Friday

Chloride Arizona

Chloride Arizona
E-P1000981The third week in August, my friend Harvey Smith and I traveled to Chloride a nearly dead silver and gold mining town located at the base of the Cerbat Mountains in northwestern Arizona. With a population that was once over 2,500 during its heyday in the late 1800’s, it is now down to less than 250 year-round residents. There are over 75 abandoned silver and gold mines here, the largest two of which have recently been ‘reopened’ for production. Probably the towns’ biggest draw are the Roy Purcell Murals, painted in the mid 1980’s on a large rock outcrop about a mile and a half outside of town. Today, at 76, Roy Purcell, a Utah native and 30-year Las Vegas resident, is probably best known throughout the Southwest for his etchings and paintings of Indian and southwestern subjects. We also spent several hours exploring the Cerbat Mountain range. Check it out here … Chloride Arizona.