By Darla Anderson

(Darla Anderson was born on a small stock farm in Postville, Iowa, and lived there until she reached adulthood. In 1958, she vacationed in Arizona with her parents, Alpha and Vera Hangartner, and fell in love with the state. They moved to Yarnell in the early 1960s. There she married Harry M. Anderson of North Dakota and they lived in Congress at the base of the mountain below Yarnell.)

Tales of mining at Rich Hill were at the top of the list of old mining glories of Arizona. To newcomers in the mid-1960s, the romance of primitive Arizona and its mines was just a dream. I could sit for hours, just looking at Rich Hill from a distance, and soon, in my mind’s eye, it would be alive again with miners, ore cars and small cities in the valley below.

Stanton sat directly below Rich Hill, and Octave a short distance up the road. When I first arrived in the area, I seem to recall some lone people living in the old Stanton store building, but everything else was vacant. Up the road at Octave, absolutely nothing remained except one adobe building, not livable of course, and a most fascinating cemetery in the weeds! The cemetery was not even visible from the road due to the weed growth, but my parents and I were so adventurous that we covered ground and found it. I have not been back there since. I’ve wondered if anyone had ever ventured to restore this forgotten space and it’s inhabitants. My son has since told me that the cemetery has been cleaned up. Actually, that is all that remains of Octave today.

In the 1960′s, there were no fences to speak of, and no one cared if someone wandered around enjoying the desert. It was wonderful. We spent many, many happy hours poking around the ruins at old Congress. Old dumpsites were filled with a treasure trove of old cans, glass (tinted purple, of course) and we even found an old coffee pot. The hillside at old Congress still held up one of the old mining buildings in really good condition, considering it’s age, and we walked right in!

The most fascinating thing we found were paper tablets from the old mine, still in good enough condition that my frugal mother picked some up and used them as scrap paper at home! And, her love for and imagination of the old inhabitants prompted her to compose a bit of poetry, which she wrote on one of those sheets of paper.

At old Congress there are two cemeteries, one of them dates farther back than the other. In the1960s when we first visited the older one, we were shocked and saddened by the neglect and abuse. We even found a grave that had been robbed! It was totally empty except for one lone bone lying at the bottom of the grave.

Arizona was so wonderful back then. We spent every few evenings on the desert with a campfire and supper, enjoying the silence, the history and reliving of the past. During the daytime we went rock hounding, exploring old dumpsites and breathing in fresh, unpolluted air of the land we had adopted and learned to love so much. "Wonderful" is not even an adequate description for the way we felt of our new home.

Old Congress and the mines at Rich Hill are not that far from each other: the distance in miles is about ten. It became no longer enough to just gaze at that majestic mountain and imagine. From the distance, we could see a mine opening very far off, about halfway up the hill. My mother and I decided we would go!

Next week, in Part II, Darla describes her 1960s adventure to the Rich Hill mines at Stanton.

(Darla Anderson is a long time resident of Arizona, and still lives in the Prescott area.)

Days Past is available on sharlothallmuseum.org/archives and via RSS e-mail subscription. Check out sharlothallmuseum.org for more information.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy photo by Alan Krause, 2009) Reuse only by permission.

Sign describing a brief history of Rich Hill in Stanton, Arizona, at the base of Rich Hill, just a short drive from Yarnell. For a special treat with a 4-wheel drive vehicle, take the 6-mile back road to Rich Hill and Stanton. Turn off Rt. 89 at the south end of Yarnell onto Mina Road (which quickly becomes Old Stage Road/Yarnell Road) taking you directly to Stanton and Octave. Stanton is privately owned by LDMA and is in operation for members only. Visitors please check in at the office. No public prospecting allowed in the area; Stanton and surrounding areas are private property. For more information see: www.ghosttowns.com/states/az/stanton.html

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy photo by Alan Krause) Reuse only by permission.

Rich Hill, at sunset in January, 2009, with the Stanton Hotel in the foreground. Stanton and Rich Hill are alive even today. For pictures and information, please see the website: www.delange.org/RichHill/RichHill.htm

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy Darla Anderson) Reuse only by permission.

Weaver Mountain Range just one mile west of Stanton, c.1965, just below Yarnell, where the Leviathan mine was located. Much of the range is dotted with old mines and is still worked today by gold mining enthusiasts. Today, there is a dairy cow operation in the vicinity which can be seen from Rt. 89 on Yarnell Hill.