Wickenburg’s Rustic Western Charm

(upbeat music) - [Ike] About 50 minutes west of Phoenix, you'll drive up to the community of Wickenburg.

It's a small town with lots of Western character, charm, and ambience.

It's set in the middle of classic Sonoran Desert scenery, mixed in with a fair amount of mining history.

There's no bright lights, big city vibe here because life is simpler in Wickenburg, that is until you take a hike or ride along a trail in its back country.

Those dirt trails take you on an instant getaway to get lost in a scenic trek along a desert wash. Those open roads can also lead your inner explorer, still inspiring mystery and curiosity.

But that's what you get when you're here out Wickenburg way.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Trail Mix'd" is made possible in part by a gift from Sue and Bill Ahearn.

Additional support provided by.

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Thank you.

- I'm Ike Easley.

On this episode of "Trail Mix'd", all roads lead to Wickenburg.

We'll hit the Wickenburg outback and find some adventure and lots and lots of water as we try to make it to Box Canyon.

Plus we'll go exploring deep underground to an old gold mine called the Blue Nelly.

We'll also pay visit to an old ghost town as we try to see what it was like living in a Gold Rush mining boom town.

And later, we'll take a look at the Hassayampa River Preserve, an oasis in the middle of the desert that's helping wildlife, and hikers too.

Are you ready?

Oh, you know I'm ready.

"Trail Mix'd" starts right now.

The town of Wickenburg is nicknamed Arizona's most Western town.

Walking around, exploring its streets, you'll find some cool Western shops and restaurants.

But the town's airy, friendly vibe underscores unique history in Arizona.

The Wickenburg area and much of the West became part of the United States following the Mexican War in 1848.

An 1862 gold strike on the Colorado River, near present day Yuma, inspired prospectors and miners from California and Mexico to search for minerals in and around the Wickenburg area.

- Because of the discovery of the Vulture Mine, you had an influx of people that brought in services, that were workmen, and it contributed to the development of the community, and ultimately, to the development of the territory and then the state - Soon after that, Colorado River gold strike, fortune hunters and adventures came out here in droves, including Henry Wickenburg.

Yes, this Henry Wickenburg, and he hit it big.

Cindy Thrasher is Wickenburg's town historian.

She took me to a very important house in town.

Cindy, this house is so lovely.

It has some historical significance, right?

- It does indeed.

It was the last home belonging to Henry Wickenburg.

It was built in 1903, and he lived here until he died in 1905.

- [Ike] Cindy and the Wickenburg Historical Association were instrumental in restoring the historical place.

(laid back music) - Henry Wickenburg was a German gentleman.

He came from Essen, Germany.

He and his family owned a farm there and farmed it but didn't get enough financial support from the property.

Henry fled and went to the Netherlands, served in the army for a year, and then arrived in New York in 1847.

This is Henry Wickenburg's last home.

He sold his ranch, which was, which is now the Simpson Ranch, and he sold it to FX O'Brien in 1903, the year that he built this house.

And basically, he was downsizing.

When he had this house, it included 17 acres.

It went all the way to his cemetery, which is located about three blocks from here.

And one of the reasons the Boedo family bought it was because it was a landmark and it belonged to Henry Wickenburg.

And Henry Wickenburg was a big deal at the turn of the century and before.

Basically, this area was settled because of the discovery of the Vulture Mine.

- The renovations and repair don't extend to the house only.

At the end of the property, three blocks away, is a small cemetery.

Cindy is this Henry's tombstone right here?

- [Cindy] It is.

It is the tomb of our town founder.

- [Ike] What is the importance and significance of this cemetery?

- The significance of this property is that these people are all pioneers.

They all basically gave up their lives so that the community would prosper.

And Henry Wickenburg recognized these people and wanted them to be buried near him.

And another thing, that is kinda sad but it's been corrected, is that there wasn't any acknowledgement that our town founder was buried here until about 12 years ago.

And one of the local iron companies helped us fabricate a sign to designate the area is a pioneer cemetery.

- In the hills that surround Wickenburg are relics of other mines that still stand as a tribute to the mining lore and hardworking people of the region.

Ranchers also thrived here, and they actually created the tourism that thrives to this day in Wickenburg.

Today, modern day Wickenburg is a great community that still embraces its Western heritage, so much so that True West Magazine recognized Wickenburg among the top 10 best Western towns in the US.

Best of all, it's in your backyard.

So get out there and celebrate your inner cowboy.

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) In Arizona, we're known for hiking and biking.

But today, I'm so excited to go off-roading here at Happy Trails with my guy, Shawn.

Shawn Clarke is the owner of Happy Trails Adventures.

Today, he takes me and my crew to one of the most popular OHV trails in the Wickenburg desert outlet.

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) - The great thing about Wickenburg is there are literally 10,000 miles of trails around here.

We connect to anything from mountains up in Crown King, to flatlands all the way down to White Tanks, and all the flatlands in between.

You need to know some technicals, but we show you how to do those things.

We show you how to work the machines.

And there literally are just dozens and dozens and dozens of trails to do different things on.

- [Ike] Almost as soon as we start, the trail drops into the sandy Hassayampa River bottom.

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) - I think the best thing is I can get further into the desert, further into the beauty of the landscape, the flora, the fauna.

I see more things 'cause I can get out further than folks on bikes who,.

nothing against biking, nothing against hiking 'cause that's part of, we've had people mount bicycles to the machines and go way out there and really enjoy a great bike ride.

But what I like is the ability to get way out and enjoy that solitude.

- [Ike] Shawn knows the trail like the back of his hand and points out some of the beautiful small details of the desert in springtime.

But it's the machine and how it motors along on the sandy trail, that's what's really got me going.

I'm beginning to see why Shawn likes to get behind the wheel of these side-by-sides.

- You know, our busiest times are the winter times when we have all of our winter visitors.

Lots and lots of people like to come out.

So that's when we tend to have the most fleet, the most choice, the most options to ride.

But frankly, if you live in Arizona, if you live in the Phoenix area, from May until October, you can come out and enjoy a ride almost by yourself almost every day.

It's just wonderful.

If you want to get away from people and get away from crazy traffic and all the stuff going on in the urban jungles and come out here, you'll get this peaceful landscape all to yourself.

Sustainability is probably the number two thing after safety, right?

We want people to be safe, but sustainability is really what we preach an awful lot.

So we start off by telling folks to stay on the trail.

We wanna leave no trace, and we also wanna tread lightly.

We're not out here to tear up the desert, tear up our machines, tear up the different trees and flora and fauna and all that stuff.

We wanna preserve it.

We wanna go by it and enjoy it and then let the next person that comes behind us enjoy it as well.

- [Ike] Recent historic rains and yearly snow melt here have caused the Hassayampa to overflow abundantly with cool water.

- So generally, the Hassayampa flows underground, and then at our Box Canyon, it comes back up.

And then at the end of the Box Canyon, it goes back down.

Except now.

It's really crazy how much water is flowing through here.

- [Ike] As we check out the river flow and the amazing landscape, my executive producer, Ebonye Delaney, has got a confession.

- So I'd heard of off-roading before, and I'll be honest.

I was a little leery of it, not because I think it wasn't safe, but more because I was like, what are you gonna do?

It's like driving in a car.

Boring, right?

But now I get it.

The wind through, well, my helmet, the best trails as you go at 20 and 30 miles per hour, the views that you just get to faster because of the experience, I get why people like it now.

- [Ike] I have to agree.

We'll be back when there's less water in Box Canyon.

For now, Shawn's taking us on another adventurous trail in search of a gold mine.

At the turn of the century, fortune hunters flocked to the Wickenburg desert because they thought there was gold in the hills.

They were right.

Today, we go off the beaten path of our OHV trail in search of a gold mine.

Kathy?

- Hi!

Hey, how you doing?

- Oh, man.

So are you gonna be my tour guide today?

- I'm your tour guide here at the Gold Mine Experience.

This is our Blue Nelly Mine.

Are you ready to go in?

- I'm so ready.

- Let's go.

- Let's do it!

- So this is the vein right here.

We're gonna follow this all the way back about 1,100 feet.

- Kathy, I'm seeing a lot of different types of colors and rocks.

Can you explain them to me?

- Absolutely.

Now, you can see the vein widens quite a bit through this area.

So up here, you're gonna see a darker red.

That's gonna be our iron.

The copper's gonna be a little more orangier color.

And then our white's gonna be our quartz.

So all the minerals are compressed within the vein.

So you have your natural hard rock on either side of you.

- Both sides.

- Both sides.

- Okay, okay.

- The vein is compressed in between.

That's what contains our gold, our silver, our platinum.

We also have turquoise in there and chrysocolla.

Pretty amazing.

- Such a huge variety.

- Huge variety, huge variety.

- Can we see more?

- Absolutely.

Follow me.

- Oh!

- [Kathy] So back here, we have some calcification.

- Did the miners use this structure?

- Yes.

This, actually, this whole area is called a stope.

A stope is where they dug so much ore out but they didn't break the surface.

So they built one layer at a time of the scaffolding to be able to reach higher and higher and higher.

So this area continues through here.

Watch your head.

We're gonna go straight through.

- [Ike] Ooh, gotta watch my head.

- Yep.

Ike, further ahead, there's a ladder and a chute.

I really want you to see.

It's pretty amazing.

- I'm ready.

- Okay, Ike.

Up here is the ladder and chute I was telling you about.

So these both go up 500 feet to another mine.

- Wait, 500 feet?

- 500 feet.

So this ladder and chute over 150 years old.

You can see way, way up there.

- [Ike] Oh, wow.

- Pretty amazing.

So this whole area was vein.

- Okay.

- So they dug all of this out.

They let it go down in the chute into an ore cart, and they brought the ore cart all the way out front, and that's where they did their processing on that slab of concrete that's out front.

So this is all original.

This also goes up, past the 500 feet, it goes up another 300 feet to another mine.

So these are all connected.

Now up here, I'm gonna show you where the vein splits off into two.

So Ike, on the left hand side, the vein continues here.

Right here, you can see how beautiful this is.

- Wow.

- So this entire area does turn into a vein.

So up here, beautiful colors.

You have your azurite, which is the dark, dark blue, and then turquoise, and the chrysocolla all run through here.

So with the chrysocolla, they actually use it for southwestern Indian jewelry.

Yeah.

- Oh my God, that's really cool.

- Along with the turquoise.

Pretty cool.

- A little bling bling.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - I like it, I like it.

- So above here, we're gonna go walk.

So up here, Ike, beautiful vein.

- I see 'em, I like 'em.

- Now come up here.

I'm gonna show you this.

This is called a blasting hole.

Now they took dynamite explosives way, way back in the cave.

So they would light it, they would all run in here.

It would blow right past them, and they thought they would be safe in here.

- They thought they'd gonna be safe in here?

- Well, it worked.

(Ike and Kathy laugh) - Wow.

- Can you imagine your ears hearing that?

- I don't wanna imagine that.

- I know.

- No, no!

- Imagine just, and boom.

So this also was a storage area for their tools, for their ore carts.

Right here on the right hand side, you see the ore cart rails?

- [Ike] Right here?

Yeah.

- [Kathy] Yes.

All the way through.

They run up here.

I'll show you the rest of 'em right back over here.

- [Ike] Kathy says they found everything from gold, to diamonds, and garnets in the Blue Nelly.

- Here's the rails to the ore carts.

So they go back another 400 feet, and they're above ground.

- 400 feet?

- Yes, pretty incredible.

- Whoa.

- Now look how beautiful this wall is.

- Are these crystals?

- [Kathy] They're not crystals.

They're actually water droplets.

So all the water drops, we pool it, and then we pump it out front to the pond.

- [Ike] So all that water up front- - [Kathy] Yes.

- [Ike] That's from back here.

- Yes.

- Oh, so cool.

I like that.

- You know, Ike, I recommend you go to the Vulture City.

It's an abandoned mining town where they show how the miners lived.

- That has to be the next stop for me.

- Absolutely.

- Let's go, come on!

- Let's go.

- 10 miles south of town, you'll find the ruins and restoration of the mine and the town that made Henry Wickenburg fabulously wealthy.

Word of Henry Wickenburg's lucrative discovery drew so many fortune seekers that the town of Vulture City quickly became one of the largest settlements of its day.

The Vulture City Mine closed in 1888.

Today, you can tour the restored and replicated buildings right here so you can feel what a gold mining boom town used to be like.

- Vulture City had many different periods.

In the beginning, after the California Gold Rush, there was a few thousand people here.

It became the most producing gold mine to date still for the state of Arizona.

- [Ike] From 1863 to 1942, the mine produced 340,000 ounces of gold and 260 ounces of silver.

- [Stephen] Pretty much all walks of life came from here.

I mean, you had Europeans.

You had people from here.

You had people from China.

I mean, you had all kinds of people here.

- [Ike] With over 15 restored buildings and countless artifacts of the era, the Vulture City ghost town provides a glimpse of the old mining culture and lifestyle of the American Southwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

- I just love Vulture City.

I've been here probably 10 times in the last 30 years.

And it is an authentic ghost town from the gold era where the miners would come out here, the prospectors would be here searching for gold and silver.

And it's just a wonderful experience to bring families and kids.

- [Ike] The old town even has a traditional blacksmith.

The Vulture City Forge is on hand to give you a demonstration of how things like horseshoes and other items were made back then.

You can even take a class to learn a little bit about this art.

One of the most fascinating buildings is the old assay office.

- What you would see here in the building is the basic tools for checking your samples to see if you're gonna continue mining in that area or not.

They'll also eventually start making their gold bars in here, and then they would store 'em in the vault in the room next door.

- [Ike] The old assay office, in which they produced dore bars made of pure gold and silver, had utterly deteriorated until it was repaired in 2017.

- Where I'm standing right now, this whole roof was collapsed down inside of it, and pretty much all this rock right here was down.

We rebuilt it, laid up the rock, and then had to take the wood out, and then we had to use new wood.

- A cabin Henry Wickenburg used was also nothing but rubble, but it too was painstakingly put back together.

It was so great taking a step back to visit this ghost town.

While Vulture City may have been abandoned, the spirit of this city is still alive and well.

(serene music) As Arizonans who live and work here, most of us know that water is life.

If you ever wondered why this concept in our desert is so important, all you need to do is visit Wickenburg's Hassayampa River Preserve.

- Riparian areas like this typically have a higher biodiversity, meaning more different types of plant and animal species are found in riparian areas.

Something like 85% of the animal species in Arizona rely on riparian areas like this at some point in their lifespan.

Just shows the importance of riparian areas like this in the desert, so much dependence on it.

- In the Sonoran Desert, riparian areas, like the Hassayampa Preserve, nourish cottonwood-willow forests, which are one of the rarest and most threatened forest types in North America.

The preserve was first created by the Nature Conservancy, and is now co-owned and managed by Maricopa County Parks and Recreation.

- Increased water consumption in the Southwest in general, coupled with the extended drought that we've been in, damming of rivers like this, the Hassayampa is actually one of the last undammed rivers in Arizona, so those things all impact riparian areas like this.

The willow and cottonwood gallery forest, which this is a type of, an example of, is actually the rarest forest type in North America because of these impacts of damming rivers and such.

So just the fact that it's here is really a testament to the choices that people have made over the years to actively preserve this area.

- [Ike] The Apache Indians refer to the Hassayampa as the upside down river because it floats underground most of the way.

It's usually a dry river bed unless there have been heavy rains.

- The wonderful rain that we had throughout the winter and the spring caused significant impacts here at the preserve.

We had significant river flooding not only from rain in this area, but also from rain and snow melt up in the higher elevations.

But even though it impacts our operation, this is a desert river doing what it's supposed to do, having these high flow events and such, scouring out the understory along the river, depositing new sediments and such, and then leaving these damp sandy conditions that allow the germination of the cottonwood and willow seeds that are floating around in the air right now.

And hopefully, they'll find a good place to rest and germinate and help us sustain this beautiful forest.

- [Ike] The shade of towering cottonwood in this riparian habitat also makes for a beautiful place to hike some trails.

- So the great thing about the trails here is that they're all pretty short and they loop back up on one another, so you can do a short trail and then choose another.

Even in our short three-mile trail system, there's a lot of diversity in the types of things you'll see.

We have a small spring-fed lake called Palm Lake, and there's a trail that goes around that.

We also have several river trails.

And each one of them is different.

They have their own unique character.

So you can see not only the willow and cottonwood gallery forest, but you can also see some of the historic plants that were planted by people who've lived here in the past.

We have 150-year-old palm trees.

So you get to see some of those things depending on the different trails that you're on.

And certain types of wildlife tend to hang out on the different trails and in different areas.

- What I find most peaceful about the preserve is a chance to reconnect with nature, all the senses are engaged, just a place to disconnect from the hustle and bustle of the every day.

- [Ike] As you can imagine, this area is a great place for bird watching.

- We like to come out and watch the birds and see what different varieties they are.

And we also like to hike out here.

When we come out here, we usually get two, three miles in.

- We have over 300 bird species alone that have been recorded utilizing the preserve either seasonally or year round over the the last 30-plus years.

- [Ike] Visitors can stroll the trails through the forest or just sit quietly and let nature come to them.

- This truly is an oasis in the desert.

It's an important place for the wildlife in this area.

If you come here and you stand here, you don't feel like you're in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, and that helps people see the importance of riparian areas like this, especially in the desert.

And this is a kind of a build it and they will come scenario where it's a preserve it and they will come.

The wildlife comes here because this preserve has everything that the wildlife needs to survive.

It's also incredibly important for us as people.

Riparian areas like this have a lot of ecological services that they provide.

The trees, of course, provide oxygen for us to breathe.

They help sequester carbon.

It just makes it a healthier ecosystem overall, a more resilient ecosystem when you have riparian areas like this.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Trail Mix'd" is made possible in part by a gift from Sue and Bill Ahearn.

Additional support provided by.

- [Narrator] SRP is staying ahead of the Valley's growing energy needs.

We're investing in one of the country's largest solar battery storage projects to deliver power that's as reliable as it is sustainable.

- [Announcer] Albertsons, Safeway pharmacies, and Valley nonprofit Mission of Mercy are proud to support cancer awareness.

They encourage you to talk to your doctor, get recommended screenings, and don't forget your flu vaccine.

More information at albertsons or safeway.com.

- [Announcer] Whitfill Nursery proud to support 8 Arizona PBS.

A valley tradition since 1946, over 200 acres of Arizona-grown trees, citrus and palms, complete custom design and installation, and Whitfill Nursery still does the digging.

Whitfillnursery.com.

- [Announcer] And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.