Gila City 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 ...

in Yuma County in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

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 ...

. The town was settled in 1858 in what was then the

New Mexico Territory The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of '' Nuevo México'' becomin ...

History

Gila City was founded on the south bank of the

Gila River The Gila River (; O'odham ima Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil, Maricopa language: Xiil) is a tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of ...

, 19 miles east of the confluence of the Gila and

Colorado river The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

s. Also known as Ligurta, the town was established as a result of Arizona's first major gold rush, when Colonel Jacob Snively led a party of prospectors to a placer deposit along the Gila River in and around Monitor Gulch, which emerges from the Gila Mountains to the south. A booming gold camp, Gila City developed nearly overnight as prospectors rushed to the site. The

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service i ...

route passed through the boom town and one of its stations, Swivelers lay a mile to the east at the eastern edge of the placer deposits where a post office was established for Gila City on December 24, 1858. The Gila placers were worked for eight years by thousands of miners. They worked the plateaus and canyons nearby, panning out $20 to $125 a day in gold dust, and nuggets weighing up to 22 ounces each were deposited at the Wells Fargo office in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

. In March 1859, the Gila Mining and Transportation Company sent a cargo to

Robinson's Landing Robinson's Landing was a location in Baja California, Mexico. It lay on the west bank of the Colorado River northwest of the north tip of Montague Island in the Colorado River Delta, 10 miles above the mouth of the river on the Gulf of California. ...

, in the schooner ''Arno''. This cargo included a steam engine to pump water to the Gila mine that lay a mile from the Gila River. Included in the cargo was a disassembled 125 foot stern-wheel steamboat, built by Henry Owens. Scott, Erving M. and Others, ''Evolution of Shipping and Ship-Building in California, Part III'', Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Volume 25, March 1895
p. 287; from quod.lib.umich.edu accessed December 14, 2014 The nameless steamboat had been sent to equip their own lower cost steamboat line, as a rival to the George A. Johnson Company, however it was lost there before it was ever unloaded. The tidal bore tore loose ''Arno's'' anchors, driving the ship on a sandbar holing and sinking it in a half-hour with the ship and cargo a total loss. Without the steam engine providing water for washing out the gold at the mine, these American miners used to the plentiful water of California's placers in the north, could not work it profitably and the town soon was mostly abandoned. Only Sonora miners familiar with dry wash techniques stayed and made it pay. Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852–1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978
In 1859 Lieutenant

Sylvester Mowry Sylvester Mowry (January 17, 1833 – October 17, 1871) was an American politician, miner, and land speculator. He is best remembered as an early advocate for the establishment of the Arizona Territory. He was also a West Point graduate and offi ...

, reported about 100 men and several families working the gravels at Gila City and saw more than $20 washed from 8 shovelfuls of dirt. Some miners were paid $3 a day plus board to work lower grade deposits. Most of the gold was recovered by first drywashing, then by wetwashing the dry-panned concentrates at the Gila River. Flooding of the Gila River in the

Great Flood of 1862 The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows in the very high elevations that began in ...

destroyed the remnants of the town, and the post office was discontinued on July 14, 1863. Most of the population had already moved on to the new gold rush at

La Paz La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the third-most populous city in Bol ...

. The best of the placers continued to be worked on a reduced scale until 1865, all the known productive ground was worked over at least once since then. A few large-scale operations were later attempted over the years, but these were unsuccessful.

Today

All trace of the town is gone, but small-scale mining continues today. The area of gold-bearing gravel extends from 1/4 mile east of Dome to 3 miles west of

Dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

, but most placer mining was centered on Monitor Gulch, miles west of Dome. Most of the gold in the gravels was found at or near bedrock in gulches, but much gold was recovered from bench gravels in the area.Eldred D. Wilson, "Gold Placers and Placering in Arizona", Bulletin 168, State of Arizona, Bureau of Geology and Mineral Technology, Geological Survey Branch, A Division of the University of Arizona, Reprinted 1981, p. 18
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References

External links

* ttp://theazprospector.blogspot.com/2011/03/look-at-historic-gila-city-arizona-and.html "A Look At Historic Gila City Arizona And Its Sad Fate", ''The Arizona Prospector''
Arizona Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, Internet Presentation, Version 050710, Dome Cemetery and Gila City – Dome, Yuma County, Arizona, By Kathy and Ed Block, APCRP Historians
{{Butterfield3 New Mexico Territory

Gila City, Arizona Gila City is a ghost town in Yuma County in the U.S. state of Arizona. The town was settled in 1858 in what was then the New Mexico Territory. History Gila City was founded on the south bank of the Gila River, 19 miles east of the confluence o ...

Butterfield Overland Mail in New Mexico Territory Former populated places in Yuma County, Arizona 1858 establishments in New Mexico Territory Stagecoach stops in the United States