Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of Big Bug Creek's line of trees winding southeast below brown hills, with AZ 69 and the houses of Poland Junction to the right

Gold mining town

Big Bug

A gold camp of about 100 people on Big Bug Creek, 12 miles southeast of Prescott, built around Theodore Boggs's mines and smelter. The post office closed in 1910. Many maps and websites put it 15 miles from where it stood.

34°26′58″N 112°16′40″W · ≈4,830 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain). See the photographs in the gallery below.

Little left (2010)

The townsite lies along Big Bug Creek just west of Poland Junction. The newest dated account we found is Wikipedia's, written in January 2010: it says little if anything of the town remained as of 2010, citing a 1969 guidebook. An undated listing describes foundations mixed in with homes and mining operations. We found no source on land ownership or access. Look from the road and stay off private land.

Overview

Boggs's Big Bug

Big Bug grew along Big Bug Creek on the eastern edge of the Bradshaw Mountains, about 12 miles southeast of Prescott and just west of today's Poland Junction on AZ 69. Miners named the creek in 1863 for the big flying insects they found there. Theodore Boggs, who had come over from California, settled on it and spent the next four decades staking claims, and the district became known as Boggs' Big Bug.

The camp stayed small. A post office opened in Boggs's house in 1879, for a while under the name Red Rock, and the camp held about 100 people; the count in 1890 was 115. In January 1898 the Arizona Journal-Miner reported new buildings going up, a New Year's Eve dance in the schoolhouse and a new saloon. Boggs ran a smelter and sold two of his mines in 1899 for $125,000. He died in 1905 when his team ran away on the drive from the smelter, and the post office closed in 1910.

The creek outlasted the town. Placer miners came back in the 1930s, about 60 of them in 1932, and dredges later worked through the gravels. The Big Bug placers have a recorded output of 17,000 ounces of gold and an estimated 50,000 in all. Homes now stand along parts of the creek near Poland Junction, and the newest dated account we found, Wikipedia's from 2010, says little if anything of the town remains.

Timeline

Sixty years on Big Bug Creek

  1. Theodore Boggs comes over from California and settles on the creek. Sources give both years.
  2. Miners from the Walker diggings on Lynx Creek name Big Bug Creek for the large flying insects they find there.
  3. A post office opens as Bigbug, at first in Boggs's house just east of the camp.
  4. The post office is renamed Red Rock in November 1879 and Big Bug in March 1881.
  5. A museum photograph from about this time shows the Boggs Smelter.
  6. The population is 115.
  7. Saloon keeper James Hughes shoots and kills a man named Candelaria in a dispute over a debt.
  8. The Arizona Journal-Miner reports new buildings going up, a New Year's Eve dance in the schoolhouse and a new saloon.
  9. Boggs sells the Butternut and Gold Reef mines for $125,000.
  10. Deputies bring in a suspect on September 23 in the killing of miner Bruce Profitt, shot from ambush on his way to work at the Argyle Mine.
  11. Boggs dies when his team runs away on the drive from the smelter. He is buried in Prescott on June 9.
  12. The post office closes.
  13. About 60 amateur placer miners work the creek, some taking out as much as $300 a week.
  14. Dredges work the creek gravels, the source of most of the Big Bug placers' gold.
  15. The USGS Poland Junction sheet shows dredge tailings above and below the townsite.

Location

Where Big Bug actually stood

Bigbug on the creek road west of Poland Siding, with the Boggs Smelter to the south, USGS Bradshaw Mountains sheet, 1903
Bigbug on the creek road west of Poland Siding, with the Boggs Smelter to the south, USGS Bradshaw Mountains sheet, 1903 · Map: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain

Wikipedia and many sites that copy it give Big Bug's coordinates as 34.315, -112.067. That point is the mouth of Big Bug Creek at the Agua Fria River in the USGS place-name database, about 15 miles southeast of the townsite, and it falls in a different township. Wikipedia's own text, "twelve miles southeast of Prescott," doesn't fit it.

We use the point the American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project worked out for the north half of Section 5, Township 12 North, Range 1 East, which it says is accurate to about half a mile. The BLM's survey grid confirms the point is in that section, an undated listing gives the same township and range, and it sits about 12 miles from Prescott. The old maps agree: the 1903 sheet prints "Bigbug" on the creek road just west of Poland Siding, the 1947 and 1975 sheets show buildings beside the creek here, and the 1975 sheet marks dredge tailings above and below.

One loose end: the same research notes also put Big Bug 1.8 miles from Poland Junction, which would move it a mile or so farther up the creek, closer to where the 1903 sheet prints the name. Treat our marker as good to about a mile.

USGS topographic map of Big Bug Creek west of Poland Junction and AZ 69
USGS The National Map, topo. Big Bug Creek runs southeast through the center toward Poland Junction and AZ 69 at right.
Aerial view of a tree-lined creek with houses along it and dirt roads on the slope above
Aerial imagery, same area. Trees mark the creek; houses sit along it, with roads and tracks on the slope above.

Legend and record

Bugs, a dugout fight and a governor's family

The name. The Sharlot Hall Museum and an undated listing both say the creek was named for large insects, and the listing adds that big bugs still turn up in spring. The post office used both spellings, and Bigbug for its last 15 years.

The fight at the dugout. Wikipedia and the American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project tell how Boggs and three companions were attacked in the dugout where they slept by their claim. Wikipedia names the attackers as Apaches and says they rolled boulders onto the roof. The miners shot through portholes, two attackers were killed, and the rest are said to have burned their dead on the ridge in full view before leaving. We found no contemporary record of it. Treat it as a story.

The Boggs family. Wikipedia and the cemetery project call Theodore Boggs a son of Lilburn Boggs, the Missouri governor, and say he traveled west at ten alongside the Donner Party. A 1999 Sharlot Hall Museum column calls Theodore and his brother John nephews of the governor. The sources disagree, and we haven't resolved it.

The same column says a grizzly mauled one side of Boggs's face while he hunted alone in California and left him for dead. He lived more than forty years after that and died in 1905, when his team bolted on the road from his smelter.

Historic maps

Big Bug on USGS maps, 1887–1981

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Big Bug, 1887
Prescott sheet, 1887, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Prescott is the nearest city, 23 miles away. Both routes follow AZ 69 to Poland Junction, and the townsite is a short way west along Poland Junction Road beside Big Bug Creek. People live and mine along the creek, so treat this as a look from the road.

USGS topographic map from Prescott southeast along AZ 69 to Poland Junction and Big Bug, with both routes drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Prescott23.0 miabout 37 min
  1. From downtown Prescott, take Cortez Street to Gurley Street and head east. Gurley Street becomes AZ 69.1.3 mi
  2. Follow AZ 69 southeast through Prescott Valley and Dewey-Humboldt to Poland Junction.21 mi
  3. Turn right on Poland Junction Road. The townsite area is beside Big Bug Creek on the left.0.6 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • Poland Junction Road runs west from AZ 69 past homes along Big Bug Creek. Park only where it's legal, and don't enter yards or fenced claims.
  • Big Bug Creek floods in storms. The National Weather Service photographed it running over a road in Mayer in July 2017 (see the photos), and a storm chaser filmed a flash flood coming down it near Mayer on October 12, 2026. Don't drive into moving water.
  • If a map app or another website sends you to 34.315, -112.067, that's the creek's mouth at the Agua Fria River, about 15 miles southeast. Use the point on this page.
  • The forest roads on Big Bug Mesa, southwest of the townsite, can close in wet weather. The Prescott National Forest closed them from March 14 to 27, 2025.

Photos

Big Bug in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Big Bug?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Big Bug

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Arizona index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Big Bug": fact sheet fields (roads, legal description, climate, best time, remains, post office dates, name).
  2. Wikipedia, "Big Bug, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: Boggs's arrival, distance from Prescott, the 1890 population, the 1932 placer miners, placer output, the dugout story, the 2010 description (in the article since January 2010; it cites James and Barbara Sherman, Ghost Towns of Arizona, 1969). Its coordinates are the creek mouth; see "Finding the site".
  3. American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Bigbug a.k.a. Big Bug a.k.a. Red Rock" (Janice Cottrell, archived copy, 2009): the Sec. 5 location and coordinates, post office names, the 1896 and 1901 shootings, the 1898 Journal-Miner report quoted from Nell Murbarger, possible graves.
  4. Richard Gorby, "The Boggs of Boggs Big Bug Creek," Sharlot Hall Museum Days Past, June 5, 1999: naming of the creek, Boggs's life and death, the 1899 mine sale, the smelter, the nephew account.
  5. Arizona Journal-Miner, June 9, 1905, via the Arizona Obituary Archive: Boggs's funeral in Prescott and the Big Bug postmistress.
  6. USGS Geographic Names (The National Map): the Big Bug Creek mouth (feature 26244) and Poland Junction (feature 33081). BLM PLSS survey grid: the Section 5 check.
  7. Prescott National Forest, weather-related road closure, March 14, 2025: the Big Bug Mesa road closures.
  8. DL Scales - West Coast Storm Chasers, "Chasing Flash Floods Caused by Tropical Storm Rachel - Big Bug Creek, Arizona (10/12/26)", YouTube, posted October 13, 2026: the October 12, 2026 flash flood on Big Bug Creek near Mayer (road notes only; it doesn't show the townsite).
  9. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

Record5 of 10
  • Post office dates and names
  • Founder and early history
  • Location, to about a mile
  • Historic maps, 1887–1981
  • Placer gold output
  • Current land ownership
  • Access status
  • Field report since 2010
  • Cemetery location
  • Photos of the townsite today
Missing items are what we'll ask readers and local sources to fill.