DryHeatBlog Two Guns, Arizona: A Ghost Town with a Story
What remains of Two Guns, Arizona is in an accelerated state of decline, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop in for a visit. To the contrary, travelers on the Mother Road will recognize Two Guns as a must-see place to visit on historic Route 66.
To refer to Two Guns, Arizona as a ghost town would imply that it was once a town which would be generous at best. What there is is a gas station, KOA Campground, stone ruins of a small settlement, a woefully inadequate zoo and a hole-in-the-cliff known as the Apache Death Cave.
Despite having visited this location multiple times over the years, I was not aware of this “death cave” until after my last visit. Ergo, there aren’t any photos of it but the story goes like this. In 1878 the cave was the site of a mass murder when a group of 42 Apaches were trapped and burned to death by their Navajo enemies. So I guess that explains the ghost rumors BUT this account has apparently been debunked by both nations and locals for many years so it may not even be true.
Here’s what is true, like many staples of the Mother Road, time and I-40 moved on and Two Guns was left behind.
Abandoned Texaco Gas Station in Two Guns, Arizona
They say the gas station burned in 1971. It’s gutted for sure and the pumps are gone. The graffiti, on the other hand, is abundant.
From all the way out in the parking lot, the thing that drew me in here was the “bulls eye” raven painting – complete with a bullet hole in the eye.
Exploring The Abandoned KOA Campground in Two Guns, Arizona
There used to be a lot more stuff here. Like, a lot more. When I first visited the KOA Campground many years ago, there was a yellow-roofed A-Frame building, a bath house and a few other outbuildings in addition to the pool. There were also several remnants of make shift BBQ grills made with car wheels and at least a few of the trees were alive. Nowadays the pool survives and the buildings are little more than collapsed piles of wood. The big A-frame building burned and the bathhouse just fell down. The trees were looking pretty ghastly but it was March so it’s kinda hard to say if they were dead or sleeping.
Mountains Lions: The abandoned zoo
The first settler in Two Guns, Arizona was a fellow named Ed Randolph. While his name is known, the date of his settling is elusive. Ed built a general store next to the death cave. You know, cuz nothing says “prime real estate” like proximity to a death cave.
In 1922, Earl and Louise Cundiff purchased 320 acres of land from Randolph for the tidy sum of $1000. They built a store, restaurant and a gas station. In 1925 an entrepreneur calling himself Chief Crazy Thunder leased some property from the Cundiffs and built himself a zoo. A woefully inadequate zoo that was clearly not fit to house anything, especially the mountain lions advertised on the front. It makes me sad just looking at it. Crazy Thunder’s real name was Harry Miller and, by all accounts, he was quite the snake oil salesman. He may or may not have sold the skulls of deceased Apaches found in the death cave that may or may not have even been a death cave. In addition to his shoddy zoo, he definitely built fake Indian ruins and then sold tickets to tourists to go see them.
But wait, there’s more. In 1926, Chief Snake Oil Crazy Thunder got into a disagreement with the owner of his property, Earl Cundiff, over the terms of the lease. Only one year after leasing the property, Harry Miller (the Chief) would shoot and kill his unarmed landlord. Murder, right? Apparently not, somehow Miller would be acquitted of this crime but the long arm of karma would not let him be. Shortly after his acquittal, Miller was mauled by two of his mountain lions. Right after that, he was bitten by one of his poisonous Gila Monsters. I tell ya, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. You’ll never guess what happened next. That’s right, he skipped town.
Canyon Diablo Bridge
Like most ways across, The Canyon Diablo Bridge provided a better way to get from here to there than, say, going around or tumbling through. It was built by Thomas Haddock, a contractor from Williams, Arizona for the amount of $9000 and was opened on March 17, 1915. The bridge was part of the National Old Trails Road, which later became part of U.S. Route 66. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
