Qualla: Silver Mining in Arizona https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:03 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/9/s/silver-mining-in-arizona-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Silver Mining in Arizona https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona Silver Mining in Arizona: Introduction https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona/ Photo credit Carleton Watkins, Public domain. The soldiers at Fort Huachuca thought they were being clever when they warned the scruffy prospector about to head into Apache territory. The only stone you will find out there, they told Ed Schieffelin, will be your own tombstone. What they did not know was that Schieffelin would turn their grim joke into one of the most famous place names in the American West. When he finally struck silver on a waterless plateau called Goose Flats in 1877, he filed his claim as Tombstone, and within three years the boomtown that bore that name had become the largest city between San Francisco and St. Louis.

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/9/s/silver-mining-in-arizona-wp/9t9s-silver-mining-in-arizona-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Silver Mining in Arizona: Spanish Silver, Apache Resistance https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona/ Photo credit Carleton Watkins, Public domain. The Spanish knew about Arizona's silver long before American prospectors arrived. Father Eusebio Kino, who ran missions in southern Arizona from 1687 to 1711, recorded numerous mineral deposits in the mountains bordering the Santa Cruz Valley. A major silver discovery in 1736 at ...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/9/s/silver-mining-in-arizona-wp/9t9s-silver-mining-in-arizona-spanish-silver-apache-resistance.mp3 0:06 2 full Silver Mining in Arizona: Blood and Silver in the San Pedro Valley https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona/ Photo credit Carleton Watkins, Public domain. The violence that preceded Tombstone's discovery was stark. In 1858, Frederick Brunckow, a Prussian-born mining engineer, built a cabin near the San Pedro River after locating a small silver deposit. He hired three white workers and about a dozen Mexican miners. Two years later, ...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/9/s/silver-mining-in-arizona-wp/9t9s-silver-mining-in-arizona-blood-and-silver-in-the-san-pedro-valley.mp3 0:06 3 full Silver Mining in Arizona: Thirty Cents and a Handshake https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona/ Photo credit Carleton Watkins, Public domain. Schieffelin's breakthrough came after months of searching. He located loose silver ore that had eroded from nearby hills into a dry wash. But finding ore and profiting from it were two different things. With only thirty cents in his pocket, Schieffelin tracked down his brother Al...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/9/s/silver-mining-in-arizona-wp/9t9s-silver-mining-in-arizona-thirty-cents-and-a-handshake.mp3 0:06 4 full Silver Mining in Arizona: The Sister Towns That Vanished https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona/ Photo credit Carleton Watkins, Public domain. The mines around Tombstone required water to process ore, but the plateau where the silver lay was dry. Three sister towns sprang up along the San Pedro River to run the stamping mills: Charleston, Millville, and Contention. All three are ghost towns today. At its peak, the Tombs...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/9/s/silver-mining-in-arizona-wp/9t9s-silver-mining-in-arizona-the-sister-towns-that-vanished.mp3 0:06 5 full Silver Mining in Arizona: Silver's Surprising Legacy https://qualla.com/silver-mining-in-arizona/ Photo credit Carleton Watkins, Public domain. Arizona ultimately produced 490 million troy ounces of silver through 1981, but here is the irony: only about ten percent came from silver mining. More than eighty percent of Arizona's silver was actually a byproduct of copper mining. The Silver Queen mine near Superior, for exam...

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]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/t/9/s/silver-mining-in-arizona-wp/9t9s-silver-mining-in-arizona-silvers-surprising-legacy.mp3 0:06 6 full