Harquahala

Overview

A gold camp under Martin Peak

Harquahala was a gold camp at the foot of Martin Peak, in the Little Harquahala Mountains about 8 miles south of Salome. Placer miners had worked the gulches here for a few years when, in November 1888, Henry Walton, Robert Stein and Mike Sullivan located the Bonanza and Golden Eagle claims. Word spread fast, and a camp grew up on the flat below the mines.

Hubbard and Bowers bought the mines and built a 20-stamp mill. A post office opened in 1891, and the town, often written Harqua Hala, had stores, saloons, its own newspaper and a stage line south to Sentinel. In 1893 the Harqua Hala Gold Mining Company took over, and the big production years followed. Gold output is reported at 120,560 ounces from 1891 to 1929, though the same source also cites figures of up to 200,000.

Most of the rich ore was gone by about 1897, and mining carried on in fits for decades. The post office closed for the last time at the end of 1932. The townsite and mine are private land, and in 2021 a company began running old ore and tailings through a cyanide heap leach at the foot of the peak. The pioneer cemetery, north of the mine beside Harquahala Road, is on public land and is the easiest part of Harquahala to see.

Timeline

Gold, decline and a second try

1. 1884–1888Placer miners work the gulches of the Little Harquahala Mountains, then called the Centennial district.
2. Nov 1888Henry Walton, Robert Stein and Mike Sullivan locate the Bonanza and Golden Eagle claims at the foot of Martin Peak. A rush follows.
3. 1888Placers in the Harquahala Mountains yield $12,500 in gold.
4. Mar 5, 1891A post office opens. The camp has stores, saloons, a newspaper, the Harqua Hala Miner, and a stage line south to Sentinel.
5. Before 1893Hubbard and Bowers own the mines and build a 20-stamp amalgamation mill.
6. 1893The Harqua Hala Gold Mining Company buys the property, and large-scale production begins.
7. About 1897Most of the high-grade ore has been found. Work goes on at a smaller scale.
8. 1907–1932Accounts of the end differ. One says the Harquahala Mine shut in 1907. Another says the post office closed in 1918 and reopened under new owners in 1927.
9. Dec 31, 1932The post office closes for the last time.
10. 1961The USGS Hope sheet still shows a few buildings along the road between the cemetery and the mine.
11. 2009A cemetery survey counts more than 50 graves, most of them men.
12. Apr 2020Arizona's environmental agency issues an aquifer protection permit for a heap-leach plant to reprocess old ore and tailings.
13. Jun 3, 2021Cyanide leaching starts on the new pad. A first bar of 83.7 ounces of gold and silver is announced in July.
14. 2022The operator reports round-the-clock processing from January and more gold shipments that spring. We found no reports after 2022.

Two places, one name

Which Harquahala?

Two ghost-town listings share the name, and they are about 17 miles apart in a straight line.

• Harquahala, the mining camp. At the foot of Martin Peak in the Little Harquahala Mountains, south of Salome, around the Bonanza (Harquahala) and Golden Eagle mines. Post office 1891 to 1932. This page.
• The Harquahala Mountain observatory. A Smithsonian solar observatory built in 1920 on the summit of Harquahala Mountain, the highest point in the larger Harquahala Mountains to the northeast. It ran for about five years before moving to California. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places, and an undated listing gives it its own entry.

The name itself comes from the region's Yuman languages. Wikipedia gives the Yavapai form 'Hakhe:la, "running water." A cemetery history says the Mohave meaning is "running water high up."

Legend and record

Stories told about Harqua Hala

The Spanish miners. Several modern accounts say Spanish prospectors found gold in these mountains in the 1760s and were driven off. None of them cites a record from that time, so treat it as tradition.

The one that got away. A story told by two local histories has Herman Ehrenberg, the surveyor later honored by the river town of Ehrenberg, telling Henry Wickenburg in 1863 about promising ground in the Little Harquahalas. Wickenburg looked, and on the way home found the Vulture Mine instead. It's a good story, and we haven't seen it in a source from the time.

The owners cast the gold into 400-pound bars, the story goes, too heavy for a thief to carry off.

Several sources repeat the 400-pound bars. One adds that in 1890 a bar fell through the floor of a stage bound for Sentinel and was found miles back in a gully. Another tale says that when miners scraped stolen high-grade ore from the arrastras, their children were told to sing loudly to cover the noise. Both are stories, not records.

The numbers. No census counted the camp. A 2009 cemetery survey estimated 450 to 500 people at the peak from the number of graves, which is an estimate, not a count. Production figures come from a mining company's 2023 filing with the SEC, which gives 120,560 ounces for 1891 to 1929 in one place and 180,000 to 200,000 ounces in another.

What's left

The cemetery and the mine

The cemetery sits just west of Harquahala Road, north of the old townsite. A 2009 survey counted more than 50 graves: about 40 men, believed to be miners, five boys aged 2 to 5, and two girls aged 4 and 10. Volunteers had put wooden markers on most of them. The largest is a cement enclosure with no name on it. BLM land-status data shows the cemetery on public land managed by the Lake Havasu Field Office.

The townsite lay on the flat between the cemetery and the mine, at the north foot of Martin Peak. A guide updated in 2021 describes a large steel-sided building reinforced with concrete, cement foundations with a set of stairs and a chimney, an adobe building in good shape, adits and old equipment, a slag pile on the slope to the south and pink tailings from leaching. An undated listing names a few buildings and mining equipment, all on private property. Current aerial imagery shows a lined leach pad and ponds at the foot of the peak, so we can't say which of those remains have survived the newest round of work.

The historic maps below trace the district. The 1942 sheet marks the Harquahala Mine and a reservoir beside the road through the range. The 1961 Hope sheet shows buildings strung along the road between the cemetery and the mine, with the Golden Eagle Mine to the northeast. The 1990 sheet marks the cemetery and dozens of shafts, adits and prospects around Martin Peak and the Golden Eagle, plus an open-pit mine near the Golden Eagle.

• Pioneer cemetery, 50-plus graves
• Cement grave enclosure
• Steel-sided mine building
• Adobe building
• Foundations, stairs and chimney
• Adits and shafts
• Tailings and slag
• Modern leach pad (private)

Historic maps

Harquahala on USGS maps, 1942–1990

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.

19421:250,00019541:250,00019611:62,50019841:100,00019901:24,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Salome is the nearest town. From there, Harquahala Road runs south about 8 miles into the Little Harquahala Mountains. From Phoenix, leave I-10 at exit 53 and take the same road north about 5 miles. Both routes end at the cemetery. We haven't driven them, and the road is dirt for most of the way.

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

Photos

Have photos of Harquahala?

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Visitor reports

Been to Harquahala?

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 Harquahala

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

• Brenda19.9 mi W · La Paz
• Plomosa30.4 mi W · La Paz
• Bouse32.6 mi NW · La Paz
• Polaris34.0 mi SW · Yuma
• Kofa35.4 mi SW · Yuma
• Swansea37.2 mi NW · La Paz
• Forepaugh37.4 mi NE · Maricopa
• Sundad39.8 mi SE · Maricopa

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Harquahala": fact sheet fields (road, legal description, climate, best time, remains on private property, post office dates).
2. Maureen G. Johnson, Placer Gold Deposits of Arizona, USGS Bulletin 1355 (1972): placers of 1884–1888, the 1888 discovery of the Harquahala (Bonanza) mine, 1888 placer output.
3. AZOffroad.net, "Harquahala Townsite" (copyright 2023, with a January 2021 update): the discoverers, the mill, newspaper and stage line, the 1893 sale, the post office gap, the cemetery and what remained.
4. American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Harqua Hala, AZ and Historic Pioneer Cemetery" (2009): grave count and population estimate, the 1907 closing, road from Salome, the bar and high-grading stories, the Ehrenberg and Wickenburg story.
5. Tombstone Exploration Corp., Form 20-F/A for 2021, filed with the SEC in 2023: production figures, township and range, access from I-10 exit 53, the 2020 permit and the 2021–2022 heap-leach operation.
6. Buddy Escapule, "Cyanide is the solution to reopening La Paz County gold mine," Arizona Contractor & Community, Nov/Dec 2021: the 1893 company, the 400-pound ingots, the reopening.
7. Wikipedia, "Harquahala Mountains" and "National Register of Historic Places listings in La Paz County", retrieved October 2026: the name, the 1920 observatory and its listings.
8. Land status: BLM Surface Management Agency and administrative unit layers, point queries October 2026, including points along Harquahala Road from Salome (private and BLM land, no State Trust land). Mine locations: USGS Mineral Resources Data System (Bonanza Mine, Golden Eagle Mine). Cemetery location: OpenStreetMap, "Harqua Hala Cemetery" (way 1016567155), matching "Cem" on the 1990 USGS sheet.
9. Township and range: BLM PLSS CadNSDI. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• The 1961 Hope sheet: the cemetery, buildings along the road, and the Harquahala and Golden Eagle mines: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Vicksburg 1942, 1:250,000; Phoenix 1954, 1:250,000; Hope 1961, 1:62,500; Salome 1984, 1:100,000; Harrisburg Valley 1990, 1:24,000.