Fairbank Arizona Ghost Town.

Like many of you, "The Bumpkins" really love the lore and history of the old west. Over the years we have repeatedly visited many ghost towns and never seem to get bored of them. There is something interesting about once busy and now abandoned places, so we decided it was time to catalog our "adventures".

This ghost town series is going to focus mainly on towns affiliated with Tombstone and the industry associated with it. There are however, some other towns, that really weren't focused on mining or directly connected to Tombstone; we are going to show those too.

This is the first part of the Tombstone series and the subject is Fairbank Arizona. The reason we are starting here is because Fairbank was a central hub for transportation and milling in the Tombstone area.

Show Notes:

In the video we explore two railroad bridges. The first one, is a small one that we never (looked for) found a date stamp. The second is a very large one that spans the San Pedro river. I speculated in the video when I thought the bridge was erected and that I didn't think it was "original".

When I was reviewing the video prior to uploading it, I noticed, as we were walking off the bridge, there was a date stamped into the concrete to our right. I zoomed in on it and it looks like "1923"; so construction date mystery solved. Also, I think that actually is the "original" bridge, as it's likely that particular spur may not have been added until later.

There are several railroad museums in the area, as time allows we will visit those and maybe we will be able to figure out the timeline for this railroad spur.

00:00 Start
02:16 Entering The Townsite
05:12 Livery
08:00 School
10:00 Post Office/General Store
17:04 Railroad Loading Platform
20:32 Railroad Bridge (Small)
26:15 Cemetery
33:48 Grand Central Mill
38:03 Mine Shaft
39:46 Large Modern Abandoned Railroad Bridge

Links:

Here are some useful links, loaded with details, pictures and information. Please visit these sites, or do your own research, as I can't add much to what they already put together:

https://www.tombstonetraveltips.com/tombstone-mining.html

This is a really good site for all things Tombstone, this guy has put the work in:

Tombstone Area Ghost Towns: https://www.wyattearpexplorers.com/

This is a great site about mining in general:

Western Mining History: https://westernmininghistory.com/

These sites are all about abandoned railroads, really interesting:

Abandoned Rails: http://www.abandonedrails.com/

Forgotten Railways, Roads & Places: https://www.frrandp.com/p/the-map.html

These guys do tours, hikes etc to ghost towns on the San Pedro river area:

Friends of the san pedro river: http://sanpedroriver.org/wpfspr/