Signal

Overview

A mill town on the only water around

Signal sits on the west bank of the Big Sandy River in southern Mohave County, about 60 miles south of Kingman. It grew up in 1876 and 1877 as the mill town for the McCracken silver mine, about nine miles away in the hills to the northwest. The mills needed water and the river had it, so the mills and the town went there. A smaller camp called New Virginia grew up next door.

At its height Signal had about 800 people, hotels, five stores, three restaurants, 13 saloons and a brewery. Everything came the long way. Freight from San Francisco went by rail to Yuma, by barge up the Colorado to Aubrey Landing, then 35 miles uphill by mule team. Merchants ordered six months ahead.

The boom was short. Rising costs, a fire that destroyed the Signal mill and falling silver prices closed the McCracken in the 1880s. Mining came and went for decades after that, and the post office served the river ranches until 1932. A late-1950s revival brought miners' families back to live in the old buildings for two years. Today the townsite is mill foundations, adobe walls and rusting machinery, with a cemetery on a ridge above the river and a few occupied houses nearby.

Timeline

Boom, fire and long quiet

1. 1874Jackson McCrackin and "Chloride Jack" Owen find the McCracken silver lode in the hills northwest of the Big Sandy. Col. David Buel buys the mine for $240,000 six months later.
2. 1876–1877Signal grows up on the Big Sandy River, about 9 miles from the mine, where there is water for milling. Sources give both years.
3. Oct 15, 1877The post office opens.
4. 1878A visitor describes freight coming by rail to Yuma, by barge to Aubrey Landing and 35 miles uphill by wagon, with orders placed six months ahead. The McCracken employs 27 men at the mine and 14 at the mill.
5. 1880sRising costs, a fire that destroys the Signal mill and falling silver prices close the McCracken. One account says the ore ran out in the late 1880s and about 300 people stayed on.
6. 1920sA gravity-flotation mill at Signal treats silver and lead ore from the McCracken.
7. May 14, 1932The post office closes. By then the town is mostly empty, with ranches along the river.
8. 1939A concrete water-tank foundation is poured on the hill above the mill. A man named Rebel Webb signs his name in the wet cement.
9. 1958–1960A California company leases the McCracken and builds a 150-ton mill. More than 15 miners' families live among Signal's old buildings until work stops two years later.
10. 1974Little is left beyond the Signal and New Virginia mill foundations and a cemetery of about 60 graves.
11. 1983–1985The McCracken reopens and ore is trucked to a mill at Yucca. The mine has been idle since 1985.
12. 1991Thelma Heatwole's guidebook quotes rancher Bill Roer, who owned the land, threatening to bar the public because of vandalism.
13. By 2016Teck Resources has sealed 47 openings at the McCracken Mine, nine of them with bat-friendly gates.
14. Early 2024Visitors find a sign reading "Signal Est. 1877 Pop. 0", a few scattered houses, big concrete walls near the river and high-walled ruins across Rupley Wash.

Record and legend

Dates that don't agree, and stories to check

When it started. An undated listing contradicts itself. One passage puts the McCracken discovery in 1884 and has the town following three years later. Another has Signal appearing in 1877, the year its post office opened. An 1884 strike can't explain an 1877 town. Arizona Daily Star mining historian William Ascarza and Wikipedia both date the McCracken find to 1874. Wikipedia puts Signal's start in 1876 or 1877, and Ascarza says 1877. We give the range.

How big it was. Most accounts give a peak of about 800 people. Ascarza writes that Signal employed 700 men at the height, but also that the McCracken had only 27 men at the mine and 14 at the mill in 1878. We haven't found a census count for the town.

How rich the mine was. An account written in 1878 credited the McCracken with a 50-stamp mill and $100,000 of silver a month. Ascarza lists a 20-stamp mill at the mine and a 10-stamp mill at Signal, and puts the mine's total output from 1875 to 1906 at a little over $800,000. That's about eight months at the 1878 rate. Early mining reports often ran high, so we use the later total.

Stories tell of a second, Chinese cemetery farther down the wash toward the river. Cemetery researchers found no trace of it, and the story is unconfirmed.

Other stories. The same researchers note a theory that a flood washed the Chinese cemetery away. They were also trying to locate a separate Anglo or Protestant cemetery. Local lore also credits a strict justice of the peace, Moses Levy, with keeping order in a town of 13 saloons. We haven't seen records of his cases. Older guidebooks describe a saloon building at Signal; it is gone.

What's left

Mill walls, a spring and a cemetery on the ridge

Signal's ruins are spread out. Visitors in early 2024 turned off Signal Road at a ghost-town sign, drove east toward the river and found large concrete walls, then crossed the deep sand of Rupley Wash to adobe and concrete ruins less than half a mile beyond, some with walls still standing high. Earlier visitors describe the foundations of the silver mill, scattered rusting machinery, junked cars and trash, and a concrete foundation for a water tank on the hill above the mill, signed in the cement in 1939. In 1974 the foundations of the New Virginia mill were still there too.

The cemetery is about a mile from the mill ruins, on a ridge above the Big Sandy. The Mohave County history museum's list counts 64 graves, 8 with markers. A 1991 guidebook counted nearly 50, most marked with mounds of stones. Visible markers run from 1888 to 1998. One cross spells out the name A. Leivas in marbles set in concrete. A 1991 guidebook dated it 1810–1885, other sources give a different date, and the marbles may be gone. The burial list includes six-year-old Charles Hall, who died of a scorpion sting in 1885. Visitors have reported vandalism here, so please leave everything in place.

The historic maps below trace the town's fade. The 1923 Signal sheet prints the name large, with a mill just to the north and roads running west toward McCracken Peak and Aubrey Peak. The 1942 edition still shows SIGNAL as a town. The 1966 Artillery Peak sheet labels it Signal (Site), beside a spring and the Big Sandy, and the 1979 Alamo Lake sheet doesn't name it at all. The 1990 Signal sheet shows a few buildings along a four-wheel-drive track east of Signal Road.

• Mill foundations and concrete walls
• Adobe ruins
• Rusting mill machinery
• Water-tank foundation (1939)
• New Virginia mill foundations (1974)
• Cemetery, 50 to 64 graves
• Signal Spring
• Occupied homes (private)

Historic maps

Signal on USGS maps, 1923–1990

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.

19231:250,00019421:250,00019661:62,50019791:100,00019901:24,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Kingman is the closest city, about two hours away. From Phoenix, the route runs through Wickenburg. Both follow US 93 to Signal Road, a dirt road that crosses the Big Sandy River. The route was computed from OpenStreetMap and we haven't driven it.

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

Photos

The Big Sandy below Signal

The Big Sandy River in the Arrastra Mountain Wilderness, a few miles downstream from SignalCottonwoods on the Big Sandy below Wegner Peak, south of Signal

Visitor reports

Been to Signal?

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 Signal

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

• Greenwood3.2 mi NE · Mohave
• Alamo Crossing15.0 mi S · Mohave
• Nothing17.0 mi E · Mohave
• Cedar22.9 mi NW · Mohave
• Swansea24.3 mi SW · La Paz
• Planet24.5 mi SW · La Paz
• Aubrey Landing30.8 mi W · Mohave
• Empire Flat36.4 mi SW · La Paz

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Signal": fact sheet fields (roads, legal description, climate, best time, remains, post office dates), the vanished saloon, and the conflicting McCracken date.
2. Wikipedia, "Signal, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: founding years, peak population, businesses, remains, caretaker, BLM land, distance from Kingman and US 93.
3. William Ascarza, "Mine Tales: Kingman-area mine specialized in silver," Arizona Daily Star (February 2016): the McCracken discovery and sale, Signal City and New Virginia, mills, freight route, workforce, production, the 1880s closure, the 1920s, 1958 and 1983 revivals, 1974 remains and mine closure work.
4. American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Signal, Arizona" (Kathy Block, with visits in 2007–2009): site and cemetery coordinates, access routes and river ford, the 1878 accounts including a passage quoted in Arizona Place Names, remains, the 1939 tank, the cemetery and its burial list, the 1991 Heatwole guidebook, the Chinese cemetery story.
5. Western Outdoor Times, "Cruising 17 Mile And Signal Roads" (March 2024): the early-2024 visit, the town sign, houses, concrete walls, Rupley Wash and the ruins.
6. TrailsOffroad, "Signal Road": a report that the town remains sit on private land and that a caretaker sometimes allows access.
7. Land status: BLM National Surface Management Agency map service, queried October 19, 2026 at points around the townsite. It is a map of administering agencies, not a survey of ownership.
8. Coordinates: USGS Geographic Names Information System, populated place "Signal" (feature ID 24614). Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• The Big Sandy River in the Arrastra Mountain Wilderness, a few miles downstream from Signal: Tempe101, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Cottonwoods on the Big Sandy below Wegner Peak, south of Signal: Tempe101, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Signal printed large on the 1923 USGS sheet, with McCracken Peak to the west: 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): Signal 1923, 1:250,000; Signal 1942, 1:250,000; Artillery Peak 1966, 1:62,500; Alamo Lake 1979, 1:100,000; Signal 1990, 1:24,000.