Silver King

Overview

The camp at the richest hole in Arizona

Silver King grew up around one of the richest silver strikes in Arizona history. In March 1875 four prospectors working out of Florence traced nuggets of native silver to a small hill in the foothills north of present-day Superior and staked the claim. Within six months 50 miners were at work, and the best ore was so rich it went straight to the smelter. A camp grew up around the shafts, and in December 1877 it got a post office.

The ore went by mule team five miles down to the mills at Pinal on Queen Creek. Silver King was the working end: shafts and hoisting works, shops, a sawmill, a superintendent's house and, it's said, two hotels and plenty of saloons. Little else is known about daily life in the camp. Between 1875 and 1928 the mine produced about 6.2 million ounces of silver, most of it before 1889.

The good ore gave out in the late 1880s just as silver prices fell. The mine closed in 1888, and revivals in the 1890s and from 1916 to 1920 didn't last. The post office hung on until 1912, and by 1943 the town was largely deserted. The claims stayed in private hands, and in 2026 an exploration company drilled them again.

Timeline

Strike, boom and second looks

1. 1870–71General Stoneman's troops build a road from Camp Picket Post on Queen Creek north and east into the Pinal Mountains. Its steep climb becomes known as the Stoneman Grade.
2. 1872–73A soldier named Sullivan picks up heavy black nuggets near the foot of the grade and keeps quiet about them. Sources give both years.
3. Mar 22, 1875Charles Mason, Benjamin Regan, William Long and Isaac Copeland trace the same nuggets to a small hill and stake the Silver King claim. One account gives March 25.
4. Fall 1875Fifty men are at work. Hand-sorted ore assaying as much as $2,000 a ton goes straight to smelters.
5. Jun 1876A stamp mill for the mine's ore opens five miles to the southwest at Picket Post, later Pinal.
6. 1876–1877The partners sell out. The Silver King Mining Company is organized in May 1877.
7. Dec 21, 1877Silver King gets its own post office.
8. 1882Sullivan turns up, proves he was the first finder, and the company gives him a job.
9. 1884The mine reaches 800 feet. Most of the ore now comes from the 700 and 800-foot levels.
10. 1887The last profitable year.
11. 1888–1889Falling ore grades, cheaper silver and the cost of fuel wood close the mine. Milling at Pinal stops in early 1889.
12. 1891–1896A new shaft east of the old workings finds more ore, and ten stamps are moved up from Pinal. Low silver prices stop work in 1893, and a last try fails in 1896.
13. May 5, 1912The post office closes.
14. 1916–1920A new company pumps out the 987-foot main shaft, starts a 35-ton flotation mill in late 1918, and goes bankrupt in the summer of 1920.
15. 1928The last reported production: 3,000 ounces of silver salvaged from the dumps.
16. 1943A state geology bulletin calls the old town of Silver King largely deserted and reached by a 7-mile graded county road from Superior.
17. 1970s–80sTailings and dumps are worked with cyanide leaching.
18. 1997–2000New claimants survey and file on the property. The shaft is pumped out and the upper levels are briefly worked.
19. Jul 2025Prismo Metals, a Canadian exploration company, takes an option on the property.
20. 2026Prismo drills eight holes, 1,272 meters in all, and reports the results on June 15.

Legend and record

Who found the Silver King?

Everyone agrees the claim was staked in March 1875 by Mason, Regan, Long and Copeland. How they found it depends on who's telling the story.

The soldier. Most versions start with a soldier named Sullivan who worked on the Stoneman Grade in 1872 or 1873. He picked up heavy black rocks that flattened instead of breaking. They were native silver. In a Prescott newspaper account from 1875, the soldier who found the rocks told a comrade where they were and was killed by a mule before his discharge, and the comrade passed the directions to the Regan party. Other versions say Sullivan showed the rocks to Charles Mason, never said where he found them, and then vanished, and that people assumed the Apaches had killed him. A 2014 history in the Arizona Daily Star says he turned up alive in 1882, proved his claim to be the first finder, and was given a job by the company.

The mule. Another version, repeated on Wikipedia, has Isaac Copeland finding the outcrop while chasing a stray mule. The 1875 newspaper account says Copeland simply stayed behind to look and found it almost at once. Lost-mule discoveries are a stock theme of western mining lore, so treat this one as a story.

One account says a few camels left over from the Army's 1850s camel experiment hauled Silver King ore to Yuma in 1876. We found only that one source for it.

The money. Figures for the mine's output run from about $6 million to $42 million. The lower numbers are period values of recorded production, about 5.9 million ounces from 1875 to 1889. The higher ones are later estimates. We give ounces rather than dollars.

What's left

Shafts, dumps and a hillside cemetery

The town stood around the mine, so its site and the mine are the same ground, in Comstock Wash about three miles north of Superior. The 1900 Florence sheet in the historic maps below shows a tight cluster of buildings labeled Silver King below Kings Crown Peak, with roads running southwest toward Pinal and a pump station to the northeast. The 1948 Superior sheet labels the Silver King Mine abandoned, with a handful of buildings and the abandoned Apache Mine to the southeast. The 2004 sheet shades the private claims gray.

Old photographs show a hip-roofed house that was the superintendent's home in the 1880s. An undated listing reports that vandals burned the camp's best-known building, the one pictured in many ghost town books, and that not much is left. Prismo Metals' 2026 drilling report marks the glory hole, the main Engine shaft and the Bilk shaft, and several of its holes hit old workings and backfilled stopes.

A cemetery lies a short way down the road and up a side wash. Volunteers from the American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project visited in November 2007. They found three wrought-iron enclosures and many unmarked graves, estimated 75 to 150, and they couldn't get a 4x4 up the wash. We don't know its current condition or whether it can be reached without crossing private land.

• Glory hole
• Engine (main) shaft
• Bilk shaft
• Mine dumps and tailings
• Silver King cemetery (2007)
• Little of the townsite

Historic maps

Silver King on USGS maps, 1900–2004

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.

19001:125,00019481:24,00019541:250,00019941:100,00020041:24,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Superior is the nearest town. The routes below follow Silver King Mine Road north from US 60 to the end of the road at the claims. They come from OpenStreetMap, and we haven't driven them. The road ends at private property under active exploration, so there's nothing to visit. They show where the site is.

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

Photos

Photos

Silver King ore wagons at the Pinal mills, about 1885The 1960 Picket Post Mountain marker, which mentions soldiers guarding the Silver King mine

Visitor reports

Been to Silver King?

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 Silver King

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

• Silver King Mine0.1 mi W · Pinal
• Pinal4.7 mi SW · Pinal
• Pinal City4.7 mi SW · Pinal
• Bellevue8.3 mi E · Gila
• De Noon9.9 mi SW · Pinal
• Reymert9.9 mi SW · Pinal
• Ray11.4 mi SE · Pinal
• Sonora12.6 mi SE · Pinal

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Silver King": fact sheet fields (roads, legal description, climate, best time, remains, post office dates).
2. Wikipedia, "Silver King Mine", retrieved October 2026: patented claims and location, the Sullivan and lost-mule stories, the sale to James Barney, recorded production by period, the $42 million estimate.
3. Briggs, D. F., "Superior, Arizona: An Old Mining Camp with Many Lives", Arizona Geological Survey Contributed Report CR-15-D (2015): the Stoneman road, the claim date, early ore grades and workforce, the Pinal mill, company history, the 1880s to 1928 operating record, 6.2 million ounces.
4. Western Mining History, "Silver King Arizona": the 1875 Weekly Journal-Miner discovery account, the two hotels, the mid-1880s peak.
5. William Ascarza, "Mine Tales: Silver King Mine lived up to its name", Arizona Daily Star, June 9, 2014: Sullivan's 1872 find and 1882 return, the camels, the 1888 closing, the superintendent's house, later leaching.
6. Short and others, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Superior Mining Area, Arizona, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bulletin 151 (1943): the town largely deserted, the 7-mile county road.
7. American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project, "Silver King, Arizona" (2007; site now offline): the November 2007 cemetery visit, Jack San Felice's history excerpt, the March 25 discovery date, the 1997 claim filing, and a reprinted 1883 superintendent's report listing the shops and sawmill.
8. Prismo Metals, "The Silver King Project" and its June 15, 2026 drilling release, checked October 19, 2026: the 2025 option, the 1999–2000 reopening, the 2026 drill program and the shafts and glory hole.
9. USGS Mineral Resources Data System, "Silver King Mine": coordinates. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• Silver King ore wagons at the Pinal mills, about 1885: Unknown photographer, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The 1960 Picket Post Mountain marker, which mentions soldiers guarding the Silver King mine: Marine 69-71, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The 1900 USGS Florence sheet, with Silver King below Kings Crown Peak: 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): Florence 1900, 1:125,000; Superior 1948, 1:24,000; Mesa 1954, 1:250,000; Mesa 1994, 1:100,000; Superior 2004, 1:24,000.