Sonora

Overview

The town the pit took

Sonora stood a mile south of Ray, on a hillside above Mineral Creek in the copper country between Superior and Kearny. Mine workers recruited from Mexico started arriving around 1906 to work for the Ray Consolidated Copper Company, and they built Sonora on land they leased from the company. The district was segregated. English-speaking workers lived in Ray, Spanish miners in Barcelona and Apache miners in Vitoria. Mexican and Mexican American workers also earned less than Euro-American workers for the same jobs, and they turned to their union, Mine Mill Local 915, to fight it.

Sonora looked and sounded like a town in Mexico. Spanish was spoken, store signs were in Spanish, and the district's Catholics went to church here. Sanborn fire-insurance maps of 1915 and 1919 put the population at 3,000, and the Arizona Geological Survey says it grew to about 6,000 by the 1920s. The maps show a dense grid of houses and lodging houses around general stores, restaurants, pool halls, a bakery, a movie theater and the Sonora Public School.

Kennecott Copper decided in 1947 to turn Ray into an open-pit mine, and the pit and its dumps crept toward the towns. The first Sonora homes were condemned in 1957. A new town, Kearny, went up for the displaced families from 1958, but many Sonora families couldn't afford the new houses, and their own homes couldn't be moved. They salvaged what they could and left for Kearny, Hayden, Superior, Winkelman and farther. The last residents had to be out by the end of 1965, and the town was torn down. Its site is now part of the Ray Mine.

Timeline

Sixty years on Mineral Creek

1. c. 1906Mine workers recruited from Mexico begin arriving in the Mineral Creek district. They settle just south of the Ray mine, on land they lease from the company.
2. 1907The year the ASU Library's Club Sonorense collection gives for Sonora's founding, by Mexican and Mexican American workers of the Ray Consolidated Copper Company.
3. By 1912Sonora has its own post office.
4. Jul 1915The Sanborn Map Company maps Sonora and puts its population at 3,000.
5. Sep 16, 1919Residents parade with Mexican and American flags for Mexican Independence Day, in a photograph kept by Club Sonorense.
6. 1920sSonora reaches about 6,000 people, by the Arizona Geological Survey's count.
7. 1947Kennecott Copper decides to switch the Ray mine from underground to open-pit mining. Over the next ten years the pit and its waste dumps creep toward the towns.
8. 1957The first homes in Sonora are condemned and removed for the pit. AZ 177 is moved around the western edge of the mining area.
9. 1958Kennecott sells 1,600 acres for a new town, Kearny, about 12 miles southeast. Construction starts in November.
10. 1962Remaining residents get eviction notices. They must leave by December 31, 1965.
11. 1965–66Kennecott demolishes Sonora. ASU's exhibit dates the end to 1966; its collection record says 1965.
12. 1966Former residents found Club Sonorense in Superior to keep the town's history.
13. Nov 1986ASARCO buys the Ray operation from Kennecott's parent company.
14. May 1, 1999Club Sonorense dedicates a Sonora historical marker at the ASARCO Ray Mine viewpoint on AZ 177.
15. 2025Pinal County revises the Ray Complex's air permit. The mine is still working.

1915–1931

Sonora on the Sanborn maps

The Sanborn Map Company drew Sonora block by block for fire insurers in July 1915 and June 1919, and corrected the 1919 sheet in 1931. All three stamps give the same population, 3,000. The business blocks around Center and 1st Avenue hold general stores, restaurants, lodging houses, a candy factory, a barber, a bakery, several pool halls and a hall, plus a moving-picture theater with a stage and a balcony. The Sonora Public School sits on a large fenced lot with its playground, a main building heated by a hot-air furnace and two classroom wings heated by stoves. Street names on the sheet include Jalisco, Montana and Carona.

Photographs in the Club Sonorense collection at Arizona State University add what the maps can't. They show St. Helen's Catholic Church among the houses, the Juárez Theater, the Salon Bombero, Haddad's and the town swimming pool under the water tank, and parades with Mexican and American flags, one of them on September 16, 1919. The Ray-Sonora Tigers baseball team was honored at a reunion in 1998.

Photographs from 1965 show businesses on a side street in stages of collapse, and a neighborhood reduced to debris.

Since 1966

Keeping Sonora

Former residents and their children founded Club Sonorense in Superior in 1966, the year after the town came down. The club held meetings, reunions and New Year's Eve dances, honored Sonora's veterans in 1994, and drew about 350 former Sonorenses to a 1998 reunion.

Its proudest achievement, in the club's own account, was a historical marker for Sonora at the ASARCO Ray Mine viewpoint on AZ 177, near the old townsite. Steve Chiquete and Eddie Basha were among those at the dedication on May 1, 1999. The club's records, with minutes from 1967 to 1996, photographs and family papers, are at the Arizona State University Library as collection MSS-159.

Site maps

Where the town stood

Nothing of Sonora survives above ground that we know of. The current USGS map still prints the names Sonora and Sonora Hill just east of AZ 177, and the aerial view shows benched mine terraces and haul roads over the same ground.

The historic maps below tell the story in order. The 1910 Ray sheet shows Sonora's street grid west of Mineral Creek, across Ray Hill from Ray and the railroad. The 1954 sheet still names Sonora beside Ray, with stippled mine ground spreading between them and Kelvin downstream on the Gila. The 1964 Sonora sheet shows the town's houses packed below Sonora Hill, with a water tank, and the Pearl Handle pit already opening to the north. A revised printing of the same area, issued as the Hot Tamale Peak sheet, keeps only the street grid and labels it "Sonora (Site)". By the 1986 Globe sheet the spot falls inside the shaded mine area, between pit ponds and mine dumps.

Historic maps

Sonora 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.

19101:62,50019541:250,00019641:24,00019641:24,00019861:100,000

Map & directions

Getting there

There's no townsite to visit, but AZ 177 runs along the west side of the Ray Mine between Superior and Kearny. Both routes below end on the highway at its closest point to where Sonora stood, about a third of a mile from the site, which lies inside the mine. Kearny, the town built for Sonora's displaced families, is the closest place with services.

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

Photos

Sonora on old maps and photos

Sanborn map of central Sonora, June 1919The same blocks in July 1915The 1919 sheet as corrected to May 1931

Visitor reports

Been to Sonora?

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 Sonora

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

• Ray1.2 mi N · Pinal
• Troy5.8 mi E · Pinal
• Cochran9.7 mi SW · Pinal
• Pinal11.4 mi NW · Pinal
• Pinal City11.4 mi NW · Pinal
• Bellevue11.9 mi N · Gila
• Silver King12.6 mi NW · Pinal
• Silver King Mine12.6 mi NW · Pinal

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Sonora": fact sheet fields (roads, legal description, climate, best time, remains).
2. Wikipedia, "Sonora, Arizona", with "Kearny, Arizona" and "Ray mine", retrieved October 2026: demolition for the mine, the move to Kearny, ASARCO ownership, coordinates and elevation (GNIS).
3. David F. Briggs, "Geology and History of the Copper Deposits at Mineral Creek," Arizona Geological Survey Contributed Report CR-24-C (June 2024): arrival of Mexican workers about 1906, the neighboring camps, leased lots, the church, population of about 6,000, the 1947 open-pit decision, the 1957 condemnations, the AZ 177 relocation, the 1962 eviction notices, Kearny, the 1986 sale to ASARCO and current reserves.
4. Arizona State University Library, Club Sonorense Records (MSS-159), collection description: 1907 founding, post office by 1912, segregation and the dual wage, Local 915, 6,000 people, 1965 destruction, where residents went, the club and the 1999 marker.
5. ASU Library exhibit "Sonora, Arizona 1907–1965": overview, "The People of Sonora", "Remnants of a Mining Town" and "Club Sonorense": photo captions (St. Helen's Church, the Juárez Theater, the 1919 parade, 1965 demolition), the 1966 date, the club's activities and the May 1, 1999 marker dedication.
6. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Sonora, July 1915, June 1919 and 1919 corrected to May 1931, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain): population stamps, businesses, the school, street names.
7. High Country News, Jonathan Thompson, "Sightseeing at an open pit mine in Arizona copper country" (May 2015): the Ray Mine overlook.
8. Pinal County Air Quality, Asarco LLC permits: Ray Complex air permit revised June 2, 2025, confirming the mine is operating.
9. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Status checked against the sources above on October 19, 2026.

Photo and map credits

• Sanborn map of central Sonora, June 1919: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The same blocks in July 1915: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The 1919 sheet as corrected to May 1931: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Ray, Sonora's neighbor across Ray Hill, about 1908: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• 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; Mesa 1954, 1:250,000; Sonora 1964, 1:24,000; Hot Tamale Peak 1964, 1:24,000; Globe 1986, 1:100,000.