The story
Chloride claims the title of Arizona's oldest continuously inhabited mining town, born of silver-chloride strikes in the Cerbat Mountains in the early 1860s and peaking around 2,000 people with seventy-five mines working.
As the mines quit, eccentrics kept the town: today ~250 residents maintain a proudly weird main street of junk-art yards and false fronts, and the draw is the Roy Purcell murals — 'The Journey,' painted across the granite boulders above town in 1966 by the then-unknown artist, restored and glowing at sunset.
What remains today
The old jail, train station, working post office (one of Arizona's oldest), junk-art installations, and the Purcell murals 1.3 rough miles above town.
Questions from the field
- What are the Chloride murals?
- A 2,000-square-foot cycle painted on the cliffs above town by Roy Purcell in 1966 — psychedelic, monumental, and repainted by the artist decades later. The rough track up is half the fun.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Chloride — 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 Chloride's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 2882
- — Mohave County records — Cerbat district
- — Roy Purcell mural restoration accounts