Oatman Ghost Town

The free-roaming wild burros are the single defining feature of an Oatman visit. Anywhere from a dozen to forty burros are typically wandering Main Street at any given time during daylight hours, and they have full run of the town — they walk in front of cars, stand in shop doorways, accept carrots from tourists, and generally treat the Main Street commercial strip as their pasture. The burros are descendants of pack animals that prospectors and miners used in the early 1900s to haul ore, supplies, and equipment between the mines and the town. When commercial mining declined, miners released the burros into the surrounding Black Mountains rather than slaughtering them, and the animals have lived semi-feral on the range ever since.

The burros are technically wild and are managed by the Bureau of Land Management as a protected population, though the Oatman herd that wanders Main Street has become essentially habituated to humans across multiple generations. Most of the burros that visitors encounter were born in town or on the immediate surrounding range and have been hand-fed carrots their entire lives. They are generally docile and will approach visitors directly for food, though they remain genuinely wild animals with kicks, bites, and unpredictable behavior all possible. The town's official guidance is to feed only the carrots sold at Main Street shops (typically $1 per small bag), to keep small children supervised at all times, and to never feed burros human food which can make them sick.

Newborn burro foals are typically born in March, April, and May. The foals wear small "Do Not Feed" stickers on their foreheads — the BLM and town arrangement is that nursing foals should not be fed by tourists to protect their developing digestive systems. Adult burros are fair game for the carrot bags. Visitors who arrive in spring will typically see five to ten foals among the herd at any given time, and the foals are the photographic highlight of most spring Oatman visits.

Oatman's founding story is the classic American Western mining-boom narrative compressed into a single town. Gold was discovered at the Tom Reed Mine site in 1906 by prospectors working the Black Mountains, and within roughly two years the mine had produced enough confirmed ore to attract substantial outside investment. The town site that became Oatman was platted in 1906-1908 to support the mine workforce, and within a decade Oatman had grown to its peak population of roughly 3,500 with a full commercial district, multiple hotels, churches, schools, and the standard supporting infrastructure of an active Western mining boomtown.

The mines produced an estimated 1.8 million ounces of gold across their commercial life — most of it during the 1908-1924 peak period. At modern gold prices, the total production would be worth several billion dollars, though the actual 1910s and 1920s dollar value was a fraction of that. The Tom Reed Mine specifically was the largest producer; smaller mines including the United Eastern, the Big Jim, and the Gold Road also operated profitably during the peak. The mine workforce was a typical American Western mix — Cornish hard-rock miners (Cornwall, England, was the traditional source of expert hard-rock mining labor across the American West), Mexican laborers, and a smaller mix of other immigrant nationalities.

Commercial mining wound down through the late 1920s and 1930s as the easily accessible high-grade ore was exhausted. By the time the federal government suspended gold mining as a non-essential activity during World War II, most Oatman mines were already operating at marginal profitability. Post-war attempts to reopen the mines were generally unsuccessful, and Oatman's economy shifted permanently to depend on Route 66 traffic. Some mine tours are still available today — the most accessible is in the Tom Reed area, generally $12 per person, available through Main Street outfitters.

When the federal Route 66 highway was officially designated in 1926, the routing through northwestern Arizona ran directly through Oatman along what is now called the Oatman Highway. The route was chosen because Oatman was already an established town with hotels, gas stations, and services, and because the natural mountain pass through the Black Mountains (Sitgreaves Pass, just east of Oatman) was the practical low-elevation crossing route. From 1926 through 1953, every Route 66 traveler heading between Kingman and the California border at the Colorado River drove directly down Oatman's Main Street.

The Route 66 traffic during these decades sustained Oatman through the post-mining decline. The town's economy shifted from gold extraction to highway services — gas stations, motor courts, diners, and the souvenir trade. Several of the buildings still standing on Main Street today date from this Route 66 commercial period rather than the original 1906-1915 mining boom. The Oatman Hotel, which originally opened in 1902 to serve the mining workforce, transitioned smoothly to serving Route 66 travelers and remains in operation today.

In 1953 the federal government rerouted Route 66 onto a new alignment that bypassed the Oatman Highway entirely — the new route avoided the steep, twisting Sitgreaves Pass grades by running south through the desert flats. The bypass essentially ended Oatman's commercial viability overnight; through traffic dropped to almost nothing, and most of the highway-service businesses closed within a few years. The wild burros, the well-preserved 1900s buildings, and the steady (if reduced) trickle of nostalgia travelers along the old alignment kept Oatman alive through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The Route 66 nostalgia revival from the late 1980s onward has restored Oatman to viable tourism, though at a fraction of its 1930s and 1940s peak traffic.

The free daily gunfight reenactments on Main Street are one of the standard scheduled Oatman experiences. The reenactments are performed typically at noon and 2pm every day (weather permitting), staged by a volunteer troupe of locals in 1880s-1900s period costume. The reenactments are short — roughly 10-15 minutes — and are deliberately theatrical and family-friendly rather than historically rigorous. The standard show involves a saloon dispute that escalates into a Main Street gunfight with cap guns, banter with the audience, and a comedic recovery scene. Donations from the audience are collected at the end of each show; the volunteer reenactors are not paid by the town.

Beyond the gunfights, Main Street offers the standard small Western tourist-town shopping mix — souvenirs ranging from Route 66 t-shirts and refrigerator magnets through more substantial Western art, jewelry, leather goods, and handmade local crafts. Several shops sell genuine Oatman mining artifacts (assay tools, mine equipment, period photographs) for collectors interested in the deeper history. The standard shop hours are 10am to 5pm, with some variation by season — most shops are open daily during peak tourism months (March through October) and may have reduced hours or be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays during the slower winter months (November through February).

The single best Main Street walk takes about 45-60 minutes for the standard tourist experience — long enough to see most of the buildings, photograph the burros, watch one of the gunfight reenactments, visit a few shops, and have a meal or a beer. Visitors who want a deeper experience including a mine tour, the Oatman Hotel's Honeymoon Suite visit, and lingering shopping time can easily extend a visit to half a day or longer.

The single most important practical consideration is the drive itself. Oatman is accessible only via the Oatman Highway — the original Route 66 alignment that runs about 28 miles from Kingman to the east and about 30 miles to Topock and the California border at the Colorado River to the west. Both directions involve steep, twisting mountain driving through the Black Mountains, with no guardrails, blind hairpin turns, and grades up to 8 percent in places. Daylight driving is strongly recommended; RVs and trailers over 40 feet are generally not advised. The drive is part of the experience — see the companion Oatman Highway entry for the full driving context.

Best months to visit are March through May (when foals are present and temperatures are mild), September through November (mild fall weather, fewer crowds), and the holiday-season weekends in December. Summer (June through August) is genuinely hot — Main Street temperatures regularly exceed 100°F — and the burros are typically less active midday during peak summer heat. Winter (January and February) is the off-season; some shops have reduced hours, gunfight reenactments may be cancelled in poor weather, and the Oatman Highway can occasionally close briefly due to ice on the higher Sitgreaves Pass section.

What to bring: cash for carrot bags, gunfight donations, and small shop purchases (some smaller shops are cash-only); comfortable walking shoes; sun protection; water bottles even in cooler months. The drive from Kingman (28 miles, typically 50-60 minutes) is the standard approach for most visitors. Combining a visit with the Kingman Powerhouse Route 66 Museum, the Oatman Hotel's Honeymoon Suite, and a meal at the Oatman Hotel Restaurant produces a satisfying full-day Route 66 itinerary. For visitors continuing west to California, the Oatman Highway continuation to Topock (30 miles southwest) and Needles, California (40 miles total west) is the classic Route 66 day plan.