Abandoned Towns
Nothing in 2010: a cream double-decker bus parked under the red NOTHING sign beside a small yellow store, on a wide dirt lot

Railroad and road town

Nothing

A gas-and-snacks stop founded in 1977 on the long empty stretch of US 93, with a name that made it famous and never more than nine people. It emptied in 2005, revived briefly as a pizza stand, and has been boarded up since 2011.

34°28′47″N 113°20′07″W · 3,269 ft

Photo: Skarori, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Private · fenced

Nothing is abandoned private property. In December 2024 a travel writer found its buildings boarded up and fenced with barbed wire, and nobody living there. Look from outside the fence. Don't climb it or go into the buildings.

Overview

Founded on a joke

US 93 near Nothing, 2009
US 93 near Nothing, 2009 · Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Nothing sits beside US 93 at milepost 148.5, on the long, empty stretch between Wickenburg and Kingman, about 23 miles south of Wikieup. Richard "Buddy" Kenworthy bought five acres here in 1977 and opened a roadside stop. A friend in Coolidge, where Kenworthy owned a liquor store, suggested the name, since there was nothing out there. Locals liked to tell travelers it was named by a bunch of drunks.

It was never big. Historian Marshall Trimble counted four people in 1978, and a sign later gave the population as four. Kenworthy said there were nine by 1988, when a fire burned his bar, the Taint Much Ado, along with the store, the garage and a taco stand, and six of them left. He rebuilt the store and garage. In 1993 five people lived here, and a state passing lane had drivers zipping past the store.

Kenworthy moved on by 2005 and the place emptied. Mike Jensen bought it around 2008 and was selling pizza from a portable oven by April 2009, but by April 2011 the windows were boarded again. A real-estate company's Father's Day stunt in 2016 brought Nothing back into the news, and the property was for sale in 2017. A December 2024 visit found it fenced, boarded up and empty.

Timeline

From roadside stop to boarded-up lot

  1. USGS maps show no road through this basin. The nearest named place is Greenwood, on Burro Creek to the northwest.
  2. The USGS map shows US 93 here and two small buildings on its north side, a few hundred yards west of the Yavapai County line.
  3. Richard "Buddy" Kenworthy buys five acres beside the highway. A friend from Coolidge, where Kenworthy owned a liquor store, suggests the name.
  4. Historian Marshall Trimble stops by and counts four residents, which he later called Nothing's peak.
  5. Fire destroys the Taint Much Ado bar, the store, the garage and a taco stand. Six of the nine residents leave.
  6. Five people live here. Kenworthy runs the rebuilt store and garage. State highway officials have refused a "Nothing" highway sign.
  7. Kenworthy moves on, and Nothing is empty.
  8. The old gas station is starting to collapse.
  9. Mike Jensen buys the property. By April 2009 he is selling pizza from a portable oven and hopes to reopen the store and add RV spaces.
  10. Nothing is abandoned again, its windows freshly boarded.
  11. In a Father's Day promotion with the owner, Century 21 offers a free 24-hour lease on a piece of Nothing.
  12. The property is for sale, according to a visitor's blog.
  13. A travel writer finds the place uninhabited, its buildings boarded up and fenced with barbed wire.

What's left

A sign, a store and a fence

The Nothing sign and the store across the lot, January 2011
The Nothing sign and the store across the lot, January 2011 · Photo: Aantich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

An undated listing names the general store, the ruins of prefab buildings and a gas station. The store was signed as the All-Mart and still claimed a population of four. The tall red Nothing sign on its posts is what's left of the Nothing Rock Shop, whose concrete foundations lie nearby, according to the same page. The December 2024 account adds barbed wire, a weathered town sign, a boarded-up store and a gas station that no longer works, all covered in graffiti.

A sign at the store once gave the founding year as 1977 and the elevation as 3,269 feet, and praised the citizens who "had faith in Nothing, hoped for Nothing, worked at Nothing, for Nothing."

The old maps show the site before Nothing. In 1923 and 1942 there is no road here. The 1967 sheet shows US 93 and two small buildings on this spot, ten years before Kenworthy arrived. We don't know what they were.

  • Store (boarded up)
  • Gas station (disused)
  • Nothing sign and posts
  • Rock shop foundations
  • Fence and barbed wire
USGS topographic map of Nothing on US 93, with the Mohave–Yavapai county line just to the east
USGS The National Map, topo. US 93 crosses the map from northwest to southeast. Nothing is at the center, on the north side.
Aerial view of Nothing: a small cluster of buildings and a dirt lot just north of the divided highway
Aerial imagery, same area. The buildings and dirt lot sit just above the northbound lanes. Dirt tracks run off into the brush.

Legend and record

Two name stories and a pizza fire

Two stories explain the name. In 1993 Kenworthy told a reporter that a friend came up with it because there was nothing out there. The version locals gave travelers was shorter: it got named by a bunch of drunks. They may well be the same story.

A rumor repeated in an undated listing says Nothing was abandoned in 2005 after a grease fire, started while someone cooked a pizza, burned most of it. We found no record of a 2005 fire. The fire on record is the one in 1988, and the pizza oven belongs to the 2009 revival, so the story may mix up the two.

Historic maps

Nothing on USGS maps, 1923–1979

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 Nothing, 1923
Signal sheet, 1923, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Wickenburg is the closest city, about an hour south. From Phoenix, the route runs up Grand Avenue (US 60) to Wickenburg and joins the same road north. Both end on US 93, which is paved and divided here. Nothing is on the northbound side.

USGS topographic map from Wickenburg northwest along US 93 to Nothing, with the route 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 Wickenburg51.1 miabout 1 h 05 min
  1. From downtown Wickenburg, take Wickenburg Way (US 60) east to the US 93 bypass and follow US 93 north through the roundabouts.5.5 mi
  2. Continue north on US 93, the Wickenburg–Kingman Highway, which becomes the Joshua Forest Parkway. Nothing is on the right at milepost 148.5.45.4 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • US 93 is a divided highway at Nothing, and the site is on the northbound side. Coming south from Kingman, it's across the median; cross only where a turn is allowed.
  • Slow down well before milepost 148.5 and pull fully off the highway.
  • Don't count on any services. Two travel articles, from 2023 and 2024, say a restroom still works here; we couldn't confirm it.
  • The property is private and fenced. Stay outside the fence.

Photos

Nothing in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Nothing?

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 Nothing

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

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Nothing": fact sheet fields (roads, climate, best time, remains), milepost and northbound side, the rock shop sign, the grease-fire rumor.
  2. Wikipedia, "Nothing, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: founder and year, the "bunch of drunks" story, distance from Wikieup, the 2005 and 2011 abandonments, the 2008 gas station, Mike Jensen's pizza revival, the 2016 promotion, coordinates (GNIS).
  3. Mark Shaffer, Arizona Republic, "Arizona Town Has Just About Nothing Going On", in The Seattle Times, August 15, 1993: the five acres, the name, the 1988 fire, the 1993 residents, the passing lane and the refused highway sign.
  4. FOX 10 Phoenix, "A story about Nothing, literally" (January 2017): Marshall Trimble's 1978 visit and population count.
  5. Gribble Nation, "Ghost Town Tuesday: Nothing, AZ" (December 2017): the All-Mart, the rock shop sign and foundations, the 2017 sale.
  6. Curly Tales (August 2023): the sign's wording and elevation, the restroom.
  7. Islands, "You Can Truly Get Away From It All At A Strange Arizona Ghost Town" (December 2024): current condition, fencing, the restroom.
  8. USGS topographic maps: Signal 1:250,000 (1923, 1942), Arrastra Mtn NE 1:24,000 (1967), Alamo Lake 1:100,000 (1979). Township and section: BLM PLSS (CadNSDI).
  9. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Status checked against the sources above on October 19, 2026.

Photo and map credits