Oatman Arizona and its Burros

The burros that stroll Oatman's main street and beg from tourists are descendants of mining stock, turned loose when the gold played out. Oatman rose around 1906 in one of Arizona's richest gold districts, nearly died when the mines and then the Route 66 traffic left, and reinvented itself in the 1960s and 70s as a Wild West tourist town. The wild burros became its emblem and its main draw, protected and half-tame. As the old plaque here says, without them neither you nor the marker might be standing on this street.

What the plaque says

Oatman was founded around 1906 as part of Arizona's richest gold mining area. Oatman was reborn in the late 1960's and early 1970's as a tourist town. The main attraction was the wild burro herd. The burros roaming the Oatman area are descendants of the burros from the mining ventures of earlier times., If it were not for these burros in all probability, neither you nor this plaque would be standing here today. People from all over the world come to visit, feed, and take pictures of the burros.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oatman — steps away
  A gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.
• Kingman — 22 mi
  The working hub of Route 66 in Arizona — a railroad town named for a surveyor, Andy Devine's hometown, and the last real stop before the road's two wildest endings.

More markers nearby

• Arizona Hotel — steps away
• Fairchild, Olive and Oatman (1837 - 1903) — steps away
• Durlin Hotel — steps away
• Gold Road Mine — 1.4 mi