Fort Bowie & Ghost Town Trail - Arizona

Wilcox, Arizona

Elks Lodge

 

Fort Bowie

Steve finished work early one day so off we went to hike the 3 mile trail to Ft. Bowie.  There were 25 years of conflict between the Chiricahua Apache and the US Army.  The Army Fort was occupied from 1862 - 1894.

The trail itself is 3 miles but by time we hiked that and then around all of the ruins we were closer to 4 1/2 miles.

You come to the cemetery first.  This is where Geronimo's 2 year old son is buried.

Orisoba Spence was a Medal of Honor recipient.

The Apache Spring just had a trickle of water.

As you hike up to the fort you see a couple buildings.  Once you go up the hill some more it opens up to a very large area with many ruins and plaques explaining what used to be there.  We spent a lot of time walking around and reading all about the quarters, barracks, hospital, chow hall etc.

The foundation of the Commanding Officers Quarters is all that remains.

Looking out over the valley.

You can see where they are trying to restore some of the walls so what's left of the concrete doesn't just fall apart.  It's a great hike and very peaceful out here.  We've been before but it was nice to come out again.

Historic Wilcox

Some type of religious building.

There isn't too much to see in Wilcox but they do have some colorful parts to the downtown.  Most things were closed when we were there.

We heard they had great BBQ here but we didn't get to try it.

This is an old telephone booth next to the train station.  Scratched on the inside door was the 4 digit numbers to call nearby towns.

The Rex Allen Museum.  Rex was a real cowboy and one of the last singing cowboys of western movies.  General admission is $3 but it was closed also

Rex Allen

Our last stop was just outside of town at the Old City Cemetery.  Again, if not for geocaching, I'm not sure we'd have found out about this forgotten cemetery or the famous person buried here.

Warren Earp was the youngest of the Earp brothers.  He was involved in the Clanton and McLaury families trying to get payback for the killing of one of his brothers.  He was shot and killed by Johnny Boyette in Wilcox in 1900.  Some think that the shooting and death of Warren was retribution for what occurred at the OK Corral Shootout.  We have been to a few of the Earp brothers graves in the various states we've visited.  We plan to visit another when back in California.

Ghost Town Road

Pearce Jail

With a backdrop of the Dragoon Mountains, there is a 15 mile dirt road aptly called Ghost Town Rd. that will take you to through the ruins of the old mining towns of Pearce, Courtland and Gleeson.  Pearce is larger and has a population of 2000.  We started here early as the winds were supposed to pick up and a cold front would be moving in.

This was a pretty good sized cemetery.  

Some had a pretty fancy resting place and others...

More simple.

By chance we found that a pretty important person was buried here.  George Platt was Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard.  You'd think they'd make it easy to find his grave here.  No signs just a strange numbering system.  We looked for quite a bit but could not find it.  We figured it must be one of the few impressive plots.  

Nope, not this one.

Not this one either.  I did some research later and found that it's actually a simple headstone.  I'm sure we walked past it several times.  Too bad they don't make this more well known.

Old grocery and gas station.

Driving on to Courtland there isn't much out here.  Strangely, the sidewalk that sat in front of some of the buildings is about all that remains.

The old jail is mostly still intact.

One of the few windows that sits in the shower of the jail.

I'm not sure what this was.  Perhaps the mercantile?  It's well put together and the stone and wood are very interesting.

Entering Gleeson the Old Jail is about all that is standing.  It has a small museum inside that is open once a month.  There used to be a school and hospital.  The ruins of them are still here.

Rick and Angie behind bars.

The Good One was released.  The Bad One was put in handcuffs.

Who is that in the cool car?

Just a family outing.  Love the baby carseat!

Around the corner from the almost fallen down grocery store is the line of mailboxes.  On the way back home the wind was incredible.  Tumbleweeds were flying around like kamikazes.  When they weren't coming at us they were racing next to us.  I laughed that they looked like Tribbles.  At one point a wall of dirt/sand came at us and we had a brown out.  I couldn't even see so I slowly down and almost stopped.  After a few moments the worst was over and we continued back.  Yikes!

On Valentines Day we made a feast.  We had steak and shrimp, salad, broccoli, potatoes and a heart shaped chocolate cookie with lots of frosting!

Our final night we went to dinner in town at a Mexican place called La Unica.  The food was great and the margaritas were...

HUGE!

Safe travels back home!

Our two months of traveling with Rick and Angie have come to an end.  We sure had a great time.  They headed back home to Northern CA and we headed up towards Surprise.  Oh, that storm came through again with crazy winds and some rain that turned in to a little snow.  BRRR.