Abandoned 
Overview
Old Grizzly's camp
Placerita sat on Arrastre Creek at the northern edge of the Weaver Mountains, about 21 miles south-southwest of Prescott and 5 miles west of Walnut Grove. Its name is a Spanish diminutive of placer, brought in by miners from California. Gold washed out of small quartz veins into the gulches here, and prospectors dry-washed the gravels for decades.
The camp grew around the claims of Anson W. Callen, a Kansas cattle dealer the newspapers called Old Grizzly. He had a quartz mill running by 1880, struck gold while building a dam in 1884 and a ditch in 1887, and in 1889 shot two men dead at his cabin in a claim dispute. A grand jury cleared him. Mills came and went through the 1890s. A post office opened in 1896, mail came three times a week from Kirkland, and there seem to have been no stores, so residents went to Kirkland or Prescott for supplies.
Placerita was never big. About 30 people lived there in 1905, though the 1910 census lists 172. The post office closed in August 1910, Callen had lost his mines by then, and later work came in short bursts, from a mine-development push in 1911 to small placering in the 1930s. A visitor in the 1950s found one stone house still standing. Its roof had collapsed by 2013, and a 2020 visitor found about half its walls up, with a mill site and an old adit nearby.
Timeline
What the record shows
- Anson W. Callen leads a wagon party of Kansas investors, his Arizona Mining Company, to Prescott. Within months some of them accuse him of overselling the mineral country.
- Callen, known as Old Grizzly, finds small gold veins in the Placerita country and opens a quartz mill.
- Building a dam on his claim, Callen picks up about $350 in gold, one piece worth over $200.
- He finds $900 in gold while finishing a five-mile ditch to his camp.
- Callen shoots and kills two miners at his camp in a claim dispute. He surrenders to Sheriff Bucky O'Neill, and a grand jury finds he acted in self-defense.
- Two companies bring in mills: a ten-stamp mill and a ten-ton Huntington mill.
- The Placerita post office opens.
- The territorial geologist calls the Placerita placers "good wage mines."
- Eastern investors grade a road from Peeples Valley for steam traction wagons and a planned 100-stamp mill. We found no record that the mill was built.
- Mail comes three times a week on a 15-mile star route from Kirkland.
- The population is reported as 30.
- Callen loses his mines after his company fails.
- Voters in a zone that takes in Kirkland, Peeples Valley, Zonia and Placerita narrowly vote the district dry. The ban is soon repealed.
- The census lists 172 residents.
- The post office closes.
- A company opening the McMahon and Zonia mines puts up new buildings and builds a wagon road up the canyon.
- About 25 men work the gravels where French and Placerita gulches meet, averaging about 50 cents a day.
- Thelma Heatwole finds the stone house the only building still standing.
- Researchers find its roof collapsed. By 2020 about half the walls still stand.
Legend and record
The stone house and the gold stories
"Isabella-1875." Thelma Heatwole, writing in the 1950s, saw a concrete marker over the stone house's door reading "Isabella-1875." An Isabella Mining Company was putting in a mill here in 1895, and an Isabella claim group was picked for new work in 1909, so the name may come from the claim. The 1875 date doesn't fit anything else in the record, and nobody we read knows who built the house.
The post office. A 2020 photographer's post calls the stone house the 1896 post office. The American Pioneer and Cemetery Research Project says only that the post office may have been there. We found no record that settles it.
The gold. In 1888 a Prescott paper claimed more than $100,000 in coarse gold had come out of Placerita Gulch, with nuggets over a pound. In 1912 another story told of a 23-pound nugget. Both read like the boosting common in mining-camp papers. The one measured figure we found is smaller: placer miners working here in 1932 and 1933 recovered about $2,000 in all.
Site map
Where the camp stood
The 1969 USGS Peeples Valley sheet in the historic maps below is the clearest record. It marks Placerita with a building symbol on the north bank of Arrastre Creek, a mine just south of it, a spring to the west and a second building up the road to the northeast. The 1903 Congress sheet shows Placerita at the head of Placerita Gulch, with French Gulch and Copper Camp to the northeast. The 1954 sheet marks copper and gold workings around it, and the 1981 sheet adds Placerita Gulch, Mahoney Ridge and the Zonia Mine to the north. The 1887 sheet shows Walnut Grove and Antelope in Peeples Valley but no Placerita yet.
In 2013 the research project found one deteriorating stone building, an old mine adit and the remains of a processing mill in thick chaparral. In 2020 a visitor reached the stone building along a cattle track after giving up on the creek bed, and found it roofless with termite-eaten timbers. He also passed a shed with a collapsed roof near the road.
- Stone building, roof collapsed
- Mill remains
- Mine adit
- Shed ruin by the road
- Rubble
Historic maps
Placerita 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.
Map & directions
Getting there
Prescott is the nearest city. Both routes follow AZ 89 to Wagoner Road, then Walnut Grove Road, Zonia Mine Road and White Head Ranch Road, the same approach the American Pioneer and Cemetery Research Project described in 2013. The last 7 miles or so are dirt, and we haven't driven them.
Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.
- From downtown Prescott, head south on Montezuma Street (AZ 89).0.7 mi
- Bear right onto White Spar Road, still AZ 89, which becomes the Wickenburg–Prescott Highway.21.7 mi
- Turn left onto West Wagoner Road, which becomes South Walnut Grove Road.3.3 mi
- Turn right onto Zonia Mine Road, a dirt road.1.5 mi
- Turn right onto White Head Ranch Road, also dirt.5.6 mi
- Turn right onto a short track to the townsite.0.2 mi
- From downtown Phoenix, take Central Avenue and Van Buren Street to Grand Avenue and follow it northwest.27 mi
- Continue on US 60 into Wickenburg.26.5 mi
- Follow the US 93 bypass north through its roundabouts.5.9 mi
- Bear right onto AZ 89 and follow it north past Congress, Yarnell and Peeples Valley.30.8 mi
- Turn right onto West Wagoner Road, which becomes South Walnut Grove Road, then right on Zonia Mine Road, right on White Head Ranch Road and right onto a short track.10.6 mi
Road and safety notes
- Zonia Mine Road and White Head Ranch Road are dirt. An undated listing rates the trip 4WD, and the 2020 visitors came in a Toyota FJ. Don't try it after rain.
- The roads cross private ranch land and leased grazing land. Leave gates as you find them and stay on the main roads.
- The route passes the Zonia copper property, which is private mining land. Stay off claims and away from workings.
- Brush is thick around the townsite and the creek bed is rough walking. Wear long pants and carry water.
- Carry what you need for the day. Prescott is the nearest city with full services.
Photos
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Visitor reports
Been to Placerita?
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 Placerita
Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Arizona index.
Sources
Sources and credits
- ghosttowns.com, "Placerita": fact sheet fields (roads, legal description, climate, best time, remains, post office dates, 1905 population).
- Kathy Block, "Placerita: A Story of Men and Mining," American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, 2013: Callen, the mills, newspaper reports 1888–1917, the 1910 census, the 1932–33 placer figures from the Arizona Bureau of Mines, Heatwole's 1950s description, the 2013 site visit and directions.
- Jim Witkowski, "Placerita Post Office," June 2020: the 2020 visit and the condition of the stone building.
- USGS topographic maps: Peeples Valley 1:24,000 (1969) for the town's position, Congress 1:125,000 (1903), Prescott 1:250,000 (1887, 1954), Bradshaw Mts 1:100,000 (1981).
- Land status: USGS Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1), BLM Hassayampa Field Office, checked October 2026.
- Coordinates: read from the 1969 USGS Peeples Valley sheet; GNIS has no entry for the town (Placerita Gulch is feature 33053). Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026; road surfaces from OpenStreetMap. Not field-checked. Status checked against the sources above on October 19, 2026.
Photo and map credits
- Placerita on the north bank of Arrastre Creek, with a mine just south, USGS Peeples Valley sheet, 1969: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
- Topo map, area base map and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
- Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Prescott 1887, 1:250,000; Congress 1903, 1:125,000; Prescott 1954, 1:250,000; Peeples Valley 1969, 1:24,000; Bradshaw Mts 1981, 1:100,000.