Minnehaha

Overview

A camp and a flat named for a mine

Minnehaha sits at about 5,450 feet on the western slope of the Bradshaw Mountains, on Forest Road 362 between the ghost town of Wagoner and the high mining country around Crown King. Charles Taylor, a member of Joseph Walker's famous prospecting party, recorded several mining claims and by May 1875 was ranching on Minnehaha Creek. Will C. Barnes's Arizona Place Names, as quoted by the research project below, says the camp and the flat took their name from the Minnehaha Mine, listed in Hinton's handbook in 1878.

Gold was the draw. Miners worked placers up Minnehaha Flat in the 1880s, about $100,000 worth by an old-timer's estimate that the USGS printed in 1926, and around 1900 the Button Mine at the head of the creek sank a 400-foot shaft. A post office opened in June 1880 with Taylor as postmaster. In the 1890s it moved up the road to the Button Mine, and in 1910 it closed. We found no population figure. The research project that surveyed the site thinks Minnehaha was home for the Button Mine's workers, or perhaps its superintendent, at a crossroads where a road ran east toward Bradshaw City and the Tiger and Oro Belle mines.

Minnehaha was only the southernmost of several tiny places along about two miles of road. Going north came Lapham, Minnehaha Flat and Shelley, and other accounts add the names Marion, McCormick, Patterson, Taylor and Button. Most were probably a ranch or a house or two. What's left at Minnehaha is a windmill, a well, two water tanks, a stone building and two graves, about 1,000 feet off the road.

Timeline

What we know

1. By May 1875Charles Taylor, a member of Joseph Walker's famous prospecting party, has a ranch on Minnehaha Creek and several mining claims.
2. 1878The Minnehaha Mine appears in Hinton's handbook of Arizona. The flat and the camp take its name.
3. Jun 21, 1880A post office opens at Minnehaha, with Charles Taylor as postmaster.
4. 1890sThe post office moves up the road to the Button Mine.
5. 1903The USGS Bradshaw Mountains map marks Minnehaha at a benchmark of 5,440 feet, with Minnehaha Flat and White's Ranch to the north.
6. 1910The post office closes.
7. 1969The USGS Minnehaha map shows a windmill and a few small buildings beside the road, with the Button Mine just up the hill.
8. Late 1970sA cluster of dwellings stands at the road junction, likely housing Button Mine workers. By the early 1990s the Forest Service has cleared nearly all of it away.
9. Jan 2007Researchers find a windmill and pump, a stone-lined well, two concrete tanks, a two-room stone building and two graves. Their report goes online in 2008.

Two miles of camps

Minnehaha and its neighbors

Minnehaha and Minnehaha Flat are easy to mix up, and even the Arizona Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, which surveyed the area in 2007 and 2008, says it long assumed they were the same place. They are about a mile and a half apart. Coming in from Wagoner on Forest Road 362, Minnehaha comes first, just before the junction with Forest Road 192. Minnehaha Flat sits in the middle of the road between Lapham and Shelley, with a house, outbuildings and 10 to 15 scattered graves, most of them apparently of grown men.

Two town sites, Marion and McCormick, named for an editor and a former governor, were platted on the flat but never grew past a single building each. Which of the camps held the post office at any given time isn't clear. The likeliest reading is that it was at Minnehaha from 1880 into the 1890s, then at the Button Mine until 1910.

In May 1892 a Phoenix newspaper reported two miners from the Little Mint Mine on Minnehaha Flat arriving in the city with a gold nugget weighing 32 ounces.

The 1903 USGS sheet below puts Minnehaha on the road at a benchmark of 5,440 feet, with Minnehaha Flat stretching north toward Pine Creek. The 1947 sheet labels the Button Mine and springs at the same spot, and the 1969 sheet, named Minnehaha, shows a windmill and a few small buildings on the south side of the road.

What's left

Windmill, well and two graves

The townsite is on the southeast side of Forest Road 362, about 1,000 feet off the road and hard to spot through the brush. In January 2007 the research project found the windmill and pump, a dry-stacked stone well, two large concrete tanks built into the hill as reservoirs, a two-room stone building and two graves inside a collapsing fenced plot. One is believed to be that of James Patterson, who built a sawmill and served as postmaster. A listing already online in 1998 said there were caretakers with dogs at the site and that the mine and some buildings were intact. The 2007 survey doesn't mention caretakers.

A man who knew the area recalled a small settlement of dwellings and vehicles at the road junction in 1978 or 1979, people he took to be Button Mine workers. By the early 1990s the Forest Service had cleared nearly all of it away.

The Forest Service's land-ownership map, published in June 2025, shows the townsite on Prescott National Forest land. The nearest private parcel on it is a small square about a quarter mile west, at Pay Dirt Spring.

• Windmill and pump
• Dry-stacked stone well
• Two concrete water tanks
• Two-room stone building
• Two graves in a fenced plot
• Button Mine workings, up the road

Historic maps

Minnehaha on USGS maps, 1903–1969

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.

19031:125,00019471:62,50019691:24,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Prescott is the nearest city with full services. Both routes reach Minnehaha the way the research project describes, leaving AZ 89 west of the mountains for Wagoner Road, then through Wagoner and up Forest Road 362. The route was computed from OpenStreetMap and we haven't driven it. Its last stretch is the forest road a 2008 report rated for small four-wheel-drive vehicles only.

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 Minnehaha?

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

Visitor reports

Been to Minnehaha?

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.

Thanks. Your report reached us, and we'll read it before it goes on the page.

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Nearby

Other sites near Minnehaha

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

• Fort Misery2.8 mi SE · Yavapai
• Bradshaw City3.7 mi NE · Yavapai
• Crown King4.9 mi NE · Yavapai
• Hooper7.2 mi N · Yavapai
• Briggs8.1 mi SW · Yavapai
• Wagoner8.1 mi NW · Yavapai
• Humbug8.9 mi SE · Yavapai
• Columbia10.5 mi SE · Yavapai

Sources

Sources and credits

1. Lindgren, Ore Deposits of the Jerome and Bradshaw Mountains Quadrangles, USGS Bulletin 782 (1926), p. 177: placer mining on Minnehaha Flat in the 1880s and an old-time resident's estimate of about $100,000 in gold; the Button mine's 400-foot shaft, worked about 1900.
2. ghosttowns.com, "Minnehaha", with the same text in an archived copy of December 6, 1998: fact sheet fields (roads, legal description, climate, best time, remains), the 1880–1910 post office and the caretakers report.
3. USDA Forest Service, Basic Ownership map layer (published June 22, 2025), queried at the townsite October 22, 2026: national forest land at the townsite, and the private parcel at Pay Dirt Spring.
4. Wikipedia, "Minnehaha, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: coordinates (GNIS).
5. Arizona Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Minnehaha, Arizona" (2008; archived copy): location, the 2007 survey of the remains, James Patterson, the Button Mine connection, the 2008 road warning.
6. Arizona Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Minnehaha Flat, Arizona" (2008; archived copy): the neighboring camps, the post office's moves, Barnes's Arizona Place Names entry (June 21, 1880, Charles Taylor), the 1892 nugget report, the 1970s settlement.
7. Arizona Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Shelley, Arizona" (2008; archived copy): Charles Taylor and the Walker party, the 1875 ranch, Marion and McCormick, the order of the camps, roadside wells.
8. USGS historical topographic maps: Bradshaw Mountains 1903, Crown King 1947 and Minnehaha 1969. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked. Status checked against the sources above on October 22, 2026.

Photo and map credits

• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Bradshaw Mountains 1903, 1:125,000; Crown King 1947, 1:62,500; Minnehaha 1969, 1:24,000.