We had seen a newspaper article about a dirt and gravel road call “Ghost Town Trail” that takes off east from Tombstone and goes through the abandoned towns of Gleeson, Courtland and Pearce, AZ…all mining towns that had boomed at one point but were no longer inhabited. So that was our side trip for Monday… So off we headed with the Girls in the back seat, happy as could be to just be with us instead of being left behind. (They hate that.) To get there we drove south from Kartchner Caverns on Highway 90 to the junction with Highway 82 (which we had been on when we went to Patagonia Lake several weeks earlier (but further west)… We turned left off of 90 onto 82 and headed east past Fairbank, another ghost town. Fairbank is a developed site, part of the San Pedro River Resource Conservation Area…There’s a museum in what was the school house and several other buildings remaining, plus a grave yard. We didn’t take the hike because we had the Girls with us and didn’t want to leave them unattended and we didn’t want to take them on the trail. So we just stopped for a bit to acknowledge it and kept going. Looks like it’s a favorite place to take horses, too, judging by the empty horse trailers in the parking lot. From Fairbank we again headed east to pick up Highway 80 just north of Tombstone and headed south to Tombstone. We are not big Tombstone fans…not that the history and lore isn’t interesting or important to Arizona’s history…it’s just a bit too commercialized and touristy for our tastes…we tend to avoid those places. The inhabitats of Boot Hill would tunr over in their graves, for sure. We do give the town credit, though, for its marketing and figuring out a way to become “The Town Too Tough To Die.” Thanks to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, the Clanton Gang, and the OK Corral. The turn-off for Ghost Town Trail east off the main drag on the south end of town is well marked. It’s a gravel-washboard-dirt-t-t-t-t- road, so be prepared! We are really glad we did not have the Airstream in tow! It’s a drive that takes you from Tombstone through the high desert through Gleeson, then north to where Courtland used to flourish and on to Pearce, finally connecting with Highway 191 which you can take north back up to I-10 (unless you want to go back over that washboard road again, which we doubt!)… After you’ve driven far enough to wonder if it was a good idea in the first place, you come to a sign that says “Rattlesnake Crafts 2 Miles” and points southwest from the dirt road…onto an even less-maintained dirt road. “What the heck,” we said and turned down the road. We met an old pickup truck coming the opposite direction driven by an elderly gentleman, did the farmer wave thing and pulled over to let him by. It was worth the two miles. At the end of the road was a sight to behold…an old trailer house surrounded by an amazing collection of rusting metal objects, metal sculpture, ore samples, animal (and alien) skulls, and just about everything else under the sun…literally under the sun. They have built fence like structures to form walkways and open-air “rooms,” and each is lined with so much “stuff” (some of which are definitely antique in nature and quite interesting) that it would take days to photography it all. It was overwhelming and entertaining. There are places that are signed “park here” with an arrow pointing to a clearing in the collection… The old trailer house is open and has trinkets like snake skin bracelets, curios, ore samples, etc. for sale…nothing in the collection outside is for sale, unfortunately, or our truck would have been overflowing with great objets d’art. There’s a sign on the door of the trailer that says if nobody is there and you want to buy something, just put the money or a check in the box by the door. The Girls were beside themselves…both as excited as we were! They were on leash, but crazily running from point to point putting their noses in everything they could reach or jump up onto…it was no doubt a carnival of smells for them. We tried to get pictures of their antics, but they flitted from one spot to the next so fast we couldn’t get them to stand still for a picture! Too funny. They are such fun on these outings. We had an unexpected special treat while we were at Rattlesnake Crafts. We’d just arrived and were marveling at the sight of it all when a car pulled up in a cloud of dust and parked in another “park here” spot. A couple of ladies climbed out and lo and behold, we recognized them…they were Joan and Jen…we have mutual friends, Lisa and Anna, back in Tucson…we’d . met Joan at several functions at Lisa and Anna’s house! It was a hoot to be out in the middle of nowhere and run into someone we knew! Again, it’s a small, small world. We did say hello to one of the owners of the place, too…as she poked her head out the door of another old trailer…don’t know if they live there or not, but it wouldn’t surprise us. There was a real house down a ways, so maybe that’s where they really live. We took tons of pictures and still didn’t do it justice. This place in itself is a destination for a day trip! Finally we got the Girls back into the truck, said our goodbyes to Joan and Jen and took off back to the main dirt road to proceed toward Gleeson. An interesting thing that we noticed here…there seemed to be quite a bit of new construction going on nearby…over the hill perhaps, out of site…we kept seeing large truck bearing building materials, etc., headed down side dirt roads…we never saw any of this new building, and wondered how anyone could make a living out here. Maybe they don’t...or don’t need to (lucky them). Maybe they are just tired of living around people…if so, this is definitely the place to come. A little further up the road we came to the Gleeson Cemetery along side the road. Some pretty old grave sites there, but surprisingly, there were a few recent graves as well…perhaps family plots. It was pretty much abandoned feeling and badly overgrown…like a ghost town graveyard should be. But someone is still putting plastic flowers on the graves… It was interesting to read the names and dates and wonder how they ended up here… A mile or so down the road were the remains of what was left of Gleeson…a jailhouse, school, saloon, hospital and a couple other buildings looking south over the broad valley toward Elfrida, McNeal, Pirtleville and finally Douglas which sites very near the Mexico border…none of which were close enough to be visible. Gleeson is not developed or interpreted in any way other than a hand-painted wooded sign that says “Welcome to Gleeson” with various population numbers crossed out until “100” was reached....we dont think there are 100 inhabitants there any more, either. Probably not authentic, but kinda fun, nonetheless… The nearby hillside bears witness to the mining activity that had once been the town’s boon…you can see open mines and trailings from them from the road. This stretch of the road was paved, by the way…not sure why, but it was a relief. The pavement didn’t last long, however, as we turned north onto a dirt road to head north toward Courtland and Pearce. Courtland was even less obvious than Gleeson…ruins of buildings with no real indication of recent activity…again what one might expect from a “ghost town!” Pearce, where the Ghost Trail ends and connects with Highway 191, does have some people living there still…there’s a general store (closed) an pottery shop (closed), a school, and some homes scattered about. I was a little lonely feeling there, though…we didn’t see any people other than a few other cars passing through… Wish the store and pottery shop had been open…they would have been fun to visit. We met up with Highway 191 and drove north through Sunsites and Cochise to catch Interstate 10 just west of Willcox…from there we headed back to Benson and Kartchner Caverns State Park for our last night there. It was a long day, lots of “great outdoors” and gravel roads, but a trip worth taking. Click on the slideshow button below to see pictures of this segment, click on any one of the other segments of this trip, or click on “Other Trips” to take you to our main trip page. http://www.ledgendsofamerica.com/AZ-Fairbank.htmlhttp://www.americanwest.com/pages/tombston.htmhttp://legendsofamerica.com/az-ghosttowntrail.htmlshapeimage_6_link_0shapeimage_6_link_1shapeimage_6_link_2
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