on. However, it was actually named Boothill after Dodge City's pioneer cemetery in the hopes of attracting tourists in the late 1920's. Many famous Tombstone folks lie there including the victims of the 1881 Shootout on Fremont Street between the Earps and the Cowboys. For many years, it was neglected. The desert overtook parts of it and vandals removed grave markers.

Then, in the 1920's concerned citizens began the process of cleaning up the Old Cemetery and researching the placement of the graves to preserve it for future generations (and to make a little money on tourism).

Perhaps the most famous of those buried at Boot Hill are Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers, Frank and Tom. Their grave markers say "murdered on the streets of Tombstone, 1881". As legend has it, they were shot and killed by the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan, and John "Doc" Holiday at the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

OK Corral

The most famous event in Tombstone's history was the famed Gunfight at the OK Corral, which didn't actually happen at the corral, but in a vacant lot on Fremont Street. On October 26, 1881, members of the "Cowboys" had a run-in with Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp with help from Wyatt's friend Doc Holliday. 24 seconds and 30 shots later, Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury were mortally wounded. In many peoples opinion, it was this one event that has kept Tombstone alive for all these years.

The most famous gunfight in the history of the West occurred on October 26, 1881 in a vacant lot behind the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona when the Earp brothers and Doc Holiday fought the Clantons and the McLaurys. Virgil Earp was the marshall of Tombstone at the time and his brothers Morgan Earp and Wyatt Earp were his two deputies. They represented law in Tombstone and were joined on October 25th by their friend, Doc Holiday. The Clantons and the McLaurys were cowboys who the Earps believed were responsible for cattle rustling.

The Earps and the Clantons and the McLaurys were powerful factions in Tombstone and their famous gunfight was not the first conflict they had with each other. The cowboys had many run-ins with the law which brought them into conflict with the Earps on a regular basis. They also interfered with the Earps' political ambitions, including Wyatt Earps attempt to set up a successful campaign for sheriff. Even without their political conflicts, however, conflict between the two groups seemed almost inevitable. The Clantons and the McLaurys represented lawlessness while the Earps represented the law.

Tombstone had a city ordinance at the time preventing anyone from carrying firearms. The Cowboys' unwillingness to abide by this ordinance proved a source of much conflict between the two groups. It was why the Earps pistol whipped a drunken Ike Clanton on the 26th of October. This event was largely responsible for the famous gunfight. It made the Cowboy faction resent the Earps even further and made the Earps more determined than ever to disarm any Cowboys in the city. Thus, they marched over to where the Clantons and the McLaurys had congregated behind the OK Corral and demanded that they disarm. They did not, and a gunfight ensued.

Helldorado

Helldorado, a nickname for Tombstone, Arizona (and variation of El Dorado) created in the 1880's by a disgruntled miner who wrote a letter to the Tombstone Nugget newspaper complaining about trying to find his fortune and ending up washing dishes.

The mines filled with water, the demonetization of silver passed, and Tombstone was fast becoming a ghost town. When Breckenridge published his book, Helldorado, in 1928, Tombstone once again attracted national attention. The town with a bank of memories polished up its gunfighter image and became an important tourist attraction. In 1929 the first annual Helldorado Days celebration was held.

Bisbee

Bisbee was founded as a copper, gold, and silver mining town in 1880, and named in honor of Judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the financial backers of the adjacent Copper Queen Mine.

In 1929, the county seat was moved from Tombstone, Arizona to Bisbee, where it remains.

A syndicated television series which aired from 1956-1958, Sheriff of Cochise starring John Bromfield, was filmed in Bisbee.

By 1950, boom times were over and the population of the City of Bisbee had dropped to less than 6,000, but the introduction of open-pit mining and continued underground work would see the town escape the fate of many of its early contemporaries. However, in 1975 the Phelps Dodge Corporation finally halted its Bisbee copper-mining operations. The resulting exodus of mine employees might have been the end of the town. Bisbee survived and remains as the county seat.

Mexican Border

We encountered may strange looking cacti along the southern Arizona routes.