Jeepin' to McMillenville

We decided to head for the former town of McMillenville yesterday. Back in the 1800s McMillenville was a fairly large silver mining town, it even had a post office, established in November, 1877 until October, 1882. Nowadays, not much remains of its former glory.
During the town's heyday it was subjected to a major, brutal Apache raid. It seems that the area was once part of land designated by the government to be part of the Apache reservation. Then, silver was discovered there by a pair of wandering prospectors, Charlie McMillen and Theodore Harris, March 6, 1876. It wasn't long after that the government decided to "resurvey" the reservation, low and behold the government determined that the land containing the rich silver strike wasn't part of the reservation afterall... hmmm mighty suspicious, (seems typical of government activity but that thought is for another post and probably not appropriate here...okay Laura, step away from that soapbox!) anyway, it's a small wonder the Apaches were angry.
In Nell Murbarger's wonderful book, "Ghosts Of The Adobe Walls", Nell describes the town as she found it back in 1950. There were still adobe ruins of old miner's cabins present but even then, not much remained of the town. The original main mine, the Stonewall Jackson is now located on private property, the rest of what remains is on Tonto National Forest land.
We found outlines of old buildings, some Indian ruins along with the old tin cans that can usually be found at this kind of site. We even found a shard of Indian pottery laying near an eroded wash.
Although little remains of the ghost town of McMillenville, we stood amid the ruins with Nell Murbarger's words echoing in our ears, " I left the old town of McMillen to its gray adobe ruins, its small gray lizards....and the gray ghosts of its departed dreams."

barely the outline of an old adobe cabin

a miner's cabin probably stood here

Ralph checking out more ruins

after McMillenville we checked out FR 584, oops the road ends here

The view from FS 584

Seneca Lake

It's been cold here, lots of rain with more on the way beginning tonight. This morning although it was cloudy the sun was trying to come out so we decided to take a ride to look for the former mining town of McMillenville. There's nothing left of the town, but we're hoping to find where it once stood. It had quite a bit of history in its day, Indian attacks and lots of silver mining. They even had a post office for a couple of years back in the late 1800's. We didn't locate the town, or any of the silver mines so we rode a bit further down the road to Seneca Lake, located on the Apache Reservation. At one time Seneca looked to be a really nice place, a trading post, cabins and a pretty campground, all in a sad state of disrepair now. It's a shame to see everything falling down and being vandalized. The lake is still pretty and supposedly has some good fishing, but since it's on the reservation, the $25 per day fishing permit is a bit pricey for a few bass or trout. Past the lake, we tried another road, it led to the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Salt River Canyon, the pictures can't do the place justice, you've got to see these views to believe them. Spectacular to say the least.
We'll do some more research and see if we can find the exact location of McMillenville and make a return trip to the area, if nothing else, the scenery alone makes the trip worthwhile.

Some of the ruins of Seneca, a shame to see it all

falling down

Seneca Lake





You've got to see these views to believe them!




Salt River Canyon far below


Oh my, that's a longgg way down!

Our voices echoed whenever we spoke here