The story
Canyon Diablo existed because the Atlantic & Pacific's bridge over the gorge was delayed — for months in 1880-81 the end-of-track camp festered into a town of gamblers, thieves, and by legend fourteen saloons on 'Hell Street,' with marshals whose tenures were measured in weeks and, for the first, hours.
When the bridge opened the town's reason vanished, though a trading post and station lingered; the 1889 train robbers who fled with $100,000+ were run down by Bucky O'Neill's posse in one of Arizona's storied chases. Today: foundations, the grave-marker of trader Herman Wolfe, and the still-active rail bridge over the gorge.
What remains today
Foundation rubble, the Wolfe grave, and the dramatic canyon and bridge — reached by rough track north of Two Guns.
From the archives
Canyon Diablo, Arizona
![[Atlantic and Pacific Railroad : Locomotive crossing Canyon Diablo Bridge]](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ppmsca/99300/99368r.jpg#h=403&w=640)
[Atlantic and Pacific Railroad : Locomotive crossing Canyon Diablo Bridge]
A diesel freight train going around a curve along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Winslow a
Canyon Diablo turns up on 2,256 digitized newspaper pages from Arizona — read them free in the Library of Congress's Chronicling America collection.
Source: Library of Congress digital collections.
Questions from the field
- Was Canyon Diablo really 'meaner than Tombstone'?
- Its legend says so — a lawless end-of-track camp where marshals died fast. Contemporary records are thin, which is exactly why our record flags the wilder numbers as lore.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Canyon Diablo — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Canyon Diablo's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Primary sources for this record
- — Coconino County / A&P Railroad construction records
- — Accounts of the 1889 Canyon Diablo train robbery
- — Route 66 & Santa Fe corridor histories