The story
Henry Wickenburg's 1863 Vulture strike became Arizona's most productive gold mine, pulling some 340,000 ounces over eight decades and anchoring a camp of several thousand at its peaks. Its 'hanging tree' allegedly hosted eighteen executions, mostly for the capital crime of stealing high-grade ore.
The federal wartime gold-mine closure of 1942 (Order L-208) ended operations, and the desert kept the buildings — assay office, mess hall, brothel, headframe — remarkably whole. Private owners have carefully restored the site and run it as a paid attraction with guided and self-guided tours.
What remains today
One of the Southwest's best building sets: the 1884 assay office (stone laced with visible ore), power house, mess hall, cookhouse, headframe, and the hanging tree.
Questions from the field
- Can you tour Vulture City?
- Yes — it's privately owned and professionally restored, with paid self-guided and weekend guided tours most of the year (summer hours shrink in the heat).
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Vulture City — 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 Vulture City's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — Vulture City site records (private operator)
- — Arizona Bureau of Mines — Vulture Mine production
- — War Production Board Order L-208 (1942)