Mining Town of Oatman

We took a short trip to Oatman, an old mining town along Route 66 in Arizona. It is up in the mountains east of Bullhead City and Laughlin. It was a gold mining town and now is just a tourist attraction. There are lots of wide open spaces getting there.

One of the main attractions in Oatman are the burros. Many of them, purportedly wild ones, come into town to get fed by the tourists. You can buy burro food just about anywhere in town. They can be a little pushy as they know someone is going to feed them.

Here are a bunch of burros being fed by the tourists. The road we are all standing on is the main road, Route66 through town. There is not a lot of traffic but some that is really slowed by the burros.

The little town is really a tourist draw and the businesses reflect that. Lots of T-Shirts and various Oatman paraphernalia can be found everywhere. This was the sign leading to one of the many establishments. When we were first told of the town I thought of Tombstone but Tombstone is really spruced up compared to Oatman which looks to be much more run down and true to period.

When you feed the burros you get output production. This fellow has an endless job, lifetime job security. He sweeps up after the burros. It was not clear if he got paid by the yellow scoop full so we asked one of the waitresses and she said all the businesses along the street kick in and pay him. Not sure what the street would be like if he were not doing his job and I really don’ want to find out.

We had a great lunch at the Oatman hotel. Attached to the walls and parts of the ceilings in the restaurant were dollar bills. A fellow told the story that in the old days miners would get a dollar bill, take it into the bar, write their name on it, nail it to the wall and use that to buy drinks. That way they didn’t have to always have money with them. A beer, back then was only a nickel or less and whiskey was 5-10 cents.

This was the wonderful lunch we had. Deanna’s sandwich was a bison burger and mine on the left was a pulled pork sandwich with Burro Ears which are the long cut homemade potato chips on the very left that they claim resemble Burro Ears. We really wish our good friend Rodger and Ginger could have had lunch with us here but they are in Walla Walla.

The tradition of pinning dollar bills to the walls continued long after the miners left. This is a small part of the wall right behind where we sat. The waitress claimed that a conservative estimate was done of the dollars and they believe there is somewhere near 150,000 of them. People still pin dollar bills up to this day, we did not.

Since you are a tourist town, you must attract tourists. So, each July fourth they have a sidewalk egg fry in Oatman, It sounded interesting but it may be a little warm. Denver Omelet anyone.

This is just another example of the signs on the store. Everything was themed after the burros or the mining. Lots of artifacts were lying around in various states of disrepair.

It seemed odd to have little stickum labels on some of the Burros. We inquired and found that the younger ones, and there were lots of smaller ones, have not developed teeth and hence cannot chew carrots. They will take the carrot and then choke on it causing lots of problems for both tourist and Burro. The little sticker says “Do not feed me carrots”. The local burro food was perfectly acceptable however and the larger burros loved the carrots.

This is a look up main street. As you can see there is burro stuff everywhere. Either the fellow hasn’t gotten here yet or the vendors in this section choose to leave the droppings alone. There was quite a bit of them. Unfortunately the local power company was doing some work in town and historical perspective of old Oatman got a little lost.

We had seen where the Burros could get a little pushy. Here , one of them, the larger on the left, was trying to get in the back seat. The lady was trying to shoo it away to little avail. The town folk all chip in and take care of the Burros. The local vet looks after their medical needs. They are a big draw for the town.

On the road into town there were many bushes decorated with Christmas ornaments. This appears to be a Creosote bush and not a mighty Blue Spruce. When you don’t got the tree to decorte, use what you got, it is the spirit that counts.

This was the highway sign marking route66 on the way in and out of town. It is one of America’s Byways. Neat place. You can also search the internet for Oatman and for Olive Oatman the lady for whom the town was named. There is quite a bit of information available for those interested.

Finally as we headed back to our trailer in the RV Park.Deanna took this image out the window as we were getting on the interstate for short run east before turning south. Arizona does have some beautiful country.