Dragoon, Tombstone, and the San Pedro River

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Day 2 of this weekend's adventures! Today, we met up with our friends Mitchell and Alex and headed East to Cochise county for some hiking and letterboxing. All of the locations that we visited are some of the lesser-known about historic spots that the guys have a lot of interest in. We planted letterboxes around each of them, and hope that many people will find them and enjoy getting some information on what happened around these areas!

Curtis has been working on a letterbox series about the different events in the Civil War that took place in Arizona. You can read the summary of what he's learned here. Today, we visited a site near Dragoon, AZ, that is actually one of the better maintained spots. While most of the soldiers that died in these battles were buried in San Francisco, CA, a few Confederate Soldiers were buried here. We also saw ruins from a stagecoach station that once stood here.

Stagecoach Ruins 

Charlotte loved sniffing around here!

After visiting here, we drove to Tombstone for lunch. We ate at the Chuckwagon Eatery in Tombstone, and were very thankful that they are dog friendly! We were able to eat outside, and they gladly brought a bowl of water for Charlotte. It seemed like everyone there was a basset hound lover, and Charlotte loved them all back! If you're ever in Tombstone, check this place out, especially if you have dogs - they're the only dog friendly place in town!

A photo to remember Charlotte's first trip to Tombstone!

After eating, we went to visit the grave of Ed Schieffelin. He was the prospector that discovered silver here in Cochise county, which led to the founding of Tombstone. The grave is to the West of the town, and is actually quite impressive.

Ed Schieffelin's grave

Facing East

Facing Northeast

Facing South - those are the Huachuca Mountains, with Miller and Carr peaks on the far left!

After that, we started heading Southwest to the San Pedro River area. We stopped on the way to visit Brunckow Cabin, which is apparently known as "The Bloodiest Cabin in Arizona History." (I didn't really realize it until I looked it up later - it's really crazy all the places I end up going with these guys!) It also was owned by a miner, and that really interested the guys. And Charlotte. :)

The guys, checking out a mine shaft. 

Mountains in the area!

What's left of Brunckow Cabin

Once we finished there, our last stop was to a trail around the San Pedro River area, near the Charleston ghost town. This was my favorite hike of the day - it was such a beautiful and well maintained trail, and we got to see a lovely sunset around here. As you walk along the trail, there are lots of informational posts that explain what certain ruins are, or what happened in this area in the past.

Petroglyphs!

Charlotte loves being on the trails with us :)

We came across the coolest structure I've seen yet along this trail - Gird's Mill near where Millville used to be. This was like a 3 story fortress, so of course we had to go check it out!

Climbing up Gird's Mill

A closer look at the structure.

Taken from the second level of Gird's Mill!

I loved watching the sun set over the Huachuca Mountains - if you recall, we did a hiking trip last fall in this range. Miller is the furthest peak on the left, and Carr is the next point to the right of that. Click here to read about that adventure!

The San Pedro River

And finally, to end the day, we enjoyed walking across Charleston Bridge and watching a stunning sunset. It was the perfect day to explore Cochise county some more! We finished off this adventure with having steak, rice, and potatoes at Mitch's.