The story
The original Goldfield boomed in 1892 on a gold strike at the foot of the Superstition Mountains northeast of what is now Apache Junction. It grew fast — saloons, a boarding house, general store, blacksmith, brewery, and a school — with the boom claimed at several thousand people, though a peak closer to 1,500 is more defensible. Then the vein faulted, the ore grade dropped, and the town died a slow death. Revival attempts between 1910 and 1926 never found the gold again, and a stray military flare set a fire in 1943 that burned much of what was left.
In 1970 Bob Schoose bought the five-acre site — by then a water tower, a shack, and a few foundations — and spent years rebuilding Goldfield as an 1890s town from old photographs. Today it is a reconstruction rather than a ruin: a working tourist attraction with a mine tour, gunfight shows, a narrow-gauge train, and shops along a rebuilt main street.
What remains today
A reconstructed 1890s townsite — false-front buildings, the Mammoth Mine tour, a narrow-gauge railroad, and the Superstition Mountains as backdrop. Little of the original camp survives beneath it.
Questions from the field
- Is Goldfield Ghost Town a real ghost town?
- The original Goldfield was a genuine 1890s gold camp that died when the vein faulted, but almost nothing of it survived a 1943 fire. What stands today is a careful reconstruction built from the 1970s onward as a tourist attraction.
- How far is Goldfield from Phoenix?
- About 45 minutes east of downtown Phoenix, just past Apache Junction on the Apache Trail — an easy day trip usually paired with Lost Dutchman State Park and the Superstition Mountains.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Goldfield — 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 Goldfield's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Primary sources for this record
- — Goldfield Ghost Town and Mine Tours (site operator)
- — Apache Junction Public Library — history of Goldfield
- — Arizona ghost town references — Goldfield / Youngberg district