Exploring Arizona's Sunkist Highway

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]They call it the sun-kissed highway.

[00:00:04]Arizona 60 from Wikcinberg to 72 and then 72 on down to uh Bos. If you keep going on 60, you would go to Courtsite.

[00:00:14]This is known as the sun-kissed highway and we'll talk about it. We'll explore it in this episode of the Bob Davis podcasts. These days, I feel like there is a a what you would call a small town revival. This is people being interested in in uh in in a in creating a community and maybe going to a smaller place that's more manageable with jobs and uh I guess you could call it life work life balance that is more manageable. And there are a lot of small towns along this highway which have seen better days. I'm just going to be straight up and tell you uh when we get to Wikcinberg, we'll see uh how Wikcinberg is, but but a lot of these small towns, Bos, Wendon, Salam, uh even the ones that really kind of aren't on the map anymore, but they're still on the map if you if you will have seen better days.

[00:01:11]And that's going to be very obvious when we get to them because I've been driving through these towns uh pretty much for a while as I've been down here in Arizona.

[00:01:19]Plus, it gets me out of the campground.

[00:01:24]Well, today we're going to take a little tour of some of the small towns in uh Arizona around where I'm camping. Uh Wikcinberg for sure, Salam. There's some other little towns right in this general area. And we're going to talk about railroads. We're going to talk about mining. We're going to talk about the highway system, keys, wallet. I mentioned the small town revival that I feel is just on the verge of really getting going more even than people moving to the excerbs, but people moving to small towns. We'll see. Uh I don't I don't want to push it. I don't want to sound hopeful, but when you tour these small towns out here in the west, you see what was and it it sort of creates a a kind of yearning for what was it. In many ways, Route 60 and Arizona 72 is a throwback to the old days. We are going to uh Wikcinberg and uh and then uh the points in between.

[00:02:33]So, we're going to take a little trip up 72 and 60 and we'll talk about the National Highway System a little bit because I haven't really talked about that in terms of its impact here in the southwest, particularly this part of Arizona. Uh, and so we'll be doing a little of that. Now, I've touched on the railroads in Bos. I've touched on the mining. These are mining towns, Wikcinberg, Salomon, etc. Uh, and we're going to just do quick little visits in each one. Get a little view of uh small town life.

[00:03:03]Today they call the former national highways uh the old system which uh in today's parliament means back roads but in the old days they there was no interstate there was no quote unquote modern highway system. So usually here this is 72 and that way is to Parker. Usually I um I turn left here, but today I'm going to turn right because turning right takes you down towards Salam and to Wikcinberg sort of as we begin our little small town tour in the region right here around Baos.

[00:03:46]These roads uh highway 60 uh highway 66, US highways, US30 and so on were the main arteries. And what many people don't know about Highway 60 is that it is longer and it goes further than Highway 66, which is considered the mother of all highways. Uh 60 was finished in uh 1926 and it goes from Virginia Beach, Virginia, all the way on the coast all the way over to uh California. And right through here was the final stretch. When you got to uh 72, you turned on to Arizona 72. And that carried you all the way over to California.

[00:04:30]>> So 60 west goes towards Ble, California.

[00:04:34]60 east goes towards Phoenix. And of course, Wikcinberg is down the road here. So as we turn right out of Bos on 72, headed east, we come to the confluence of Highway 60 and 72. And this is this place called Hope, which is kind of a gimmick town. I don't want to be insulting, but uh I don't know that it was ever really a town. It was built as a tourist town. There's a couple of campgrounds there and a gas station. And really, you come to the corner and you turn left on 60 headed towards Wikcinberg. Well, this is the gimmick town of Hope, Arizona, which it wasn't even on I don't think it was even on the map back in the day. It's a gas station and a campground. Most importantly, this is the confluence of US60 and Arizona 72. This is what has been called the critical crossroad between highway uh 72 which is a state road and highway 60 and between I suppose 1948 right towards the end of the war when they started to build new cars more powerful cars people started to tour this would have been a very very busy intersection. Salam is about six miles and then we'll get on down towards uh Wikenberg.

[00:05:54]So all along this highway uh mostly old mining camps turning into um mining towns turning into railroad towns. So the Arizona California railroad back then made towns like Bos and Wendon and even Wikcinberg and others. Later it became the Santa Fe uh the Aerson Topeka and the Santa Fe and then finally uh the Burlington Northern and and Santa Fe railroad BNSF.

[00:06:27]You look in these mountains and it was mostly gold and copper mining in this area. Quartzite had quartz and one of the things I've learned and I hope I'm correct about this that it's the granite that holds these uh treasures. the granite mountains, not necessarily the volcanic mountains. There's a lot of volcanic mountains in different parts of Arizona, but it's the granite that had the gold. It's the granite that had the quartz. It's the granite that had the copper. Vixsburg uh was a critical resupply point for mines and railroads.

[00:07:01]At that time, you know, railroads uh engines needed water. So, there would have been a water station as well as resupplies for the mining. If you've ever um toured uh West Texas, if you refer to my uh my video about West Texas, one of the things that you see are pump down stations and equipment yards that carry uh parts for these derks and all of this huge infrastructure which goes into oil. In much the same way in the 1920s and 30s and 19 early 1900s in this part of the country equally large pieces of infrastructure were necessary and so the only way to get that stuff from town to town would have been on the railroad.

[00:07:47]You had flat cars, you had all sorts of container vehicles you could put on the railroad and then go back and forth between all these places. So towns like Baos and uh uh well uh all the towns that were going to go visiting here uh were critical supply routes and part of the major thing here which was obviously the mining provided the impetus but the railroads really had a lot to do with the development of the southwest.

[00:08:14]Okay, now this is Salam, Arizona. Let's get out and have a look.

[00:08:25]We always have to climb down backwards for safety cuz I don't want to fall out of this thing. Salam. Another uh resupply route for the mining. Once these roads were built, people started to travel. Criminals like Bonnie and Clyde and Dillinger u were well aware of the national highways and how they connected to go place to place pretty quickly. they could cover a lot of ground. You know, there was a touring kind of hobby going on in the United States. Uh between the late 20s through the mid30s, probably most of the travel with the motel, which they used to call motor courts that started popping up in the United States in the 1920s and 30s, a lot of those motor courts were built in the 1950s. So I would say this part of the country was probably peaking in terms of tourism in the 1950s. Now this is where the um the 10 meets 60 which is significant because the 10 opened I think in 1977. I said the 1960s earlier.

[00:09:33]I don't think it was the 1960s.

[00:09:36]So it would have been one of the later highways that was open. This is the LA to you know across the nation basically uh interstate and it opened in 1977 and that is when the whole big thing started with courtsite and uh the RVs and things. There are bones of places like this all up and down this highway. Uh this is not unc uncommon to see all along this highway. these kinds of old cool places that you know I leave them out of focus because they're just iconic. Here's the thing. Back in the day when this highway was the main artery east west 60 uh and there was no freeway, there was no interstate 8 uh 10. The tourist trade kept these places bountiful.

[00:10:27]Wendon was once a shipping point for the Arizona and California railroad linked to the farm economy. Aguila is located just before Granite Wash Pass, which didn't seem like it was that big of a deal, but Granite Wash Pass was uh at one time considered the most treacherous part of Highway 60 once you got out here. Imagine if you will people driving in the 19 early 1950s. They had lived through the depression and the war and these were the first this is really the first flush of the so-called modern V8 automobile and they were more reliable at least if they were fairly new. So, uh, when they started traveling, a little pass like the Granite Wash Pass, uh, which is nothing compared to some of the passes in Colorado and and other parts of Arizona even or New Mexico, uh, it would have seemed like, uh, you know, quite a a deal to them.

[00:11:23]Finally, Wikcinberg. Wikcinberg is named after the head of the gold mine uh, there. He discovered gold. He was once a prospector. He worked the gold. I don't know how much Henry Wikcinberg prospected. The mine produced 340,000 ounces of gold back in the day. So, uh, this is a this was a town built on gold.

[00:11:47]It is a wealthy town by comparison.

[00:11:50]Granite, as I said before, is where you find the gold, the copper, and the courtsite. And as I said earlier, there's a lot of granite mountains around here all the way up to Jerome down to Bisby here in the valleys around Wikcinberg and Courtsite. Uh Wikcinberg became a center for mining but ranching too. And I would imagine that originally it was prospectors that started the mining. Uh but the ranchers would have come before the prospectors. There is a great museum in Wikcinberg where a lot of these pictures come from and of course with the mining brought the railroads which didn't hurt the ranchers either because they could put their cattle on the on the trains. So uh this was a hustling and bustling center and really it still is in many ways. One also can't really talk about this area without talking about the Hooam and the Apaches. I hope I've got that right. So, the hookcom uh or CAM uh uh preceded the Apaches.

[00:12:53]Many people don't know unless they've studied it. The Apaches got pushed down here by the planes uh the Comanches who were very warlike and and we think of the Apaches as incredible warriors and they were but they were no match for the Comanches and the Comanches eventually pushed the Apaches down into this region. This is a place where English and Spanish and Indian languages were probably interchangeable and spoken in in in a normal course of uh activity.

[00:13:25]The the Apache and the the the Hoocom uh lived and came and and flourished in this area, made it work when there was you couldn't find water and there wasn't any buildings and there weren't any railroads and uh they flourished here from about 1,200.

[00:13:43]So late 1100s and 1200s which is would have been this area would have been you know heavily populated by uh Indians and I have to tell you I am struck by the majesty of these people and the things that they created their pottery and the um you know I the natural dignity that uh that they possessed but I have to say they gave as good as they got. Uh obviously we know that the Apache were pretty fierce and there was uh I'm sure a lot of violent interfacing if you will between uh the Apache and the settlers, the ranchers at the time and maybe even uh a little bit of the prospectors. And ranching wasn't exactly uh uh you know a walk in the park either. These ranches were very crude. It was about survival for the ranches uh especially before the arrival of the railroads and the gold hunters and uh before the discovery of the granite treasures in these mountains. When you talk mining, you're talking, you know, usually people think of these individual prospectors, right?

[00:14:56]The mining that the individual prospectors did with their horses and you know all this this stuff. I I I think I mean certainly they were they were a part of it in the early days but the reality is that I think you know this was a gold mine. Wikcinberg was a gold miner and by the time we got to the early 1900s you know this these were corporate this was a corporate effort which is what built this town. And of course the railroads served it and the railroads had a lot to do with development as did the US highways. And of course we talked about the highways, you know, um on the way up from Bos. All of these towns were part of this chain and then later um the tourism that came from these highways when they were first built. Now the the interstate went in down on the 10 went in and that changed everything because these towns no longer had people visiting like they did before. there there wasn't a lot of activity today. Maybe it's come back a little bit. Certainly Wikcinberg is the magnet. It's the biggest of these little towns along this chain. And then to the north is Prescat, which was the territorial capital. And of course, Phoenix, which is not too far to the east. This must have been the hotel here in um Wikcinberg. I don't think the palm trees were here back in the day, but welcome to Wikcenberg. As I pointed out earlier, the United States started building the National Highway System after World War I, and it culminated around 1926. These highways added to the rail boom uh and the development in these towns starting in the early 20s and the mid20s. The interstate system was begun in the 1950s.

[00:16:50]If you grew up in big cities like Detroit or Chicago or St. Lewis, um you understood early on the uh the efficacy of the interstate. Big wide concrete roads built for high speed, 70 75 m an hour. They were a marble. Uh I remember, you know, when they first opened and I remember riding with my parents as a little kid on these beautiful highways.

[00:17:17]So uh for people who were used to traveling which had begun by the 1960s to be crumbling uh and truly secondary roads even the US highways were heavily used trucks and cars and heavy travel and they they weren't built like the interstate for heavy heavy travel. And so the interstates were and are a modern marvel. The 10, which is the highway that affected this particular area, didn't open until 1978. The interstates changed this country. It affected small town America deeply. And of course, they were built at a time when people were moving to the cities. You know, in the 1920s and 30s, the United States was largely agricultural and it was largely rural. And there was a huge movement starting around 1900 toward the big cities. And that really intensified with the war, both wars, World War I and two.

[00:18:13]Uh so from 1946 or so onward, lots of people saw the USA in uh their Chevrolet. And it probably peaked uh around 1965 or so with the introduction of the interstates. But that didn't happen out here until the mid70s. So you had an additional 10 years of people having to get off the highway, go on 60, connect up to 72, and then get over to California that way. And these motel, and everything else probably flourished all the way through the early '7s until the 10 opened. So all along here, you see the bones of motel, old stores, gas stations, and bars and restaurants. It seems like towns like Wendon, Salam, Baos are just waiting for some new development or something to revitalize.

[00:19:02]And what's left are what's left are really just bones uh tearowns or completely dilapidated structures or structures that that still have a bit of the romance that you could still feel.

[00:19:17]I've been thinking a lot about the time that we're living through, especially the difficulties that young families have either making ends meet or working in jobs that they don't understand what they're supposed to do. They don't like their work. They don't like working for big corporations, but they're trapped.

[00:19:33]They live in the suburbs or they live in apartments and they're looking for something. They're looking for some kind of way out. If you doubt me, just spend some time on social media and you will see uh creator after creator posting these rants about or just regular people crying. I don't know what I'm going to do. And and I and I see it with articles about um nomad life and people wanting to buy RVs and so forth to get out from underneath this. It seems like no one is happy, literally. And it sucks generally to work in the bellies of these huge companies. It sucks to be the customers, too. We're kind of living through an era where nothing in this country seems to really work anymore. And I will tell you, I know young people who are looking or trying to rethink um what we think of as as community. And I still think that and and this is just my thing. I still think that these towns are ripe for young people to move in kind of in mass or as groups uh with an approach to community that that can help these towns revitalize. We'll see.

[00:20:43]You can't help but be sad about these communities with the bones of the old hotels and the old bars and restaurants and with the attempts to keep businesses alive along the road whether it's Salam.

[00:20:58]you know, Wikcinberg isn't as affected because Wikcinberg is close to Phoenix.

[00:21:02]I mean, uh, comparably, uh, you know, Wikcinberg also has, you know, a certain critical mass that keeps keeps it going.

[00:21:11]So, Wikcinberg is kind of separated from this and and yet it serves as an example of what it could be like if people were to move to some of these older places that are really literally um, I mean, they're they're in decay. It's there's no other way to say it. It sounds cruel.

[00:21:29]I don't mean it that way. I I see what was there 40 years ago, 50 years ago, 60 and 70 uh and in some cases 80 years ago. And I wish that it was like that today because they are charming uh and useful. Small towns again can serve as um resource centers and resupply uh centers and places where people can get things done uh without having to drive a 100 miles, let's say. Yes, it was the interstate that cut off the blood flow to these towns. So, I don't know how you get the blood flow back without uh getting rid of the interstate so people have to go back onto the two-lane highways, which is never going to happen. And yes, towns like this are all over the country. They're in rural Wisconsin. They're in rural Minnesota.

[00:22:16]They're in rural Alabama and New Mexico and all over the country. Towns that thrived on the bloodstream uh of the uh highways were cut off and basically bled to death. Um, you know, once the interstates open, I'd say towns like Aguila and uh uh Wendon, Baos, and um and Salam in particular are ripe for enterprise.

[00:22:45]So, I don't really know how it takes shape, this revitalization, but I do know the story of Jerome. You know, uh, when I did the video with Peter Santelo, we went to Jerome and the story with Jerome is that it was, uh, basically deserted in the 1960s. There was nobody up there. Jerome is a mining town that was basically abandoned, uh, in the 19 late 50s, early 60s. And what was left was this uh, sort of Gothic, almost gothic mining town left up there in the hills. It's quite a ways up the hill.

[00:23:20]It's about 4 or 5,000 ft up that hill as you saw if you saw the Peter Santaneloo video and there was nobody up there and artists just moved in. People just moved in to this literally ghost town and today it is they have built a center.

[00:23:35]They've built a you know a town that is an attraction that people want to go to and want to see. So it can be done if people are willing to step up and create a community. And that's all I'll say.

[00:23:48]You know, maybe it's not going to go that way. I don't know. Uh I couldn't tell you. Maybe someday this all this will be gone, but I hope it isn't because they're really cool places.

[00:23:58]Thanks for watching and thanks for listening to the Bob Davis podcast at the bobdavispodcast.com. I've actually got to put a lot of podcasts up, so I got to figure out when I'm going to do that. Thanks for watching here on YouTube. We're nearing 9,000 subscribers at this particular moment and I'm super excited about that. So, thank you and thanks for donating at the bobdavispodcast.com.

[00:24:19]And eventually I'll get everybody's name and get it back on to the to the podcast. Thanks for watching.

[00:24:27]Bye-bye.