While on vacation down in Arizona my wife had the great idea to check out one of the local ghost towns about an hour North of where we were staying with her parents. The place we went is the site of the old Vulture Mine and what came through history to be known as Vulture City, an old mine and settlement in Maricopa County about 70 miles outside of Phoenix.
The mine began in 1863 and eventually the small township that amassed around the mine was home to 5,000 people in the early 1900s. The mine was in operation until 1942 and was the most productive gold mine in Arizona history.
The current state of Vulture City is one of both authenticity and facsimile. There are quite a few original buildings, structures, and heavy machinery from the original time period. But there has also been some restoration and an attempt to kind of flesh out and make more alive the remains of the old settlement.
All in all it is pretty well done, judging by the fact that it’s pretty easy to lose yourself in the experience of the place and forget that it is in some sense a kind of reproduction of a time and place, but one in the Baudrillardian sense of a reproduction without an original. Enough of the sense of the place and the history is able to come through the reproduction for it to still be an interesting and enjoyable experience.
I do suspect that part of this is necessary. For anything to exist in the world we’ve built it needs to produce a profit. To be unprofitable is to be condemned to the dustbin of history under capitalism. Kitschification is a necessary evil, and the masses would probably be none too titillated by some empty old buildings even if their stark and unadorned presence is more honest. But I think Vulture City strikes an interesting balance. So if you’re ever around Phoenix and feel like a nice drive to the middle of nowhere to look at some old stuff, check it out.
