Davis Dam and Oatman, AZ

Tuesday, Jan 20, 2015

We decided to do some sightseeing today.  We drove over to Davis Dam.  Davis Dam is an earth and rock-fill embankment with a concrete spillway, gravity structure, intake structure and power plant.  The dam was build to help control the water flow after Hoover Dam was completed.  Davis Dam was completed in 1953.  One of the main purposes for this dam was to produce electricity.

As we drove towards Davis Dam we were intrigued with how it seemed to be buried in a valley in the mountains.

Tours are no longer available so we just walked around.  Tic made this panoramic from the parking lot.  We were disappointed no water was flowing on the spillway.  We did not take any more pictures of Davis Dam.

Next we headed to the ghost town of Oatman, AZ.  We were told about gun fights on the streets.  Also we were told to see the Hotel & restaurant in town.  Upon researching on the internet we found that just a short distance south of our RV park we could take a dirt road to Oatman.  Per the internet, the road is not maintained by the county and can be rough but the scenery was supposed to be beautiful.  We decided to take that route.

It is a slightly overcast and windy day so you see the dirt in the air.  We stopped on the road and Tic took several panoramic pictures of the mountain range in the distance.  This picture above and the two panoramics below go from left to right.   It was gorgeous.

These pictures don't do the awesomeness justice.

We were headed into the south end this range.  We are going from 528 ft elevation up to 2700 ft elevation in Oatman, AZ.

This is the road we stopped on for Tic to take the above pictures.  This part of the road was nice and wide.  About half the length of the road was about half the width of this road.  It got pretty windy and hilly.  I could only drive between 15 - 30 mph.  It was fun.

This is just another unique peak on the way to Oatman.

The light color in the middle of this ridge looks like some rocks broke off at the top causing an avalanche.

This peak looks unique with half of it dark and the other half light in color.  There were even several houses (5 maybe) where people were living "off the grid".  Oatman started life over 100 years ago as a mining tent camp, and quickly became a flourishing gold-mining center. In 1915, two miners struck a $10 million gold find, and within a year, the town's population grew to more than 3,500.  In 1921 much of the town burned down.  Then in 1925 the gold mining company closed its doors for good.  The town died quickly.  We figure these people living "off the grid" must be gold mining.  It is fun to think that.

Apparently the burros used during the mining days were abandoned.  The burros walk freely on the street.  You can buy food to feed them, so they are fairly domesticated.  

As we are walking down the main street, we saw people gathered and burros in the street and traffic at a total standstill.  Even the UPS man had to stop and wait.  We walked on past the traffic stop and saw that a staged gunfight was in progress.

This is the bank robber with the bag of money he just stole.

The man in the middle of the group is the sheriff.  Of course the sheriff won the shootout!

More burros.  I watched one burro pull a bag out of a woman's purse.  The burros can be aggressive.

Here is the hotel and restaurant.  We decided to have lunch inside.

I know it is a little blurry, but the information is fun.  Among other things, it says that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon upstairs.

The walls and parts of the ceilings were covered with one dollar bills.  Some of the original ones were laminated as you can see above.

Yes, those are all one dollar bills all over the place.

Even more dollar bills!  We could not even begin to guess how many dollar bills there were. 

It is not even a weekend and we had a live musician.  He was actually pretty good.

After we ate we proceeded down the street to see what else we could see.  Do you see the clock with dynamite on each side?  

Behind that little "store" was this old abandoned mine. See the sign.  A closeup of it is below.  Also notice the doorway to the left of the sign.

This is the sign I mentioned above.

This is a closeup of the doorway to the left of the sign above.  Cute.

I guess the guy in the picture above did not pay attention to this warning sign.  Ha! Ha!

Around the corner they did have this short tunnel supported so you could walk through it and get the feel.  Tic used a flash so it looks light but it was actually pretty dark.

More burros.  I bet if you live in town they are a real nuisance.  

A collector drove this restored Corvair while we were there.  We had seen all we could so decided to head home a different route.

This route actually had paved roads.  These are a few unique formations a little ways out of town.
The drive back was longer but actually took less time.  Pavement made a big difference.