After spending a week in Prescott Valley, AZ with Shae’s mom and stepdad, they flew back to Virginia while we continued up to Flagstaff.
When staying in Prescott Valley, the three of them headed to Jerome while I was working one day and they visited Gold King Mine & Ghost Town there.
Our drive up to Flagstaff a few days later had us heading through Jerome, so we stopped there for lunch and so Shae could take me to the mine and ghost town seeing as I’d missed out the first time.
You enter through the gift shop which is also where you pay the entrance fee.
You exit through the back of the gift shop which leads you to the Gold King Mine & Ghost Town. There are a few paths and trails around the place, so you can explore everything in whatever order you like.
We started off by following the path along to the right which took us past a bunch of old buildings. You’re able to go inside all the buildings to some extent; some are all completely open, while others are partially blocked to protect the exhibits.
The first building we came to was the ‘Painless’ dentist office.
Judging by some of the equipment in there though, I’m not convinced that dental surgery there would’ve been painless. If anything, it looked more like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Dentist Massacre.
A little less scary were the mechanic shop and shoe repair store.
The laundry service building had all kinds of interesting pieces of equipment, although they all made me glad that we no longer have to rely on them to clean our clothes.
One of the most interesting buildings was the miner’s cabin as it helped give a better sense as to what life outside of work would’ve been like back in the day.
One of the other buildings in the ghost town was an old school house.
It’s not only old buildings at Gold King Mine & Ghost Town. There are all kinds of old vehicles which, if you’re a car and truck person, are probably fascinating.
I’m not much of a car person, but there were plenty of vehicles that were interesting for me. For example, the day we visited is when I learned that there was an actual vehicle called the REO Speed Wagon which is what the band in the 70s and 80s was named after.
Another vehicle appeared to be what happens when a semi truck and school bus have a baby house.
You can’t go into whatever kind of weird hybrid vehicle this is, but the open window meant we could put our hand in to take a photo to see what it looked like inside.
One of the most fascinating vehicles was the 1930 Ford Model A kit car. It was made into a tractor, but the owner’s teenage son wrecked it after it had only done 100 miles.
Another fun car was a 1928 Studebaker Indy car. It contains a 1902 Studebaker electric Westinghouse 48 volt motor. It could do 13 mph and had a range of 40 miles.
Gold King Mine & Ghost Town has a bunch of other interesting artifacts and equipment, such as this Wells Fargo safe, an old range and more.
There are even some live exhibits as there’s a small farm area with chickens, goats and pigs. You can buy animal food in the gift shop if you want to feed the critters.
With this being a former mine, there are mine-related exhibits dotted around the site.
There was also a gold panning stations there. I’m not sure if this is just an exhibit or if it’s normally used as an activity station outside of COVID times.
There were lots of other buildings to see too. One of them was ‘The Old House’ which is the last house standing out of 60 homes that used to be in the town of Haynes. A lady lived in this house until the age of 105 before moving out to Prescott in 1959 and living another three years.
Depending on when you visit, you might get to see a blacksmith at work. Unfortunately he wasn’t there the day we visited.
Not all buildings on the site were originally built at the site, such as what’s now the assay office.
This was once the section house at Section House Spring which was about a mile north of the site. The railway closed in the 1920s and the building was moved to the yard of Phelps Dodge Corp before they donated it to the Gold King Mine & Ghost Town to be used as the assay office.
When Shae first visited Gold King Mine & Ghost Town, her mom apparently got a big shock when she opened the outhouse door to look inside.
She was incredibly embarrassed that she opened the door on someone using the restroom until she realized that it was a practical joke.
How Long Does It Take To Visit Gold King Mine & Ghost Town?
Seeing as we were moving on from Prescott Valley to Flagstaff the day we both visited, we only spent about 45 minutes there. When Shae originally visited with her mom and stepdad, they spent just over an hour exploring the site.
Is Gold King Mine & Ghost Town Pet-Friendly?
Yes, Gold King Mine & Ghost Town is pet-friendly. That’s one of the reasons we decided to visit that day; with us moving on, it meant we had Truffles with us and so we could only do pet-friendly stuff that day.
How Much Does It Cost To Visit?
When we visited Gold King Mine & Ghost Town in April 2021, the prices were:
- Children 5 & under – Free
- Ages 6-12 – $7
- Ages 13-79 – $10
- Ages 80+ – Free
Even better, pups are free!
Where Is Gold King Mine & Ghost Town?
Gold King Mine & Ghost Town can be found at Perkinsville Rd, Jerome, AZ 86331. It’s 45 minutes southwest of Sedona, 90 minutes south of Flagstaff and two hours north of Phoenix.
[…] taking a wander around Gold King Mine & Ghost Town, Shae and I were ready for some lunch. Shae had been to Jerome a few days earlier with her mom and […]