Copper Creek is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

Pinal County Pinal County is in the central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. According to the 2020 census, the population of the county was 425,264, making it Arizona's third-most populous county. The county seat is Florence. The county was founded in 187 ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, United States. Copper Creek is located in a canyon in the

Galiuro Mountains The Galiuro Mountains are a large sky island mountain range of southeast Arizona, United States. It is a northerly mountain range in the Madrean Sky Islands region of southeast Arizona, northern Sonora in northwestern Mexico, and the extreme ...

History

This town once had around 50 buildings. It had a peak population of approximately 500. Its

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

was established March 6, 1906 and was disestablished August 31, 1942. A short-lived narrow-gauge railway line was built in 1913, with the locomotive and cars carried overland from the railhead at

Winkelman Winkelman is a town in Gila and Pinal counties in Arizona, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town was 353, all of whom lived in Gila County. History The community was named after Peter Winkelman, a local catt ...

. Notable remains of the old town include the foundations of the post office and the shell of the Sibley Mansion.

Geology

The Copper Creek

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

district contains a substantial copper deposit; in recent years, several companies have proposed opening a mine there. The district hosts more than 500 mineralized

breccia pipe A breccia pipe, also referred to as a chimney, is a mass of breccia (rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix), often in an irregular and cylindrical shape. Characteristics When exposed a ...

s. Buried porphyry-style, stockwork copper mineralization has attracted exploration interest in recent years.

Geography

Copper Creek is about ten miles east of the community of

Mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks an ...

, via a rough dirt road.

References

External links

Faraday Copper
Canada Mining Company Destroying Copper Creek *

– Ghost Town of the Month at azghosttowns.com {{authority control Ghost towns in Arizona 1906 establishments in Arizona Territory Populated places established in 1906 Mining communities in Arizona Former populated places in Pinal County, Arizona