Contention City, Arizona Territory Ghost Town.

Contention City is a place I have wanted to "find" ever since I first heard about it in the movie "Tombstone". I did some superficial research over the years, but it wasn't until I pulled into the parking lot of Fairbank Arizona several years back, that I "found" it. There in the parking lot was a map of the area, and there it was: Contention City.

We have explored many of the ghost towns in the Tombstone area over the years; but we have never made a point of doing much more than taking a few pictures. Now, we are going to some towns for the first time and going back to others and doing more indepth videos and pictures.

This is the first of two or more trips to Contention City. The camera angle was off, so the video is looking down a bit too much for me. We had a lot of rain this year and the weeds and scrub were very thick, making finding any ruins very difficult. The Contention mill was pretty easy to find, but we have no idea where the Sunset mill is, even without all the weeds and scrub. There is also the possibility that there is a third mill in there somewhere, so going back when the weeds are all gone, might make finding those things easier. No matter, this is a very fun, quiet, easy and enjoyable hike, so going back is a no brainer.

Most of Contention City has been destroyed. There are many "theories" about this, but the one that makes sense is that it was destroyed by the Borquillas Ranch employees at the direction of the owner to rid the place of squatters. The entire story is recounted here:

https://www.wyattearpexplorers.com/contention-city-and-its-mills.html.

Enjoy the video.

00:00 Entering From Trailhead.
01:50 First Railroad Heading To Contention.
03:54 Second Railroad Crossing.
06:00 Forest Service Equipment and monitoring.
09:34 River Crossing.
13:20 Old Mine.
15:33 Contention Mill.
23:00 Hiking To The "Massive Cottonwood".

Links:

Here are some useful links, loaded with details, pictures and information. Please visit these sites, or do your own research, as I can't add much to what they already put together:

https://www.tombstonetraveltips.com/tombstone-mining.html

This is a really good site for all things Tombstone, this guy has put the work in:

Tombstone Area Ghost Towns: https://www.wyattearpexplorers.com/

This is a great site about mining in general:

Western Mining History: https://westernmininghistory.com/

These sites are all about abandoned railroads, really interesting:

Abandoned Rails: http://www.abandonedrails.com/

Forgotten Railways, Roads & Places: https://www.frrandp.com/p/the-map.html

These guys do tours, hikes etc to ghost towns on the San Pedro river area:
Friends of the san pedro river:

http://sanpedroriver.org/wpfspr/

Music:

TuneTank YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsuRIamctZmb-QnhSa-MqwQ
https://tunetank.com/
tunetank.com_4091_dark-force_by_alexey-anisimov.mp3