Harshaw is a ghost town in Santa Cruz County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Arizona. The town was settled in the 1870s, in what was then Arizona Territory. Founded as a mining community, Harshaw is named after the cattleman-turned-prospector David Tecumseh Harshaw, who first successfully located silver in the area. At the town's peak near the end of the 19th century, Harshaw's mines were among Arizona's highest producers of ore, with the largest mine, the Hermosa, yielding approximately $365,455 in bullion over a four-month period in 1880.
Throughout its history, the town's population grew and declined in time with the price of silver, as the mines and the mill opened, closed, and changed hands over the years. By the 1960s, the mines had shut down for the final time, and the town, which was made part of the Coronado National Forest in 1953, became a ghost town.
Today, all that remains of Harshaw are a few houses, some building foundations, two small cemeteries, and dilapidated mine shafts. Most of the buildings were torn down by locals or by the Forest Service in the mid to late 1970s.
History
Early settlement The earliest known residents of what is now Santa Cruz County were the Apache, Yaqui and Hohokam Indians who settled on the banks of local waterways, including Harshaw Creek, in order to facilitate farming. Spanish explorers and missionaries visited the area beginning in the 16th century, with the Spanish Friar Marcos de Niza, the first European to visit the area. In the late 17th century, Eusebio Kino came to the region to establish Jesuit missions and to map the land for Spain. It was not until 1752, in response to hostilities by the Pima Indians, that Spain established its first formal settlement and military presence in Arizona at Tubac on the Santa Cruz River northwest of the site of Harshaw.
The accounts of Spanish missionaries who traveled through the area shortly after the founding of Tubac state that the site that was to become Harshaw was originally a Spanish settlement and ranch. The settlement was known as Durazno, meaning "peach" or "peach orchard," supposedly due to the peach trees which had been planted there at some time in the past. According to a missionary account from 1764, the settlement of Durazno was attacked and destroyed by Apache Indians on February 19, 1743, with significant loss of life. Along with the nearby Salazar ranch, which was also attacked on that day, the lives of 44 residents were lost.
When the United States acquired all of present-day Arizona as part of the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, the numerous Mexican mining and ranching settlements still in existence became part of the United States, and American settlers moved into the area.
Founding and early town history
David Harshaw was stationed in Tucson in the 1860s as a sergeant in the First Regiment of Infantry of the California Column. When he left the army, he returned to his previous occupation of ranching. He had been ordered off of Apache land by Indian agent Tom Jeffords in early 1873 for illegal grazing, and he settled later that year in the area that was to become Harshaw, still known locally as Durazno, in order to find new pastures for his cattle.
After a few years of prospecting in the region, Harshaw staked claims to several deposits of silver ore, one of which he sold to the Hermosa Mining Company around 1879. In addition to digging and working what was to become the Hermosa mine, the company also began construction on a nearby twenty-stamp mill designed to process or "stamp" the silver ore into fine powder in preparation for smelting. The combined need for miners and mill workers caused the town to grow rapidly. The post office opened on April 29, 1880, under the name Harshaw in order to honor its founder. The Hermosa Mill commenced operations on August 5, 1880, and the company soon employed approximately 150 people in the mine in addition to those working the mill. At the town's peak, the mining and milling of silver was performed cheaper in Harshaw than in any other mining settlement in the Arizona Territory, and the mines were considered to be potential rivals of the productive Tombstone mines.
Harshaw was soon home to some 200 buildings, 30 of them commercial, including eight or ten general stores, hotels, blacksmiths, stables, breweries, dance halls, and numerous saloons arrayed along its 3/4-mile (1.2 km) main road. In addition to the mining industry, the town's merchants did a good trade with Sonora in Mexico as well as smaller regional mining camps. Harshaw received mail service on the Southern Pacific Railroad via Tombstone three times a week, and had its own newspaper, the Arizona Bullion, run by Charles D. Reppy and Company. The Bullion was launched on April 28, 1880, and had reached a circulation of 400 as of 1881.
Harshaw was dealt a devastating blow when the Hermosa mine and mill both closed down in late 1881 due to a drop in the quality of silver ore extracted from the property. Coupled with the Hermosa closures, severe thunderstorms which caused a large, damaging fire that same year almost put an end to the settlement. Shortly thereafter, in 1882, The Tombstone Epitaph noted Harshaw's decline, and wrote that over 80% of the town's 200 buildings stood empty "with broken windows and open doors."
Rebirth and subsequent decline In 1887, Harshaw was reinvigorated when Tucson resident James Finley purchased the Hermosa mine for $600. In addition to the rebirth of the mining industry, 1887 also saw the end of Apache raids in the area. The last recorded raid took place that year when 20 Indians raided Harshaw, resulting in the death of one man in an area mine.
As of 1891, Harshaw was connected to the Arizona and New Mexico Railway lines, and had mail service three days a week. It still housed seven businesses, as well as a school and a hotel. In addition, David Harshaw's initial reason for coming to the area was still very much a factor in its use, as the land was noted for its exceptional grazing, and stock raising was second only to mining in area industries. The Hardshell Mine that David Harshaw discovered in 1879 and sold to R. R. Richardson began to produce silver in 1896, further spurring the town's growth. This smaller incarnation of the town continued until just around the start of the 20th century when the market price of silver declined, and mine owner James Finley died in 1903, closing the Hermosa mine again. Most residents left the town and the post office closed on March 4, 1903.
Continued activity
Despite a dwindling population, Harshaw gained some notice in 1906 when it was reported by the national press that Ben Daniels, one of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, was arrested for fraud associated with selling a Harshaw district mine to a business associate for $800, even though Daniels had no ownership of the property.
In May 1929 when a forest fire swept through the Patagonia Mountains, Harshaw was reportedly down to 50 residents, all of whom were forced to evacuate, along with residents of other nearby mining camps. On May 13, 1929, after four days, and the burning of , the fire was contained, and the blaze was extinguished just in time to spare Harshaw from destruction as it had been directly in the path of the fire.
The town again saw activity between 1937 and 1956 when the Arizona Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) worked the Flux and Trench mines located nearby, and tapped into the region's non-silver ore. After 1956, when ASARCO left, Harshaw returned to its status as a ghost town.
In 1963, Harshaw ran afoul of the U.S. Forest Service. By this time, the town housed about 70 inhabitants, and consisted mostly of collapsed buildings, abandoned cars, and run down shacks. The only well-maintained structures in town were the Roman Catholic Church, and a small school. The borders of the Coronado National Forest, established on July 1, 1953, included the town of Harshaw, and because most of the residents never actually gained titles to their land, which could have been done starting in the 1880s, the government's property included the town. Because no titles existed, and the land was then owned by the federal government, the residents were labeled as squatters. Further, once the National Forest was formed, obtaining titles to the land was no longer an option. Harshaw's rundown landscape proved to be an irritant to the Forest Service who, in 1963, tried to work with the residents to facilitate a plan to relocate the remaining families and clean up the town site. The relocation efforts were not successful, however, as a few residents remained in Harshaw at least into the 1970s.
Remnants Several historic buildings remain in Harshaw, although most are on private property belonging to the Hale Ranch. The most prominent building still standing is the James Finley House, now preserved and listed on the National Register of Historic Places as of November 19, 1974. Built around 1877 as a residence for the superintendent of the Hermosa Mine, the house was located just from the Hermosa Mill. When the mine was later purchased by James Finley, he took up residence in the house. The house is important historically as one of the few remaining buildings from Harshaw's mining heyday, and architecturally as a representation of period building styles in Arizona Territory. Notably, the house is of red brick construction rather than the adobe brick used in most other period buildings.
Other remains at the site include the foundations of the Hermosa Mill, an assay office, a small church, a two-room schoolhouse, the remains of an adobe house/pool hall located on the outskirts of town, and two small cemeteries. Several other partial wood and adobe structures, as well as scattered mining remnants, are also located throughout the area. Of the remains, the cemeteries and the nearby adobe ruin are most easily accessible, as they are on the side of Harshaw Road, today designated as Forest Route (FR) 49.
As of 2009, efforts are underway by the Center for Desert Archaeology to have the Santa Cruz Valley, including the remains of Harshaw, declared a National Heritage Area.
Geology
The wide Harshaw Mining District is a rough and rugged landscape of numerous gulches, with areas of lush forests and grasslands interspersed with areas of exposed rock and jutting mountains. It is bordered by the Patagonia District to the south, the main ridge of the Patagonia Mountains to the west, Meadow Valley Flat at the north end of the San Rafael Valley to the east, and Harshaw Creek to the northeast.
The bedrock of the district is made up of at least five rock types, the most prevalent of which are composed of porphyritic, tridymite-bearing rhyolite. Where unoxidized the rhyolite contains abundant pyrite, chalcopyrite and chalcocite. Old workings and prospects are scattered throughout the outcrop area. Rhyolite formations include a wide swath across the northern section of the district, a section along the western border of the district, and almost all of Red Mountain, so named due to the color caused by the oxidation of the iron in the region's mineral deposits. The next most common bedrock is Cretaceous andesiteVikre, Peter G., et al., 2014, Succession of Laramide Magmatic and Magmatic-Hydrothermal Events in the Patagonia Mountains, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, Economic Geology, v. 109, pp. 1667–1704 Abstract mainly present in lava flows and tuffs in low-lying areas underlying the rhyolite and overlying the older sediments. Andesite formations include a circular area just north of Harshaw, and a belt extending northward along Patagonia Road for about .