Abandoned Towns
A weathered board-and-adobe house at Sunnyside with a juniper growing against it

Copper mining town · Farm and ranch town

Sunnyside

A preacher's mining commune in the Huachuca Mountains, where everyone pooled their pay and nobody ran a saloon. A few weathered buildings stand on private land.

31°26′02″N 110°24′18″W · ≈5,810 ft

Photo: Cindy Devin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Private · 2019 report

Sunnyside is private land inside Coronado National Forest. In April 2017 a reader saw "Private Drive" and "Private Property" signs at the entrances, and a hiking club's 2019 notes say visitors need permission from a local contact. An undated report mentions a guest book and a sign welcoming careful visitors. Treat it as closed unless you have permission.

Overview

Hymns instead of saloons

A board-and-adobe house at Sunnyside, 2013
A board-and-adobe house at Sunnyside, 2013 · Photo: Cindy Devin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Sunnyside sits between Scotia and Sunnyside canyons on the west side of the Huachuca Mountains, about seven miles north of the Mexican border. It began with Samuel Donnelly, a preacher who came to Tombstone in 1886 and took to mining. After co-founding the Copper Glance Mine, he led a small band of followers up into the mountains and set up a camp where everyone worked, ate and worshipped together.

Members pooled their money. There were no saloons. Newcomers who wanted work got it, as long as they pulled their weight and showed interest in Scripture. At its height the camp had almost 80 people, a shared kitchen and dining hall, a barn and a one-room school. A Bisbee newspaper called Donnelly a hypnotist in 1897, and he spent the next year in court. In 1898 the Lone Star Mine, which paid the camp's way, flooded.

Donnelly died in April 1901, and by 1903 the camp had emptied. Around 1912 Sunnyside came back as a ranching settlement with its own post office from 1914 to 1934. The land is private today, surrounded by national forest, and a few buildings and a large barn still stand.

Timeline

From commune to ranch

Sunnyside on the 1922 USGS sheet
Sunnyside on the 1922 USGS sheet · Map: U.S. Geological Survey, USGS catalog, Public domain
  1. Samuel Donnelly, a preacher, arrives in Tombstone and takes up street preaching.
  2. Donnelly co-founds the Copper Glance Mine, then leads 20 to 30 followers to a canyon high in the Huachucas. One account dates the camp to 1887.
  3. The community grows to almost 80. Members pool their money and share a kitchen, dining hall, barn and one-room school. The Lone Star Mine supports the camp.
  4. The Bisbee Weekly Orb accuses Donnelly of ruling his followers by hypnotism. He sues for libel; the case never comes to trial.
  5. After an appeal to the territorial supreme court, Cochise County dismisses an assault charge against Donnelly.
  6. Miners break into an underground spring and flood the Lone Star Mine. Pumps can't clear it.
  7. Donnelly dies of Bright's disease. By 1903 nearly everyone has left.
  8. Sunnyside revives as a ranching community.
  9. A post office opens.
  10. The post office closes.
  11. A directory of the time lists two residents.
  12. An Arizona ghost-town site reports the property leased to the Boy Scouts, with no public access.
  13. A reader reports "Private Drive" and "Private Property" signs at the entrances in April. Another, undated, mentions a guest book with a sign inviting careful visitors.
  14. A hiking club's notes say visitors need permission from a local contact.

Two versions

Who was Samuel Donnelly?

The popular story makes Donnelly a hard-drinking San Francisco sailor who stumbled out of a waterfront bar into a Salvation Army meeting in the early 1880s and was saved on the spot. Legends of America reports that his family tells it differently. In their version he was a recent immigrant from Barrhead, Scotland, a drinker but not a drunk, who joined the Methodists and preached in Los Angeles until his ideas cost him his pulpit.

Either way, he arrived in Tombstone in 1886 and preached on the street against the big denominations. He disliked the name "Donnellites" that outsiders gave his followers, because he objected to denominations of any kind.

The court record captured how remote the camp was: a wagon road came no closer than eight miles, and the rest of the way was on foot or horseback.

The 1897 newspaper attack described the camp as a place where members gave up family and privacy to follow Donnelly. He sued, but the libel case never reached trial. A later assault charge, which grew out of rumors about a woman who left the camp, went to the territorial supreme court, and the county dropped it in May 1898.

What's left

Houses, a barn and a cemetery

An undated listing names four buildings and a large barn, and an Arizona ghost-town site described the barn as very intact in 1996. A 2013 photo shows a board-and-adobe house with a juniper growing against it. USGS maps from 1948 on show a handful of buildings, two windmills and a clearing in the canyon, and the 1958 and 1996 sheets mark the Sunnyside Cemetery to the southwest. The current topo shows the townsite as a small private parcel in the national forest, with the Miller Peak Wilderness just to the east.

  • Wooden and adobe houses
  • Large barn
  • Windmill sites
  • Sunnyside Cemetery
USGS topographic map of Sunnyside in Scotia Canyon on the west side of the Huachuca Mountains
USGS The National Map, topo. Forest Road 228 and smaller forest roads reach the townsite; the Miller Peak Wilderness lies to the east.
Aerial view of Sunnyside: a dirt road climbing a wooded canyon past a small clearing with buildings
Aerial imagery, same area. The dirt road climbs the canyon past the clearing where the buildings stand.

The historic maps below run from 1914, when Sunnyside was a dot in Coronado National Forest below Fort Huachuca's military reservation, to the 1958 sheet that names the cemetery and the Eureka Mine on Eureka Peak to the east.

Historic maps

Sunnyside on USGS maps, 1914–1996

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.

USGS topographic map around Sunnyside, 1914
Hereford sheet, 1914, 1:125,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Sierra Vista is the closest city. Its route crosses the Huachucas at Montezuma Pass on Montezuma Canyon Road, unpaved in places. From Tucson, AZ 83 runs through Sonoita toward Parker Canyon Lake. Both end on Sunnyside Road (Forest Road 228), a dirt road, at private land. We haven't driven them.

USGS topographic map of the Huachuca Mountains between Sierra Vista and Sunnyside, with the route over Montezuma Pass

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

From central Sierra Vista36.3 miabout 1 h 20 min
  1. From central Sierra Vista, take South Coronado Drive south.1.8 mi
  2. Turn left on Buffalo Soldier Trail.1.8 mi
  3. Turn right on AZ 92 and follow it southeast.10.6 mi
  4. Turn right on South Coronado Memorial Road. It becomes Montezuma Canyon Road and crosses Montezuma Pass, unpaved in places.20.2 mi
  5. Turn right on Sunnyside Road (Forest Road 228), a dirt road.1.7 mi
  6. Turn right, then left on Sunnyside Road into the townsite. Private land.0.3 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • OpenStreetMap tags Sunnyside Road (Forest Road 228) as dirt and parts of Montezuma Canyon Road as unpaved. An undated listing rates the road 4WD, and Legends of America found it terrible in 2007.
  • Signs to the townsite are scarce. Download an offline map before you leave the pavement.
  • This is border country. Legends of America met Border Patrol agents nearby in 2007; expect patrols on the forest roads.
  • The townsite is private. Without the owners' permission, view it from the public road and don't enter buildings.
  • There are no services past Sierra Vista or Sonoita. Carry water and fuel.

Photos

Sunnyside in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Sunnyside?

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 Sunnyside

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

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Sunnyside": fact sheet fields (county, roads, legal description, climate, best time, remains, post office dates, private property).
  2. Wikipedia, "Sunnyside, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: Donnelly's death, the 1903 exodus, the 1912 revival, the 1940 population, coordinates and elevation (GNIS).
  3. Legends of America, "Sunnyside, Arizona – A Different Kind of Ghost Town" (updated October 2026): Donnelly's life, the commune, the 1897 article and court cases, the Lone Star Mine, 2017 reader reports, directions and road notes.
  4. azghosttowns.com, "Sunnyside" (1996): the 1887 founding date, the barn, the Boy Scouts lease.
  5. Jim Forte Postal History, Cochise County post offices: Sunnyside, 1914–1934.
  6. USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection: Hereford 1914, Sunnyside 1922 and 1958, Huachuca Peak 1948 and 1996 (buildings, windmills, cemetery, section, wilderness boundary).
  7. BLM Surface Management Agency map service, queried October 2026: private land at the townsite.
  8. Green Valley Recreation Hiking Club, "Sunnyside" (summary of August 2011, with access requirements as of 2019): private property, permission needed to visit, July 2011 photos of the remains.
  9. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Road surfaces: OpenStreetMap, October 2026. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits