MCCRACKEN

NAME: McCracken COUNTY: Mohave ROADS: 4WD LEGAL INFO: T13N, R13W CLIMATE: Warm winter, hot summer BEST TIME TO VISIT: Winter, fall

COMMENTS: Very isolated. REMAINS: Ruins of a mill, tailings, foundations, and old stone building.

In 1874, "Chloride Jack" Owens and a party of prospectors made their way into the the mountains north of the Bill Williams Fork and found an outcropping of silver atop McCracken Hill. Soon after, a mill was erected. A group of senators bought the mill from nearby Greenwood City at a foreclosure price and put it to work producing $1.5 million in silver. Then in the winter of 1877-78, the McCracken Consolidated Mining Company erected another mill at the new Virginia City. The mines soon played out and by 1879 the place was deserted. Its peak population was about 100.

McCracken Courtesy Kurt Wenner

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