Arizona · Ghost town
Oatman
Three and a half thousand people within a year of the strike, one hundred and two at the last census, and burros in the main street.
Position Mohave County, Arizona · 35.0275, -114.3839
Two prospectors hit ten million dollars of gold here in 1915, which in today's money is over a hundred and eighty million. Oatman went from a small camp to more than three and a half thousand people inside a year. The 2020 census recorded one hundred and two.
The town sits at 2,710 feet in the Black Mountains, and it survived largely because Route 66 ran through it. When the interstate bypassed the road the traffic stopped, which should have finished the place, but the old highway became a destination in its own right.
The burros are the thing everybody mentions. They are descendants of animals turned loose by miners, they wander the main street, and they will go through a pocket looking for food. They are wild animals rather than pets and the town asks visitors to treat them accordingly.
It is a working tourist town now rather than a ruin, which is worth knowing before you drive the switchbacks in from the highway.
Facts checked against the Wikipedia article Oatman, Arizona. The words above are ours.