Arizona Oddities

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Your Guides
  • Departments
    • Art
    • Dose of History
    • Culture
    • Natural Surroundings
    • Odd Observations
    • Weather Talk
    • Food & Dining
    • Small Town Scene
    • Recreation
    • Only in Arizona
  • Get the Books
  • Contact Us

logo

Arizona Oddities

  • Home
  • Your Guides
  • Departments
    • Art
    • Dose of History
    • Culture
    • Natural Surroundings
    • Odd Observations
    • Weather Talk
    • Food & Dining
    • Small Town Scene
    • Recreation
    • Only in Arizona
  • Get the Books
  • Contact Us
Only in ArizonaSmall Town Scene
Home›Only in Arizona›What’s the Story of Christmas, AZ?

What’s the Story of Christmas, AZ?

By Taylor Holmes
December 4, 2018
11525
9

While its name is festive, Christmas, AZ is far from it these days. Now a ghost town with just a few residents, the small community was established on Christmas Day in 1902, when the nearby mine was staked.

Previous attempts to stake mines in the area failed because the land was part of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. However, an executive order signed by President Roosevelt on Dec. 22, 1902, reshaped the boundaries of the reservation and removed prior mining claims. Prospectors George B. Chittenden and N.H. Mellor got word of the order on Christmas Eve and headed to the former claim sites, where they were able to stake their claim the following morning.

The town, located off of State Route 77 and eight miles north of the smelter town of Hayden, near Winkleman, was a bustling mining community for about 30 years, boasting 1,000 residents at its height. The Christmas mine produced more than 50 million pounds of copper and small amounts of other minerals before its closure. Miners discovered the minerals apachite, junitoite and ruizite here as well.

Unlike other mining towns, Christmas didn’t have a brothel, a saloon or a gambling hall. It could be that the town’s name seemed to deter any unsavory behavior, but we can’t know for certain.

Many people would route their holiday mail through the town’s post office to get the unique Christmas postmark. The influx of mail became so overwhelming that the post office was closed in the 1930s.

Unfortunately, you can’t visit Christmas anymore. After closing in the 1930s, the mine traded hands a few times, and was converted to an open pit which resulted in the destruction of several of the town’s buildings. The mine is still operational and is owned by Freeport McMoran.

(Visited 6,385 times, 1 visits today)

Related Posts:

  1. Pick Mining for Peridot on the San Carlos Apache Reservation
  2. One Thousand Tumbleweeds Needed for Chandler Christmas Tree
  3. Miami’s Innovative Post Office Helps Boost Real Estate
  4. Odd Ways to Hydrate Your Christmas Tree
  5. The Story of Frank Murphy’s Impossible Railroad

9 comments

  1. Tyson Walker 4 June, 2019 at 12:05 Reply

    Christmas, AZ is established on what once was San Carlos Indian Reservation. Roosevelt’s Executive Order signed on December 22, 1902 allowed for the establishment of Christmas, AZ by reducing the size of the San Carlos Indian Reservation. Three days after Roosevelt’s Executive Order, Christmas was established and this started the exploitation of Apache land, minerals and water by Non-Indians, which continues today.

    • Andrea Aker 18 June, 2019 at 15:17 Reply

      Hi Tyson. Thank you for bringing this to our attention! We’ve updated the post to better reflect the history behind Christmas, AZ.

      • Margsret Rangel 13 August, 2019 at 10:43 Reply

        Hi my name is Margaret Rangel and my grand mother Maria Asuncion Ybarra was born in Christmas Arizona. March 15 not sure on the yr though .I think she was an Apache now do I have Indian blood in me i mean i do look loke an indian

        • Fern Fernandez 4 February, 2020 at 22:32 Reply

          Hi my Grammy was Ybarra as well, and walked to Christmas az with her mom from sonora Mex. When she was 12

  2. Rick Martin 8 September, 2019 at 12:38 Reply

    I lived in Christmas for a while in the 60’s with my family, twice actually. It was a shaft mine then. In my opinion, the best place in the whole world. I still call it home. My brother and I crawled all over that mountain. We saw hawks, owls, fox, Gila Monsters, etc. Cows roaming all over the mountain. A great place to live until the company store closed. They didn’t have any candy anyway. You couldn’t get a TV signal there, so the family played games together for entertainment. We went to school in Hayden and I can still hear that old Blue Bird School Bus using all of it’s lower gears to get up that old mountain. Great memories.

    • Andrea Aker 9 September, 2019 at 08:37 Reply

      Great story! Thanks for sharing.

    • Douglas Ault 18 January, 2020 at 13:52 Reply

      Rick, when was the last time you were there? I just tried to go there and there was no road that was open to go there

  3. Don Foor 13 January, 2020 at 17:47 Reply

    Looking for information on a man of the name Henry Foor, ” Hank”. I know he worked @ the mine in the 70’s

  4. Bob Campbell 9 August, 2020 at 10:08 Reply

    I worked at the Christmas mine for eight months in 1975. I was just 19 years old and fresh out of welding school, I worked as a welder in the maintenance shops that were just on the edge of the open pit. What I remember most vividly is how dangerous of a place it was to work. There were several men killed or maimed during my short time there. Mining truck accidents, blasting rig accidents, chemical gas poisoning at the crusher facility are just a few of the things I recall. Every day at 4:00 pm they blasted in the pit, between the day shift and the swing shift. I can recall our maintenance buildings having rocks as big as two feet across come through the roof and crushing equipment. A small boulder , flung from a blast, once fell on a work truck and crushed it. I felt lucky to get out uninjured.

Leave a reply Cancel reply

Arizona Oddities Archive

Most Popular Posts

  • How to Keep Scorpions Away from Your Home
  • How to Keep Javelinas Away from Your Yard
  • What’s With All the Backyard Concrete-Block Fences…
  • Did You Know it’s Against the Law to Grow…
  • Can You Get a Sunburn Under Water?

This Week Past Years

2019

  • McDonald’s Arches Take a Different Hue in Sedona

2018

  • Get Your Arizona Wine Fix at Cornville Wineries

2017

  • Shake, Rattle & Roll: Rattlesnake Avoidance Training

2015

  • The Legend of Apache Cave
  • No Lettuce Cooking at Yuma Lettuce Days

2014

  • Featured Artist: Marty Le Messurier

2013

  • The Story of J Goldwater & Bros: Commerce on the Colorado River

2012

  • Besh-Ba-Gowah: The Non-Ruin Ruins in Globe
  • Ewing Young: The Southwest’s Premier Mountain Man

2011

  • The Wounded Goddess Atop the State Capitol Dome

2010

  • Do Your Feet Get Bigger When You Move to the Desert?
  • Know the Origin of the Highway 89 Screamers?
  • Recent

  • Popular

  • Comments

  • Find a Famous Writer and Explorer's Mountain Retreat in Greer

    Find a Famous Writer and Explorer’s Historic Mountain Retreat in Greer

    By Taylor Haynes
    July 31, 2020
  • thousands of Mexican free tail bats make Phoenix tunnel their summer home

    Thousands of Mexican Free-Tail Bats Make Phoenix Tunnel Their Summer Home

    By Taylor Haynes
    July 17, 2020
  • How to Keep Scorpions Away from Your Home

    By Andrea Aker
    January 3, 2011
  • Javelina

    How to Keep Javelinas Away from Your Yard

    By Andrea Aker
    November 23, 2011
  • Phil Motta
    on
    August 27, 2021

    Why Does Downtown Phoenix Seem to Have Two Downtowns?

    I know this post ...
  • Carol
    on
    October 17, 2020

    The Tucson Artifacts are the Southwest’s Greatest Hoax

    lol ... these "clues" ...

Follow us

© Copyright 2009 – 2023 Aker Ink, LLC :: Arizona Oddities is published by Aker Ink.