Ray

Overview

The town the mine ate

Ray was a copper company town on Mineral Creek, between Superior and the Gila River. Prospectors worked the district for silver from the 1870s, and the Ray mine was started in the early 1880s. A British company tried copper here in 1899 and failed because the ore was leaner than it had thought. The deposit was low-grade but huge, the kind Daniel Jackling had already made pay in Utah, and in 1907 his associates formed Ray Consolidated Copper.

The camp grew fast; one account dates the company town to 1909, and a photo from about 1908 already shows houses and mine buildings along the creek. Large-scale underground mining began in 1911. During World War I Ray had about 5,000 people, two banks and a newspaper, the Arizona Copper Camp. Two neighboring camps, Sonora and Barcelona, grew up beside it.

The mine that made Ray also ended it. Kennecott, in control from 1933, gave up on underground mining after World War II, and by 1955 an open pit had replaced the old workings. With the pit expanding toward the towns, Kennecott built Kearny down the highway in 1958 and moved the people of Ray, Sonora and Barcelona there. Some families took their houses with them. The townsite now lies under the benches and dumps of the Ray mine, run today by ASARCO.

Timeline

From silver camp to open pit

1. 1873The Mineral Creek mining district, later called the Ray district, is organized. Prospectors hunt for silver for the next decade.
2. 1880The Mineral Creek Mining Co. builds a five-stamp mill.
3. 1882–83The Ray Copper Company starts the Ray mine. GNIS says it was named for the sister of a miner named Bullinger. Sources give both years.
4. 1899A British firm, Ray Copper Mines Ltd., buys claims around Ray and puts its reduction works at Kelvin. The ore runs about 2 percent copper instead of the 4 percent it expected, and the company fails.
5. 1906–07Associates of Daniel C. Jackling, the engineer behind open-pit copper mining in Utah, take options at Ray. Ray Consolidated Copper Company is incorporated on May 14, 1907.
6. 1909The company town of Ray is built, by one account. A panorama dated about 1908 already shows a busy camp along the creek.
7. 1910The Ray & Gila Valley Railroad is finished in October, ASARCO builds a smelter at Hayden for Ray's ore, and the Arizona Copper Camp newspaper starts publishing in Ray.
8. 1911Large-scale underground mining begins.
9. World War IRay booms to about 5,000 people, with two banks and its own newspaper.
10. 1933–1937Kennecott takes control in 1933. Low copper prices close the mine that April; it reopens on January 1, 1937.
11. 1945–1955Kennecott decides Ray can't go on as an underground mine. Stripping starts, and in 1955 open-pit production replaces the underground workings.
12. 1958Kennecott builds Kearny down the highway for the people of Ray, Sonora and Barcelona, and the move begins. Some houses go with their owners. Kearny incorporates in 1959.
13. 1982A photorevised USGS map prints "Ray (Site)" over mine ground and renames the Sonora quadrangle Hot Tamale Peak.
14. TodayThe townsite lies under the benches and dumps of the Ray mine, run by ASARCO.

Site map

Under the mine

The historic maps below show Ray coming and going. On the 1910 Ray sheet, the town strings along Mineral Creek and the railroad, with Sonora's grid of streets just to the southwest below Ray Hill. The 1964 Sonora sheet still shows a full town: blocks of houses west of the railroad, a school, two cemeteries on the hill to the northwest and the edge of an open pit to the south.

The second 1964 sheet is the same map photorevised in 1982 from 1978 aerial photos. Sonora was gone too by then, so USGS renamed the quadrangle Hot Tamale Peak. Purple revision marks blanket the valley, and the label reads "Ray (Site)". On the 1986 Globe sheet the whole stretch is mine dumps and ponds.

Historic maps

Ray on USGS maps, 1910–1986

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.

19101:62,50019641:24,00019641:24,00019861:100,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Kearny, the town built for Ray's people, is the closest town. From Phoenix, the route runs out US 60 to Superior and south on AZ 177. Both routes end beside the mine on AZ 177. The townsite itself is about a mile east, inside the mine, and closed.

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

Photos

Ray in photos

Ray about 1908, part of a panoramaTeapot Mountain above the Ray mine's waste dumps

Visitor reports

Been to Ray?

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 Ray

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

• Sonora1.2 mi S · Pinal
• Troy6.3 mi SE · Pinal
• Cochran10.2 mi SW · Pinal
• Pinal10.5 mi NW · Pinal
• Pinal City10.5 mi NW · Pinal
• Bellevue10.7 mi N · Gila
• Silver King11.4 mi NW · Pinal
• Silver King Mine11.4 mi NW · Pinal

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Ray": fact sheet fields (roads, climate, best time, the lookout and mine ownership, post office year).
2. Wikipedia, "Ray, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: coordinates and elevation (GNIS), naming, the 1958 move, the Arizona Copper Camp newspaper.
3. Wikipedia, "Kearny, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: Kearny's founding for the people of Ray, Sonora and Barcelona, moved houses, 1959 incorporation, ASARCO.
4. Wikipedia, "Ray mine", retrieved October 2026: ASARCO and Grupo México ownership.
5. Arizona Daily Star, William Ascarza, "Mine Tales: Ray mining district has history of more than a century": the 1873 district, 1880 mill, the 1899 British company, the 1909 town, wartime population, Kennecott, the 1955 open pit, Kearny.
6. UtahRails.net, "Kennecott Ray Mines Division": Jackling's options, Ray Consolidated's incorporation, the 1933–1937 shutdown, the open-pit conversion, the Ray & Gila Valley Railroad.
7. High Country News, Jonathan Thompson, "Sightseeing at an open-pit mine" (May 2015): the overlook, Ray and Sonora taken by the mine.
8. AARoads, "State Route 177": the road and its grade.
9. USGS Hot Tamale Peak (formerly Sonora) 7.5-minute sheet, 1964, photorevised 1982: margin notes on the renaming and the 1978 aerial photos.
10. 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

• Ray about 1908, part of a panorama: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Teapot Mountain above the Ray mine's waste dumps: kevinzim (Kevin Walsh), via Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Ray 1910, 1:62,500; Sonora 1964, 1:24,000; Hot Tamale Peak 1964, 1:24,000; Globe 1986, 1:100,000.