What it is
Goldfield is a mining camp that died twice and came back as a tourist town. A gold strike on this hill in 1892 raised a town of three saloons, a boarding house, a general store, a blacksmith, a brewery, a meat market and a schoolhouse, and the post office opened in October 1893. Within five years the vein faulted out, the ore grade fell, and the town emptied. A revival in the 1920s under the name Youngberg lasted six years, and the leftovers burned. In 1984 a group of partners led by Bob Schoose bought the old mill site and spent the rest of the decade rebuilding the 1890s town, board by board, on the same ground.
What stands now is a boardwalk Main Street under the west face of the Superstitions: a saloon, a mercantile, an apothecary, a photo parlor with the costumes, a bordello museum upstairs, a graveyard, and the two things that make it more than a set. The Mammoth Mine tour takes you underground for about twenty-five minutes, and the narrow-gauge railroad, which Goldfield says is the only one in Arizona, loops the property with a narration about the Lost Dutchman while the mountain fills the window.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because Scottsdale’s Western storefronts are imitating a place like this, and our lexicon entry on the West’s Most Western Town says as much. Old Town never had a mine; Goldfield’s is right there. More practically, it is the natural second stop on a Superstitions morning, four and a half miles up the Apache Trail from US 60 and next door to Lost Dutchman State Park. Hike the Treasure Loop at eight, be at the mine tour at ten, have lunch in the saloon at noon.
The practical version
Just under an hour from Old Town. Parking and the street are free; you buy tickets per attraction, and a family that does the mine, the train and the museum will spend what a zoo costs. The shops and the mine and train run from about ten to five; the saloon stays open later. The gunfights are hourly in the cool months and free, with a hat passed afterward. Go October to April; in July the boardwalk is a griddle.
When to go
Weekday mornings from November through March are the town at its best: the mine tour runs small, the train has seats on the mountain side, and the gunfight crew is fresh. Weekends bring the tour buses from the resorts and the snowbird RVs from the campgrounds along the Apache Trail, and the mine tour queue can run forty minutes by noon. Summer is quiet for a reason; the attractions keep shorter hours and the saloon’s shade is the only pleasant place on the hill.
What to do, in order
- The Mammoth Mine tour. Short, cool underground, a guide who has told the story a thousand times and still likes it. Go first.
- The train. Fifteen or twenty minutes around the property with the Superstitions and the Lost Dutchman narration; the best seats are on the right going out.
- The gunfight. It will find you on the hour. Stand on the saloon side of the street for the shade.
- The museum and the Lost Dutchman Hunters’ Hall of Fame. Maps, rock samples, a wall of the people who spent their lives looking. Half an hour, and it sets up the Superstition Mountain Museum down the road if you want the serious version.
- Lunch at the Mammoth Saloon. Burgers, a decent patio, the mountain. Not a culinary stop, but the view fixes that.
With kids
This is the best half day in the Superstitions for anyone under twelve: a mine, a train, a gunfight, a reptile house, a Mystery Shack of tilted rooms, a zipline and a horse ride, with a mountain that looks like a movie poster. Our Scottsdale with kids note pairs it with the Treasure Loop for a full outing. Strollers manage the boardwalks but not the mine; the tour has stairs.
The story
The gold here was real, and it was brief. The strike came in 1892, on the flank of the hill above what became the Mammoth Mine, and the camp that grew around it had the usual Arizona proportions: more saloons than churches, a schoolhouse because families came, a brewery because it was a long way to Mesa. The Goldfield post office opened on October 7, 1893. By 1897 the vein had faulted, meaning the ore body shifted and the miners lost it, and the grade of what remained did not pay. The mines closed, the post office shut in 1898, and the town went quiet. A second attempt in 1920 renamed the camp Youngberg, after George U. Young, who had been secretary of the Arizona Territory, and ran a post office until 1926. A fire in the 1940s took most of what was left, and the rest was salvaged for lumber.
Bob Schoose and his partners bought the mill site in 1984. The reconstruction took the better part of five years, using photographs and the surviving foundations to put the town back roughly where it had been, and it has been adding buildings since. The mine tour, the railroad and the gunfight troupe arrived in stages; the zipline is recent. It is a commercial attraction and does not pretend otherwise, but it is on the right hill, which is more than most Western towns can say.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale had its own Western town for thirty years. Rawhide opened on Scottsdale Road in 1971 and moved to the Gila River Indian Community in 2005, taking the stagecoach and the gunfights with it. Goldfield is what Rawhide was imitating, a real mining camp rebuilt, and visitors who remember the old Rawhide tend to come away from Goldfield saying it is the better version. Old Town’s storefronts and the West’s Most Western Town slogan belong to the same family.
Getting there
From Old Town, the 101 south to the 202 east, the 202 to US 60 east, exit Idaho Road and go north about two miles to the Apache Trail (SR 88), then east four and a half miles; Mammoth Mine Road is on the left, well signed. About 58 minutes with no traffic. Lost Dutchman State Park is the next driveway east and the Superstition Mountain Museum is a mile back toward town, so the three make one morning. Our day trips note has the full-day version that continues up the Apache Trail to Tortilla Flat.