Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of the pale, sandy bed of Las Guijas Wash winding between brushy hills at the foot of the Las Guijas Mountains

Gold mining town

Las Guijas

A placer camp in a desert wash where miners washed gold from the gravels for at least a century. The record is thin, nothing is known to stand, and the site is on private land.

31°40′13″N 111°22′55″W · 3,451 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).

Not verified

BLM's land-status map shows the townsite on private land, and the last miles of the routed approach follow ranch tracks. We found no dated description of the site or word on whether visitors are allowed. Ask locally before you go, and treat gates and posted signs as closed.

Overview

Gold in the rubble

Las Guijas sits in Las Guijas Wash on the north side of the small Las Guijas Mountains, about 7 miles northwest of Arivaca. Spanish miners in the 1800s named the range for las guijas, the rubble. The gold here lay in gravels and conglomerate along the washes and gulches, and the richest of them lay on the northeast side of the range, close to where the camp stood.

Las Guijas was a placer camp. Miners worked the gravels on and off from at least the 1850s, small companies tried their luck in the early 1900s, and the busiest years came during the Depression, when at least 100 prospectors and small miners were working the district. A 1920 USGS map shows a few buildings and two wells at Las Guijas, on a road with a telephone line to Arivaca.

We haven't found a post office, a population figure or a dated first-hand description. An undated listing says nothing remains. This page shows what the record holds and where it runs out.

Timeline

What we know

"Las Gijas" on the 1920 USGS Arivaca sheet, with two wells and a cluster of buildings on the road up the wash
"Las Gijas" on the 1920 USGS Arivaca sheet, with two wells and a cluster of buildings on the road up the wash · Map: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
  1. Spanish explorers and settlers take gold from placers in the district around Arivaca, by one mining-history account.
  2. Placer gold is being worked along the Las Guijas Mountains, possibly earlier. Spanish miners name the range for the gold-bearing rubble.
  3. By the USGS account, Ignacio Pesqueira and his followers, beaten in a revolt in Mexico, hide out here and wash enough gold to fund a new campaign. He becomes governor of Sonora in 1856.
  4. The New Venture Placer Mining Co. tests 4,800 cubic yards of gravel at an average of $1.69 a yard and plans hydraulic mining. It apparently never starts.
  5. The same company works Durazno, Pesqueria and Yaqui gulches with a Clark agitating sluice, which needs little water. Tungsten is mined in the district for the first time during World War I.
  6. The USGS Arivaca sheet marks "Las Gijas" with two wells and a few buildings beside a road and a telephone line to Arivaca.
  7. Gravels at the northern foot of the mountains are worked on a large scale. Placer tungsten ore comes from the hills north of Las Guijas Creek.
  8. The district's busiest years: at least 100 prospectors and small miners work placers and small veins.
  9. The USGS sheet shows Las Guijas with a well, and the Las Guijas Mine on the slope to the south.
  10. Mining is sporadic, with little or no production.
  11. The USGS Las Guijas quadrangle labels the spot "Las Guijas (Site)".

Placer gold

Where the gold was

The USGS describes gold in most of the gravels that cover the flanks of the Las Guijas Mountains. The richest ground was on the northeast side of the range, south of Las Guijas Creek, in mesa gravels about 2.5 miles long and a mile wide between the mountains and the creek bed. Durazno and Pesqueria gulches held gold too. On the south side of the range, toward Arivaca Wash, the gold was more scattered.

Nobody knows how much came out early. The USGS repeats an estimate of about $150,000 in placer gold, and the gold came from gold-bearing veins in the range itself. Later work was modest. A 1905 test of 4,800 cubic yards averaged $1.69 a yard, but the planned hydraulic operation apparently never started.

One story ties the gravels to Mexican politics. Ignacio Pesqueira is said to have washed enough gold here in the 1850s to finance the campaign that made him governor of Sonora.

The USGS bulletin gives the Pesqueira story as history, but we haven't seen it confirmed in a record from the time, so read it as a tradition. Tungsten came later. It was recognized in the district in the early 1900s and first mined in World War I, and in 1933 placer tungsten ore was recovered from the low hills north of the creek.

Site map

Where the camp stood

The old maps are the best record of the place. The 1920 sheet spells it "Las Gijas" and shows a cluster of buildings and two wells along the road up the wash, with the Secundino well and pump a few miles west. By 1941 the map shows a well at Las Guijas, Martinez Well up the wash and the Las Guijas Mine in the hills to the south. The 1979 sheet calls it a site, and the 1994 sheet adds the Good Enough Mine and a national wildlife refuge boundary to the west.

Current aerial imagery shows the pale, sandy wash and a small cleared patch with tracks just south of it. We can't tell from the air whether anything from the camp survives.

  • No standing buildings reported
  • Placer workings in the gulches
  • Las Guijas Mine (south of the site)
  • Wells along the wash
USGS topographic map of Las Guijas beside Las Guijas Wash at the foot of the Las Guijas Mountains
USGS The National Map, topo. Las Guijas sits on the wash where it bends southeast along the foot of the mountains.
Aerial view of a wide sandy wash crossing the frame, with dirt tracks and a small pale clearing south of it
Aerial imagery, same area. The wide pale band is Las Guijas Wash; tracks and a small clearing lie just south of it.

Historic maps

Las Guijas on USGS maps, 1920–1994

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 Las Guijas, 1920
Arivaca sheet, 1920, 1:125,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Green Valley is the closest city with services. Its route runs down I-19 and out Arivaca Road. From Tucson, the route goes west on AZ 86 and south on the Sasabe Road. Both routes were computed from OpenStreetMap and haven't been driven by us, and both end on unpaved roads and tracks, which is why the times are so slow for the distance.

USGS topographic map between Green Valley, Amado, Arivaca and Las Guijas with both routed approaches 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 Green Valley36.1 miabout 2 h 12 min
  1. From Green Valley, take Continental Road to I-19 and head south to the Arivaca Road exit at Amado.10.1 mi
  2. Head west on Arivaca Road.14.6 mi
  3. Turn right on Las Guijas–Cerro Colorado Road, which OpenStreetMap tags as unpaved.2.7 mi
  4. Continue north and west on unnamed dirt tracks to the townsite in Las Guijas Wash.8.7 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • We haven't driven either route. An undated listing rates the road to Las Guijas as 4WD, so plan on high clearance at least.
  • OpenStreetMap tags the Las Guijas–Cerro Colorado Road as unpaved and the numbered roads on the Tucson route as dirt or gravel. The last stretch of both routes is unnamed tracks of unknown condition.
  • The townsite is on private land. Respect gates, fences and posted signs, and don't cross land you don't have permission to enter.
  • Don't drive into a wash with water running in it. Summer heat is severe, so go in the cool months and carry water.

Photos

Have photos of Las Guijas?

We haven’t added more photographs of Las Guijas yet. If you’ve visited, share your photos and a field report below.

Visitor reports

Been to Las Guijas?

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 Las Guijas

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

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Las Guijas": fact sheet fields (roads, climate, best time, remains).
  2. Wikipedia, "Las Guijas, Arizona" and "Las Guijas Mountains", retrieved October 2026: coordinates and elevation (GNIS), the name, the townsite's place in the wash.
  3. USGS Bulletin 1355, "Placer Gold Deposits of Arizona" (1972): Arivaca district (Las Guijas placers): extent of the gravels, early production estimate, Pesqueira, the 1905 tests, 1915 sluicing, 1933 work, tungsten placers.
  4. The Diggings, "Arivaca Mining District": district history, Spanish-era placers, World War I tungsten, the 1930s peak and later output.
  5. USGS historical topographic maps: Arivaca 1:125,000 (1920), Arivaca 1:62,500 (1941), Las Guijas 1:24,000 (1979), Sells 1:100,000 (1994). Legal description read from the 1941 sheet's section numbers with the township and range in Bulletin 1355.
  6. Land status: BLM Surface Management Agency map, October 2026. Road surfaces: OpenStreetMap, October 2026. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

Record5 of 10
  • Coordinates
  • Placer history (USGS)
  • Site on USGS topo
  • Historic maps, 1920–1994
  • Land status (BLM map)
  • Post office
  • Population
  • Access permission
  • Road condition, last 9 mi
  • Photos or a field report
Missing items are what we'll ask readers and local sources to fill.