The story
Jimmie Pearce's 1894 gold strike birthed the Commonwealth Mine and a rush that famously drained the last miners out of fading Tombstone — houses were even hauled over whole. Pearce peaked around 1,500 people before the ore and the Depression ended it; the post office survives in a modern hamlet nearby.
The landmark is the 1896 Pearce General Store, an adobe-and-tin palace with its porch intact, plus the jail and mine ruins on the hill — a photogenic core kept by a handful of residents and preservation-minded owners.
What remains today
The famous general store (privately preserved), jail, church, post office, and Commonwealth mine ruins.
Questions from the field
- Is the Pearce general store open?
- It's privately owned and opens irregularly; even closed, its exterior is the signature photograph of Cochise County's ghost-town loop.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Pearce — 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 Pearce's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — Cochise County records — Commonwealth Mine
- — Pearce-Sunsites community history
- — Arizona ghost town trail (Gleeson–Courtland–Pearce) guides