Arizona’s First Boomtown

Gila City disintegrated fast. The ruins proved inspiring to some and portentous for others. Shortly after Christmas in 1863, a party of approximately 109 men made camp along the banks of the Gila River amidst a melancholy scene. They were lying atop the ruins of what was, barely 10 years earlier, supposed to have become the most fabulous city of the interior Southwest. But all that was left, according to one member of their party, was “three chimneys and a coyote.”   [caption id="a