Seymour, AZ rr stop

If you guys havent found Seymour yet, then I can probably get you close enough so that you can find it on your own.
You can turn off at Morristown, there are a number of old roads in the area.

Its located in T.6N., R.4W., Sec. 22 or Sec. 27. That gets you down to about a square mile.

I lived in that area for several yrs..

Good luck.

Bob T.
 

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Guys,
The Seymour AZ railroad stop is on private property. The owner does NOT like being disturbed. Please respect his privacy. The building is being very well preserved.
 

Yes, it's on private property and I for one, respect their privacy.

To me, it is the search for and acquisition of information that's exciting.
 

I'm new to TreasureNet and reading through old posts and see this thread on Seymour, AZ. Sounded familiar.

A friend of mine, knowing I make maps, once asked me if I knew where Seymore was. I didn't, but I found an old map that did. It was the 1918 survey Plat for the area, with Seymore, right there on the Hassayampa River. So I made him a new map to lead him on another desert adventure.

You've all probably been to Seymore by now and across the river to the mill site. But I thought you might like a copy of the map I made appropriately named "Where's Seymore?"

You can download it from my website.

Where's Seymore

If you open it using an Adobe program, a layer list will appear on the left. You can turn on/off the plat map so that you can see the landscape underneath.

Enjoy
 

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Wizzard said:
I've been reading up on the Walnut Creek Dam break in the 1890's that wiped out the settlements of Seymour and Smith's Mill. 100+ (dependng on the article you read), people were killed in the flooding that occured.

I can see the settlement being on the East side of the Hassayampa but not the stamp mill. Doesn't make sense to my that they'd bring the ore across the river bed to process. Too sandy ....

Here's a link to one article I read: THE WALNUT GROVE DAM DISASTER
Click to expand...

and yet...if you go look at the ruins of Gillett Arizona...the town is on one side, the mill on the other bank of the aqua fria...odd but true...same down in Charleston az...town on one side of the river, the mill works on the other...

also...the rails nowadays follow the original lines{ mostly}...there should be a sign indication where semor is located....the sign will face the tracks...not the road...it is for the conductors...
 

Last edited:
Wizzard said:
I've been reading up on the Walnut Creek Dam break in the 1890's that wiped out the settlements of Seymour and Smith's Mill. 100+ (dependng on the article you read), people were killed in the flooding that occured.

I can see the settlement being on the East side of the Hassayampa but not the stamp mill. Doesn't make sense to my that they'd bring the ore across the river bed to process. Too sandy ....

Here's a link to one article I read: THE WALNUT GROVE DAM DISASTER

Gonna have to get off my lazy butt and explore the area I guess. ;D
Click to expand...

I agree! Why would they haul that ore across the sandy river bottom? That riverbed is bad besides having quicksand from what I'm told. Now you take all the mills for Tombstone and they're on the Tombstone side of the river along with the tracks. Millville, Boston Mill, Contention City and the couple that I forgot their names. They're on the east side of the river so that they don't have to cross it. Not sure why they had two towns across the river from each other at the first mill, Millville. Millville had two mills with the mill superintendent's house right in between. Talk about noise! Good thing he had thick adobe walls. Beautiful house! It had the two mills and a town. So why did they have a town right across the river? The town of Charleston. I guess for the people who didn't want to hear the noise from the mills running 24 hours a day. I'm sure it wasn't that quiet across the river. Eventually Charleston got bigger and Millville lost their post office to Charleston.

Oops! Am I rambling? Sorry!
 

Hey Everyone, I'm new here. I just got a metal detector (August, 2019), and I'm eager to get out and give it a try. I'm hoping some of you seasoned guys can give me some suggestions on where a first timer can dig up some interesting finds? The Seymour thread looks interesting. Did anyone ever get out there and check it out? I would be interested in any areas around NW Phoenix, as I live in the NW valley. I'm looking for day trips, so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
 

Welcome good luck you'll love this hobby. Tommy
 

Hello members, I just joined after reading this Seymour thread. I have been researching the Vulture pipeline for the last 9 months. It was built around 1880 and ran ten miles from the Seymour area, straight across the desert to supply the new 80 stamp mill at the Vulture mine. Let's just say the Seymour property is off limits (private property) and Smith's Mill has limited access. I know the pipeline route and believe I have located the reservoir. I am still trying to determine the site of the Seymour Mill and pump station for the pipeline. I have been looking at the area Ruby Miner's map shows as the mill site on the west side of the river. So far only found cut nails and two small pieces of cast iron, but this indicates activity. These were the areas wiped out by the Walnut Grove flood so there is not much to go on.
 

I have been researching this area for over a year now. Have been to all of the related sites. I believe that the stamp mills for both Seymour and Smith's mill were on the west side and that the "settlements" were on the east side of the Hassayampa. The area shown above is a water containment facility that I refer to as the "Swimming Pool". The large one is about 4' deep and about the size of an olympic pool. There are about three more man-made pools that are much deeper and one smaller. I would love to know what this was for but have no clues. At one point I thought maybe it was related to the Vulture pipeline but have so far found no evidence. THis area is about 2 miles north of the Seymour mill site.
 

Update: The "swimming pool" I referred to above was apparenty not part of the pipeline system. It appears to be part of the Newsboy Mining Project which did a lot of strip mining on the hill across the wash. The ponds may have been used in the cyanide process.
 

After 18 months of research the current thinking is: There was a dam at Red Cliff, which created a reservoir that backed up to Seymour mill area. From there a pump station pumped water one mile west to the "white spot", where there was another pump station.From there it was pumped another mile, up to the parking lot area for the Vulture Arch. After that the water flowed by gravity, 8 miles to the Vulture mine. It it now believed that the Hassayampa, although different in many ways, had the same few areas where the water ran on the surface, as in the area of the River Preserve. It is likely that a 9" pipeline was run up river, 4.5 miles, where surface water was plentiful, and this pipeline filled the reservoir with plenty of water to feed the pipeline to the mine. Vulture Pipeline Research Project.
 

EdleBrock said:
>> Doesn't make sense to my that they'd bring the ore across the river bed to process. Too sandy ....

I agree with that idea, the West side was where I was first concentrating. If you search on Smiths Mill there's a short note about the owner selling out and the stamp moving 3 miles (down ? the Hassayampa). I'll see if I can find the reference again....

Here it is...from the following site...I cant vouch for the veracity of the information on this site though...

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/az/smithsmill.html

P.W. "Bill" Smith erected a ten stamp mill, after the failure of the Vulture mill in 1873, to serve the Vulture Mine. It operated for five years and a small settlement of about a hundred people lived around and worked in the mill. Mr. Smith had had enough after five years and the operation was sold and moved three more miles down the Hassayampa river to Seymour. Today there is nothing but tailings left

There is an amazing amount of information online about the Walnut Grove Water Storage Company, and the resulting flood that wiped out Seymour.

When az first brought up this thread I snooped around a bit on google maps and found this spot on the West side. Interesting...looks like the land has been worked quite a bit, maybe foundations etc ? I don't think it's a cattle pen since it's on top of small hills...anyway, just another avenue to search on.

33.847331, -112.669891


regards,

Jim
Click to expand...
This map is showing the leach ponds from the Newsboy Mine. it is a mile or so west of Seymour.
 

Seymour is two miles above Smith's Mill. Yes, both mills were on the west side of the river. Stone wall from Seymour mill site is still accessible from the river. Go through gate, go to right get to lower site area, left to reach top of stone wall, about 1000 ft either way. Please do not bother owners of ranch on East side of river.
 

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