April 04, 2007
Editorial

Oatman Sets Example

There are lots of old mining towns dotting the map in the western part of the United States.

Some of those dots are now blurs, since more than a few of those once-thriving camps have now drifted into the abyss of being nothing more than a ghost town.

However, a little blip in the Arizona road called Oatman refuses to go quietly into that good night.

Oatman, a town of around 400, was once a busy mining town boasting 3,500 residents.

But like Pioche, a lot of the residents ran out soon after the gold ran out.

In fact, at one point the town was nearly on its last legs, with the wild offspring of burros abandoned by miners taking over the main street in the middle and late 20^th century.

However, the good people of Oatman refused to allow their little town on a dilapidated section of Route 66 to die.

They took the lemons and made lemonade.

Instead of getting rid of the burros, they decided to make them a tourist attraction.

Also, unlike other small towns that have tried to abandon and ignore their wild boomtown heritage, Oatman embraced theirs.

Today, the town features staged “gunfights” twice a day every weekend.

The result is astounding.

Last weekend, as they do most weekends, the little town of 400 welcomed thousands of visitors who delighted in feeding the burros and watching the gunfighters at work.

In fact, the number one item for sale in the town is bags of carrots for $1 so the tourists can hand-feed the long-eared beasts of burden which frequently block traffic and occasionally even climb up onto the wooden sidewalks of some of the stores.

The ramshackle stores filled with touristy trinkets and t-shirts were jammed with shoppers, while the two restaurants did a brisk business.

We bring this up not as another boring travelogue, but as an indication of what can be done in an old town with a little ingenuity.

When it comes to history, Pioche has it all over Oatman.

Few towns can compete with the colorful stories of claim jumping and gun battles that were a staple of Pioche’s formative years.

Our downtown structures are in much better shape compared to the rickety wooden buildings in Oatman, some of which are just waiting for a strong wind to transform them into a pile of broken boards.

We don’t have burros wandering the streets, but we do have mines that could be reopened for mine tours.

We also have the overhead Pioche Tramway, which could easily be resurrected, renovated, and maybe even retrofitted to allow tourists to take tramway rides across town.

If nothing else, visitors would be intrigued by the idea of seeing an actual operating cable-bucket system going back and forth across U.S. 93, which would be more eye-catching and memorable to highway travelers than any flashing sign.

With a little cleanup and some inspired and cohesive work, the downtown could quickly become a trip into the past for folks from Las Vegas, St. George, and Salt Lake City who have nostalgia in their hearts and dollars in their pockets.

In fact, in addition to “gunfighters” in western regalia holding regular shootouts during the weekend, other downtown merchants could get together and agree to have their clerks and employees dress in period clothes from the 1800s while doing business on the weekends, adding a charm that would be hard to find anywhere else.

Some of the antique shops could invite older community members to sit on benches in front of their stores twice a day to tell stories of Pioche’s old days to intrigued visitors hungry for history, using the store’s merchandise as props in their tales.

It would be a wonderful way to ensure that our older citizens, who are the true historians and the keepers of our heritage as well as good story tellers, could pass along that heritage through their words.

It would be a more noble endeavor to use their knowledge to attract tourists and keep the town viable instead of allowing their invaluable tales and snippets of history to die and be lost forever.

There is also something almost magical about using Pioche’s history and the wisdom and knowledge of our senior citizens to cultivate a tourist industry that could create jobs for our young people while simultaneously passing on a heritage to those kids that they could take pride in and earn a living from.

Hollywood makes billions of dollars each year with nothing more than costumes and illusion.

Pioche has substance that goes beyond the image.

All we have to do is develop the same courage as the miners who founded this once-bustling community, and work hard to scratch something rare and beautiful out of useless dirt.