Goldfield Ghost Town, Organ Stop Pizza and Mesa Arizona Temple

Sunday, December 16th

Nice to see the sun  come out in all its' glory today... just not as high afternoon temps, 70F.  With Deb in Vancouver, I'm spreading out the packing of the coach for our last move before Christmas.  Today the inside Christmas lights were first.

The day before, Steve and Dianne arranged to see some friends for lunch at the Mammoth Cafe in the Goldfield Ghost Town and invited me to join them.  We've passed this ghost town many times and thought this might be a good time to see it.

A little history of the ghost town first:

 Situated atop a small hill between the Superstition Mountains and the Goldfield Mountains, the settlement of Goldfield got its start in 1892 when very rich, high grade gold ore was found in the area. A town soon sprang up and on October 7, 1893 it received its first official post office.

This “official” find, coupled with the legend of the Lost Dutchman Mine, which had been circulating for years, led plenty of new miners to the area and in no time, the town boasted three saloons, a boarding house, a general store, brewery, blacksmith shop, butcher shop, and a school. For five years the town boomed until some 1,500 souls were residing in the burgeoning city.

But like other gold camps, Goldfield’s bustling days were quickly dashed when the vein of gold ore started to play out and the grade of the ore dropped even more. Just five years after it began, the town found itself quickly dying. The miners moved on, the post office was discontinued on November 2, 1898, and Goldfield became a ghost town.

However, some prospectors clung on to the area, sure to find the elusive Lost Dutchman Mine or perhaps, a brand new vein. Others tried to reopen the existing mines, but all attempts were unsuccessful until a man named George Young, who was the secretary of Arizona and the acting governor, arrived on the scene in the first decade of the 20^th century. Young brought in new mining methods and equipment to recover the ore and the town began slowly come alive once more. Also built was a mill and a cyanide plant. A second post office was established on June 8, 1921 and the “new” town was called Youngsberg. However, the town’s “rebirth” would last only about as long as it did the first – just five years. Finally, the gold was gone, the post office was discontinued on October 30, 1926, and the town died once again.

But Goldfield was obviously not destined to die permanently. In 1966, Robert F. “Bob” Schoose, a long time ghost town, mining, and treasure-hunting enthusiast made his first trip to the Superstition Mountains and instantly fell in love with the area. He moved to Mesa, Arizona in 1970 and soon began to dream of owning his own ghost town. He had heard of the old site of Goldfield, but upon inspection, he found little left other than a few foundations and rambling shacks. He and his wife, Lou Ann, then located another five-acre site that was once the location of the Goldfield Mill and decided with to rebuild the old town. Purchasing the old mill site in 1984, they first reconstructed a mining tunnel, which included a snack bar and opened for business in 1988. Next came a photo shop, the Blue Nugget, a General Store, the Mammoth Saloon and the Goldfield Museum.

Today, Goldfield is filled with authentic looking buildings, includes underground mine tours, and the only narrow gauge railroad in operation in Arizona. Numerous shops and buildings include a brothel, bakery, leather works, a jail, livery, and more. The authentic looking street is filled with people in period costume, horses and wagons, and sometimes authentic gunfighter presentations.

Now here' s some of the pictures from the visit:

Bob Schoose and Willie Nelson

Bob is a really nice guy.  Deb and I stopped at the Mammoth Bar and Grill two days ago and he was talking to all the people and cracking lots of jokes.  He remarked to me he liked my back support,  When I showed up with the support today, he calls out welcome back I remember you!

Steve and Dianne enjoying a Michelob Amberbock

Nice view of Superstition Mountains from the bar parking lot.

Lots of action with horses around the area.

A narrow gauge railroad runs around the perimeter of the ghost town.

Our original plans for the day were supper at Organ Stop Pizza and then off to see the Christmas Lights at the Mesa Arizona Temple.  So right after getting back from Goldfield, it was off to bed for me to rest the back for these events.

So, on to the Organ Stop Pizza and the Mighty Wurlitzer the worlds biggest and best organ (according to the organ playing gurus per Google).  This thing is ^&*() huge, I know we've seen it before but this thing is %^&* huge!  See for yourself:

Told you it was %^&* huge.

Here's the player dude, he did an awesome job.

Two hungry customers.... hi Steve and Dianne!

Some of the periphery on the side walls to join in on the piece.

You could see the keys of the player piano during the numbers.

What a set of pipes the organ player dude has.

The whole dinner set up is self-serve.  You come in, order your zah, follow around the corner to the beverage station.  Both pizza and beer prices are very reasonable.  The seating area is huge but was rather full when we got there but cleared out a lot during the intermission.  Dianne ate her salad and Steve and I split a 12" "kitchen sink" combo.  It was so full of toppings we couldn't finish it.  Did you enjoy your lunch today Steve?  We did, however, have a little corner of stomach left for a dish of Butter Pecan or Rocky Road ice-cream.

With full tummies it was off to the Mesa Arizona Temple two miles away from the pizza joint.  The Mormon decorate their temple grounds annually.  They do a spectacular job.  The part I like is they bring in more of the religious side of Christmas as you will see with some of the nativity scenes in the pics below.

So without further ado....

Two lovebirds.... hi Steve and Dianne

These banana lights are great

As the Temple grounds are not overly expansive, the area gets congested so it's hard to get the "ghosts"  out of the pics. The Mormons sure put on a very impressive display, thank you. Oh, that's the other good thing about this Temple... I heard many people exchanging "Merry Christmas" .

Thanks for driving home Steve, my back was way to sore for that task after today.

Update from Deb:

Thanks to Westjet with less than 24 hours I was on the plane to Vancouver by Saturday 2pm after calling them the day before. Great service. Although with all of the people travelling for Christmas and all of their extra luggage, the plane left 20 minutes late. Fortunately it made up time in the air and we arrived right on time at 4:15 pm. Leaving Phoenix in the sunshine, and as usual at this time of year landing in Vancouver was dark and rainy.  It did not take too much time to go through customs (all automated now pretty much unless they pull you out of the line) and once I picked up the rental car made it to the hospital by 7 pm. Managed to see Garrett and Kat for a few minutes before they had to leave to go back home to Squamish. Thanks for being there for Dad guys while I was trying to get there.

Dad finally got moved from the ER yesterday, day 4 of his hospital stay, to a room which makes him much happier. He is now on oxygen full-time and needs 2 people to help him up to weight transfer. Things are not improving as we had hoped. His congestive heart failure has caused fluid to continuously fill his lungs even though they are giving him quite a bit of drugs to help allieviate it. Spoke to his doctor today and his is probably as good as he will be .... So now what to do.

He wants to come home and I will try and facilitate that after Christmas ... it is too hard to get enough coverage to help Larny out with his care on a full-time basis and get a hospital bed and anything else he will need. We are going to try and spring him out for 4 hours on the 23rd, the day the kids are here and we will have our "Christmas Day".  Lots to think about and get organized so I will not be flying back to Phoenix on the 28th as planned. Ray will have to drive the rig home on his own.

Today it SNOWED!!!! Hopefully this is not a harbinger for things to come.

Came out of Walmart and this is what had happened!

Driving back to Dad's.

Anyways, trying to stay positive day by day.