Sunset Mill in Contention City Arizona Territory via the "ore" road.

11 months ago
57

We hiked the road that we believe was used to haul the ore from Tombstone to the mills in Contention City. I know Contention City had it's own mines, but I think ore was also brought in from Tombstone. The ore was dumped from wagons on the top of the mill and this old road goes to that spot.

We were hoping to find the Sunset Mill, the cemetery and some other ruins. We did find the mill and some other ruins (not all that we were looking for) but were unable to find the cemetery; I guess that's another trip.

I pieced together where the road was from looking at topo maps, how the ore was hauled, the old roads in the area and information on various websites.

I am almost 100% sure, that at least the last leg of this route is accurate as it ends right on the top of the mill. The first leg of the road was later used as the "Old Tombstone Highway" and I cannot verify that that route was the original route. No matter, it was still fun to hike the old road.

At the end of the video, I plot out the locations of the bridge ruins and speculate as to what they were, as well as a video of the entire route we took.

Song: RedLionProduction - Country Story
Music provided by Tunetank.
Free Download: https://tunetank.com/track/452-country-story/

Other useful links:

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

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

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

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

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

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

00:00 Intro
00:32 Driving In
02:07 View Of the Ore Road
03:21 Start Of The Hike
07:27 Fork in the road
09:22 Top Level of Contention Mill
11:55 Adobe Ruins
12:53 Oyster Shell and Other Artifacts
14:40 NM&A Railroad Bridge Ruins
15:56 More Bridge Ruins
16:55 Sunset Mill Ruins
19:25 More Bridge Ruins
20:00 Contention Mill
21:22 GPS Map Of The Bridges
21:45 Slides
22:50 Fly Over Of Route

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