A Detour to Castle Dome Mine

I know, I know. Last post I told you we were going to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Instead, my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants spirit took over and we decided to take a detour to the Castle Dome dispersed camping area, about 30 miles from Palm Canyon.  We had three reasons good reasons for doing that. One, there is a mining museum/ghost town at Castle Dome we wanted to visit last year but didn’t get to.  Secondly, the Silver Spur Rodeo is in Yuma this weekend.  We attended our first rodeo here five years ago and had a good time so decided we wanted to go again.  Finally, we have friends that are camping there.  Seems like three solid reasons to push our visit to the organ pipe cacti off for a while. 

Castle Dome is in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. Our original intention was to stay here five or six days and then move on.  However, once we got back here and saw the stunning scenery, the number of hiking opportunities and how quiet it is (except for an occasional distant rumble of munitions explosions from the nearby Yuma Proving Grounds), we decided to stay longer.  We are surrounded on three sides by mountains and a lush desert landscape on the other.  We may have a new favorite spot. These are the views looking out our front door:

Castle Dome Mining Museum

Our first order of business is to visit the mining museum and ghost town we didn’t get to last year. The Castle Dome Mining Museum represents what the mining town of Castle Dome City looked like back in the late 1800’s. Castle Dome is the longest working mining district in Arizona, having a patent since 1871. There are about 300 mines in the Castle Dome Mining district. We ran across several of the abandoned mine shafts on our hikes back through the mountains.

An Era Begins

Castle Dome City came to life after silver was discovered in the mid-1800’s. The city had a mercantile, bars , sheriff’s office, a jail, a hotel, a doctor’s office, blacksmith shop, barber shop, brothels, a school and many houses. The original town covered about 4 square miles at the base of the Castle Dome Mountains and had about 3700 citizens in it’s heyday. The town sat vacant for years after mining operations shut down in 1979. The elements and vandals created an eyesore of the abandoned buildings. Before the buildings were completely destroyed, Allen Armstrong bought the land and , disassembled and moved them into the new old ghost town of Castle Dome. Many of the buildings contain original artifacts found throughout the area.

Drinking establishments made up a disproportionate amount of buildings here with 5 bars within a mile. I can only imagine what took up the bulk of the Sheriff’s time

The End of an Era

The mines were mostly played out by the early 1900’s but both WWI and WWII created a great need for lead. Castle Dome was open once again and shipped out hundreds of tons of high grade ore used for munitions. The mines at Castle Dome slowed down after WWII and finally, mining operations ceased for good in 1979 when the price of silver collapsed. The last remaining miner just walked away leaving his trailer and truck behind.

There is an additional tour option that takes you to the magnificent Arizona Fluorescent Mineral Wall at the Hull Mine. On this tour, the underground, natural fluorescent and phosphorescent mineral walls will ‘overwhelm your senses by the bright colors and patterns, making this an unforgettable experience.’ The tour goes on to explore different parts of the mine, the desperado hideout, a blacksmith shop, and much more. We didn’t do this tour because it’s quite expensive so we can’t say whether it was worth it or not.

Hiking

There are a bunch of old roads crisscrossing the valley between the mountains here. The roads are closed to vehicular traffic now, I’m guessing after the mines shut down to protect the big horn sheep. Now they make great hiking trails. I assume they are left over vestiges from the old mining community because you pass a lot of old mine shafts in the first mile or so as you walk back into the valley.

On one of our hikes, we came upon some of what appears to be the old, original town. We couldn’t get up close and personal because it was fenced off. If you look closely at the hotel front door, you’ll see the sidelights appear to be made out of bottles.

This looks like the remains of where they processed the ore. It wasn’t fenced off so we had a walk around.

After you get past the old mine shafts and the old town, the roads are fewer and the scenery becomes much more stunning. And the best part is we can access all these hikes from our camper. We don’t have to drive anywhere to get to the trailheads.

Silver Spur Rodeo

The Silver Spur Rodeo was another reason we chose to take a detour to the Castle Dome Mine area. We attended our first rodeo here five years ago. We had a good time so we decided to come back. This is the 77th year Yuma has sponsored a PRCA sanctioned rodeo. I can’t tell you much about the pro rodeo circuit but it was entertaining. Not only do you get to see the usual rodeo activities but it’s a great place to people watch.

These bronco and bull riders experience what the announcer called an 8 second car wreck. Some were walking a little funny after hitting the dirt. You couldn’t pay me enough to get on one of these.

And hats off to these guys who keep the bull riders from getting killed.

Then there’s the calf wrestling and roping competitions;

And the fan favorites of trick riding, mutton busting, and barrel racing. The girl in red is only 12 years old.

And a tip of the cap to the rodeo version of the Zamboni driver for cleaning the ice and smoothing out the surface between the events.

There’s a lot of action packed into 2 1/2 hours. And I can guarantee you the halftime show here was better than at this year’s Super Bowl.

Friends

Meeting up with friends is always great. But sometimes, it has its drawbacks. For instance, our friends here have a OHV they let us use a couple times to cruise around the wildlife refuge roads. It was a lot of fun but now I have to get one. These guys are going to cost me a lot of money.

Moving On . . .

Our detour to Castle Dome Mine was definitely worth our time. The scenery and solitude here are incredible. But now it’s time to head to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I promise that’s where we’ll be next – unless we take another detour.