Arizona’s Vulture Mine and Vulture City

Discovered by Henry Wickenburg in 1863, the Vulture Mine was one of the greatest gold strikes in Western history, and went through many owners during its long life. The first was its founder, who gave his name to the city of Wickenburg, which today thrives fifteen miles away on the Hassayampa River. Vulture City, which grew up around the mine beginning in 1880, had everything that miners, engineers, families, and absentee owners could want, from saloons to schools. The Vulture Mine’s fortunes waxed and waned from the Gilded Age through the Jazz Age, the Depression and two World Wars. As the twenty-first century dawned, Vulture City began to crumble into the desert. Today, the old mining town is being restored as a historic site. In this book, author Lynn Downey brings the Vulture Mine and Vulture City to life through stories of fantastic ore strikes, murderous bandits, the struggle for water, and the men who came from as far away as Mexico and China to find their fortunes.