Harry Pherson/Flickr Creative Commons
Spring and summer will be here before you know it, so wouldn’t it be nice to have a good idea of a few more interesting places to take the RV? I got to thinking about some of the older roads and thought that a trip down Route 66 might be nice. Route 66 was one of the original highways in America once it became obvious that cars were here to stay and they were multiplying like rabbits. The route ran from Chicago on the eastern side, ended at the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, CA and went through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. A lot of the old route was used for I-40 but there are still twists, turns and pockets of the original road scattered about the southwest. Today we’ll talk about some of the Arizona portions, and specifically the ghost towns!
With a name like “Two Guns” you know this town has an interesting past. Oddly enough, it’s kinda a fake. It was built after Route 66 was constructed! I mean the town does have a past, it was the site of a major battle between Apaches and Navajos and there is a cave near the town that it’s claimed was the site of the death of 40+ Apaches who were burned out by the Navajos, but the structures were all built int he early 20th century as a straight-up Old West style tourist trap for early motorists heading “out west”. The town has burned to the ground completely at least twice with the last fire occurring in 1977. Rumor has it that Russell Crowe has purchased this ghost town for use as a movie set for an upcoming project. It is 30 or so miles east of Flagstaff and has it’s own exit.
Who wouldn’t want to go to a town called Chloride? Sounds awesome right? Probably smells like sweet ambrosia too. Chloride is an old mining town, founded in the 1860’s, with a legitimate past. It’s heyday was in the early 20th century when there were over 75 mines operating in the area. Currently there are only a handful of folks living in Chloride, but they are working very hard to elevate Chloride from “Ghost Town” to “Tourist Trap” as the folks in Tombstone have managed to do.
These are only two of the many interesting places to visit on the old Mother Highway in Arizona, but don’t forget to visit us at PPL Motorhomes before you head west!