Ghost Town Search - Gleeson, Courtland, and Pearce

Today we went out searching for a few old ghost towns nearby.  This is one of the things Brad really wanted to do when we picked out Tombstone as a location to spend a month.  A couple of the "towns" were truly deserted, with little left of the town.  One was still kind of a town, with a few people living in the renovated buildings that occupied the town long ago.

The first town we visited was Gleeson.  Gleeson was first named Turquoise, after the turquoise that was mined in the area.  The Turquoise post office had a short life, from 1890-1894.  Later, a man named John Gleeson registered a copper claim and opened the Copper Belle Mine a short distance from where Turquoise was.  At one time Gleeson had 500 residents.  The Gleeson post office was operational from 1900-1939.  Among the remnants of buildings left are a hospital, a saloon, jail, foundation of the school, and evidence of the mining in the hills behind the town location.

This is the old jail.  It is now a museum.

You can see the evidence of the old copper mine up in the hills.

This is pretty much all that is left of Courtland... The old jail.  Courtland was founded in 1909 due to a copper boom, and was named for Courtland Young, an owner of one of the mines.  There was once four copper mines and two railroad lines in town.  At its height, it had 2000 residents.  The town didn't last long, as profits from the mines began to shrink, and a mass exodus occurred in 1921.  A post office was operational until 1942.

The actual jail isn't in bad shape, but has a lot of graffiti on the walls.

We could see mining trails going up several of the hills we drove through.

Pearce was named for James Pearce, a miner and cattleman.  He discovered gold at what became the Commonwealth Mine.  The mine produced gold and silver from 1895-1942.  It was one of Arizona's major silver producers.  By 1919, Pearce had a population of 1500.  There are several structures still left in Pearce, some being used now as businesses or private residences.

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As we drove back to our RV park, we took a long winding road through the Coronado National Forest.  The road was kind of sketchy at times, but offered some beautiful views.

There are many, MANY more ghost towns to search out around here.  I'm sure they will all range from the one building in Courtland, to several renovated buildings in Pearce.  It's fun to look for them, and research the history of the towns.  In this area, pretty much everything had to do with the silver mines.