Abandoned Towns
Sepia postcard of Congress about 1914: rows of wooden houses below the mine buildings, a pale tailings dump and a rocky hill

Gold mining town

Congress

The camp of the Congress Mine, one of territorial Arizona's biggest gold producers. The town's name moved three miles south to the railroad in 1938, and the old townsite is now tailings, foundations and two cemeteries.

34°11′46″N 112°51′11″W · ≈3,280 ft

Photo: Erwin Baer, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Ruins · 2020 photo

The old town is gone, and there are no services. Federal land records (PAD-US) show the townsite, the mine and the tailings as private land, with BLM public land around the old Pioneer Cemetery. Casa Minerals holds a 90% interest in the mine's patented and lode claims, and a 2015 visitor found a gate and warning sign there. Visitors walked the townsite from the cemeteries on Ghost Town Road in 2014 and 2015, and a February 2020 photo shows the tailings dump and desert scrub where the town stood. The townsite is private, so view it from the cemeteries unless the owner lets you in. Respect fences and posted signs and stay off the mine workings. Modern Congress, about three miles south on AZ 89, is a living community.

Overview

The gold camp the name left behind

The 1914 view in 2020: the tailings dump and desert scrub where the town stood
The 1914 view in 2020: the tailings dump and desert scrub where the town stood · Photo: Bradteubner, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Old Congress grew up around the Congress Mine on the southeast slope of the Date Creek Mountains, about 18 miles north-northwest of Wickenburg. Dennis May and two partners staked the Congress claim in March 1884. In 1887 the mine went to Joseph "Diamond Jo" Reynolds, a Midwestern steamboat owner, and after 1894 a group of Tombstone mine owners built it into one of the biggest gold producers in the territory. By 1902 it ran two 40-stamp mills, a cyanide plant and roasting furnaces, and its main shaft went down about 4,000 feet by 1905.

The town had two halves. Mill Town, by the mine, held the mills, company offices, bunkhouses and a hospital. Lower Town, about 2,200 feet south of the company store, held the saloons, stores, boarding houses and a dance hall. It had no water supply, and fires in 1898 and 1900 burned parts of it. A Sanborn insurance map gave the population as 1,200 in July 1901. A Sharlot Hall Museum account puts it at about 2,000.

The decline began before the mine shut. The Sanborn map of December 1910 gives just 200 people, and the mine closed in early 1911 when its parent company failed. Lessees reworked the tailings for years. The post office closed in August 1938, and the name Congress moved to the railroad stop three miles southeast. That stop is the Congress on today's maps, a community of 1,811 at the 2020 census. The old townsite sits at the north end of Ghost Town Road. Stanton, another gold camp of the same years, lies about 7 miles east below Rich Hill.

Timeline

From claim to company town to tailings

  1. Dennis May co-locates a claim on the Date Creek Lode, in what becomes the Martinez Mining District.
  2. May and two partners stake the Congress claim. The camp dates from here.
  3. Frank Murphy brokers the sale of the Congress group to Joseph "Diamond Jo" Reynolds, a Midwestern steamboat owner, for $30,000. A Sharlot Hall Museum record gives $39,000. A ten-stamp mill follows and is later doubled to twenty.
  4. The Congress post office opens.
  5. Reynolds dies at the mine. Wikipedia gives February 21, 1891. A Sharlot Hall Museum record says February 1890.
  6. The Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway passes about three miles southeast of the mine. Congress Junction grows up beside the tracks.
  7. A Tombstone group that includes E. B. Gage, Frank Murphy and N. K. Fairbank buys the mine. A cyanide plant follows in 1895.
  8. A newspaper report puts 425 men on the payroll.
  9. Fires burn parts of Lower Town, which has no water supply.
  10. The Congress Consolidated Railroad is formed to haul ore to the main line at Congress Junction.
  11. President William McKinley visits the mine.
  12. A Sanborn fire-insurance map gives the population as 1,200 and shows two 40-stamp mills and a cyanide plant.
  13. The main shaft reaches 3,200 feet in 1902 and about 4,000 feet by 1905. A 1902 strike over pay and union rights fails.
  14. The last dividend is paid in 1910. The mine closes in early 1911 when its parent company fails. A December 1910 Sanborn map gives the population as 200.
  15. Lessees rework the tailings. After Murphy dies in 1917, his estate sells the mills and railroad equipment.
  16. The Congress post office closes. The name moves to the post office at Congress Junction, which is today's Congress.
  17. Casa Minerals takes a 90% interest in the mine and drills ten holes in 2022, the first drilling there since 1992.

Old camp and new town

Three places called Congress

USGS Congress sheet, 1903: the camp at the Congress Mine, with Congress Junction and Martinez on the railroad to the south
USGS Congress sheet, 1903: the camp at the Congress Mine, with Congress Junction and Martinez on the railroad to the south · Map: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain

The mining camp. This page is about the town at the Congress Mine, which had the Congress post office from 1889 to 1938. The town itself is gone.

Congress Junction. When the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway arrived in 1893, it passed about three miles southeast of the mine. A settlement grew at the junction, and by 1899 a short mine railroad linked it to the camp. The 1903 USGS sheet in the historic maps below shows Congress Junction and a second name, Martinez, side by side on the tracks. When the camp's post office closed in 1938, the name Congress went to the junction.

Modern Congress. Today Congress is a census-designated place of 1,811 people (2020), mostly a retirement and bedroom community for Wickenburg. The coordinates on Wikipedia (34.1528, −112.8847) are the census area's, about 3.5 miles southwest of the old camp. The USGS name database lists Congress and Congress Junction as populated places in the modern community and has no separate entry for the camp, so our map point is placed on the townsite as the 1903 sheet draws it. On the 1954 and 1981 sheets the name Congress sits at the junction. The 1887 sheet marks Stanton but not Congress.

What's left

Two Sanborn maps and a tailings dump

Sanborn map, July 1901: population 1,200
Sanborn map, July 1901: population 1,200 · Photo: Sanborn-Perris Map Co., Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
The same sheet, December 1910: population 200
The same sheet, December 1910: population 200 · Photo: Sanborn Map Company, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

The Sanborn fire-insurance maps in the photo section show the town at its height and in decline. The July 1901 sheet draws Mill No. 1 and Mill No. 2, each with 40 stamps, a cyanide plant with a roasting furnace, the company store and offices, bunkhouses, a boarding house, a hospital and an assay office along Main Street. Lower Town, in an inset, is a row of saloons, stores and restaurants with a note that it has no water supply and no fire apparatus. By December 1910 the same sheet marks both shafts dismantled, the furnace not in use and Lower Town's buildings mostly vacant and dilapidated.

Little of that survives. The Sharlot Hall Museum describes scant traces of wooden buildings, foundations and big white and pink tailings dumps. A 2014 visitor found mill ruins about a quarter mile from the old cemetery, and a 2015 visitor found pottery shards, rusted cans and bits of metal where the town stood, with jeep roads running through it. Two cemeteries sit along Ghost Town Road: the older Pioneer Cemetery and the Congress Cemetery, which was still in use in 2015. The 1969 USGS sheet marks the Congress Mine, a water tank, the tailings and both cemeteries.

  • Tailings dumps
  • Mill ruins
  • Foundations
  • Scattered wood, glass and cans
  • Pioneer Cemetery
  • Congress Cemetery
  • Mine workings (private, gated)
Current USGS topographic map of the old Congress townsite with dirt tracks and Deck Mine Road
USGS The National Map, topo. Today's sheet shows the tracks across the old townsite but no longer names the camp.
Aerial view of the flat-topped Congress tailings below the mine workings, with tracks crossing the townsite to the south
Aerial imagery, same area. The flat-topped tailings fill the upper middle, below the mine workings. Jeep tracks cross the townsite below them.

Historic maps

Congress 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 Congress, 1887
Prescott sheet, 1887, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Wickenburg is the nearest town with full services. Both routes follow US 93 and AZ 89 to modern Congress, cross the railroad on AZ 71 and turn north on Ghost Town Road to the old townsite. The northern part of Ghost Town Road is unpaved, and the route ends on a dirt track past the old Pioneer Cemetery. We haven't driven it.

USGS topographic map between Wickenburg and old Congress 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 Wickenburg19.1 miabout 42 min
  1. Turn right onto East Wickenburg Way (US 60).0.2 mi
  2. Follow the US 93 bypass, then the Wickenburg–Kingman Highway, north through a string of roundabouts.5.9 mi
  3. Bear right onto AZ 89, the Wickenburg–Prescott Highway, and follow it to modern Congress.10 mi
  4. Turn left onto AZ 71, the Aguila–Congress Junction Highway.0.2 mi
  5. Turn right onto Ghost Town Road and head north. Its northern part is unpaved.1.9 mi
  6. Turn right onto a dirt track that passes the old Pioneer Cemetery to the townsite.0.9 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • Ghost Town Road is unpaved on its northern part, and the last 0.9 mile is a dirt track. RV travelers drove to the cemeteries in 2014 and 2015; we haven't checked the roads since. Dirt roads here can wash out after storms.
  • The townsite, mine and tailings are private land, and the mine is gated. The old Pioneer Cemetery sits on BLM public land. Stay outside the gate and off the tailings and mine workings.
  • The cemeteries hold graves from the mining days, and the Congress Cemetery is still in use. Leave everything as you find it.
  • Summers are hot. Carry water, and watch for rattlesnakes in the warm months.
  • Wickenburg is the nearest town with full services.

Photos

Congress in photos and maps

Visitor reports

Been to Congress?

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 Congress

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

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Congress": fact sheet fields (county, roads, legal description, climate, best time, post office opening date).
  2. Wikipedia, "Congress, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: modern community, 2020 census, the move of the name to Congress Junction, the census-area coordinates.
  3. Wikipedia, "Congress Mine", retrieved October 2026: claims of 1870 and 1884, the Reynolds sale and death date, the 1894 buyers, mills, shaft depths, the 1902 strike, the 1911 closure and later salvage.
  4. William Ascarza, "Mine Tales: Congress Mine was golden goose," Arizona Daily Star, Dec 30, 2013: post office dates, Mill Town and Lower Town, fires, the 1899 railroad, the McKinley visit, production in ounces.
  5. Sharlot Hall Museum archives, "Congress Mine Townsite" and "Congress Mine Outbuildings": 425 men in 1897, about 2,000 residents, the 1890 death date, the remains.
  6. Sanborn Map Company, fire-insurance maps of Congress, July 1901 and December 1910, Library of Congress: populations, mills, Lower Town.
  7. Casa Minerals news release, Oct 17, 2023: 90% interest, 754 acres of patented and lode claims, 2022 drilling, production at intervals until 1992.
  8. AZ Offroad, "Congress": Ghost Town Road approach and the two cemeteries.
  9. Visitor accounts: Wheeling It, March 2014 (cemeteries, mill ruins) and The Bayfield Bunch, December 2015 (townsite debris, jeep roads, mine gate and sign).
  10. Bradteubner, "Congress AZ 2020", Wikimedia Commons, taken February 29, 2020: the 1914 view of the townsite and mine retaken, showing the tailings dump and desert scrub where the town stood.
  11. Arizona State Parks, "Granite Mountain Hotshots: Area Attractions", as of October 2026: restaurants in Yarnell.
  12. Sigler Western Museum, "Admission & Accessibility": hours and admission, as of October 2026.
  13. Coordinates: approximate, placed on the townsite between the Congress Mine (USGS GNIS feature 3174) and its tailings as drawn on the 1903 USGS Congress sheet. GNIS features 3172 (Congress) and 25257 (Congress Junction) are in the modern community. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Land status: USGS PAD-US 4.1 (BLM Hassayampa Field Office at the Pioneer Cemetery; townsite, mine, tailings and Congress Cemetery not public land). Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026; road surfaces from OpenStreetMap. Status checked against the sources above on October 19, 2026.

Photo and map credits