Goldfield Mining District

Below the Superstition Mountains, the Goldfield district was worked in fits and starts for seventy years, and this spot tells the small-scale version of the gold story. The claim here ran from 1892, passing through names like the Montezuma, the Calamity, and finally the Bluebird, first mined in 1893 for some of the richest gold in the district. In the 1940s and 50s a miner called Red Monagan dug a tunnel by hand and ground his ore in an old Spanish arrastre, only to find the vein had turned to low-grade rock. Goldfield is a ghost town now.

What the plaque says

This spot, worked from 1892 to 1898, was part of the Mammoth Mine claims, known as the Montezuma in 1893, then Calamity after 1910, and the Bluebird from 1944. The Bluebird Mine was found in 1893 and first worked by J. R. Morse and the Merrill Brothers to a depth of 60 feet on a quartz vein up to 3 feet wide, some of the richest gold in the district. From 1947 to 1952 George "Red" Monagan worked the Bluebird, digging a 140-foot tunnel and milling ore with an old Spanish arrastre, but found only low-grade ore.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Superstition Mountains — 4.5 mi
  The volcanic range that holds the Lost Dutchman legend — and outlasts it
• The Apache Trail — 7.4 mi
  The 1904 road built to raise Roosevelt Dam, still barely tamed
• Taliesin West — 23 mi
  Frank Lloyd Wright's desert masterwork, grown from the ground it stands on
• Oak Flat — 27 mi
  Chi'chil Bildagoteel — the Apache sacred ground a copper mine is set to swallow

More markers nearby

• Superstition Mountain Historical Society — 1.1 mi
• Taliesin West — 23 mi
• Charles Miller — 25 mi
• US 60 History Trail — 25 mi