Hackberry, Arizona

A former mining town,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PuRKTgMgCZEC&pg=PA17 |title=Backroads of Arizona: Your Guide to Arizona's Most Scenic Backroad Adventures |author1=James Hinckley |author2=Kerrick James |page=17 |date=November 15, 2006 |access-date=May 12, 2012|isbn=9780760326893}} Hackberry takes its name from the Hackberry Mine which was named for a hackberry tree in a nearby spring.{{cite book|title=Arizona Place Names|author1=Will Croft Barnes |page=194|publisher=University of Arizona Press}}

Prospector Jim Music helped develop the Hackberry Silver Mine in 1875.{{cite book|title=Too Tough to Tame|author=Moore, R.D.|date=2009|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=9781438961903|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pGnwhznZNF0C|page=136|access-date=March 8, 2015}} Mining of various metals developed the town, sending it from boom to bust based on fluctuating commodity prices.

The Indianapolis Monroes Iron Clad Age of June 12, 1886, includes a brief article titled "They Changed the Minds of Several", referring to an educated miner from the area:

"J.J. Watts writes from Hackberry, Arizona: 'The books you sent me last year have changed the minds of several to whom I loaned them. It is a pity that liberal books and papers cannot be more generally circulated and read. If they could be we should soon have more outspoken, honest men that would dare to speak their true sentiments.'"{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}

Based on an article taken from the July 24, 1909, edition of the Mohave County Miner out of Kingman, Arizona, J.J. Watts was an old prospector. Here is that article.

"Some time ago the report was current in Kingman that Indians had killed an old prospector, in the Wallapai mountains, first burying the body and later burning up everything of an incriminating nature. The man was supposed to be J. J. Watts, who mined and prospected in the Music mountain range many years. William Grant, the Hackberry merchant, this week received a letter from B.F. Watts, of Marshall, Oklahoma, conveying the information that J.J. Watts died at Lander, Wyoming, last winter. The man who was killed by the Indians is believed to be a stranger that came to Kingman and was lured to the mountains by the Indians by a story of a lost mine that they had found in that section. The man was killed by Willietopsy and his sons, so it is reported by the other Indians."{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}

By 1919, infighting between the mine's owners had become litigation, and the ore was beginning to be depleted.{{cite web|url=https://sites.google.com/site/hackberrysilvermine/|title=Hackberry Silver Mine|access-date=March 8, 2015}} The mine closed; Hackberry briefly almost became a ghost town.

Various service stations in town served U.S. Route 66 travelers after the highway came to town in 1926; all were shut down after Interstate 40 bypassed the town. I-40's {{convert|69|mi|adj=on}} path between Kingman and Seligman diverges widely from the old {{convert|82|mi|adj=on}} segment of State Route 66 between these points, leaving Hackberry stranded {{convert|16|mi}} from the new highway. Hackberry Road would not even be given an off-ramp. John Grigg operated a Union 76 service station on Route 66 in Hackberry from the 1920s until his death in 1967. The Northside Grocery (established 1934){{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xtR4QCcA8AC&pg=PA106 |title=Route 66 In Arizona |author=Joe Sonderman |page=106 |date= October 6, 2010|access-date=May 12, 2012|isbn=9780738579429}} and its Conoco station were among the last to close, in 1978.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=akLftFfA3_0C&pg=PA128 |title=Route 66: Images of America's Main Street |author=William Kaszynski |page=128 |date= May 1, 2003|access-date=May 12, 2012|isbn=9780786415533}}

Hackberry almost became a ghost town again, but members of the Grigg family have lived there since the 1890s and continue to live there. Six generations of the Grigg family are buried in the Hackberry cemetery.

In 1992, itinerant artist Bob Waldmire re-opened the Hackberry General Store as a Route 66 tourism information post and souvenir shop on the former Northside Grocery site.{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=svcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT2 |title=American Motorcyclist |date=February 17, 1995 |access-date=May 12, 2012|last1=Assoc |first1=American Motorcyclist }}

Waldmire sold the store to John and Kerry Pritchard in 1998{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xtR4QCcA8AC&pg=PA106 |title=Route 66 In Arizona|author=Joe Sonderman |page=106 |date= October 6, 2010|access-date=May 12, 2012|isbn=9780738579429}} due to local disputes regarding the environmental and aesthetic impact of quarries, which by that time were establishing themselves in the area to remove local stone for use in landscaping.{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TadaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jFIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3955,1652466|title=Quarries vs. natural beauty keeps discord festering in Hackberry|author=Matt Kelley, Associated Press|publisher=Kingman Daily Miner|date=September 13, 1998|page=1B}}

The store remains in operation with a collection of vintage cars from the heyday of U.S. Route 66 in Arizona; in 2008, its owners donated land for a new fire hall to be built for the community.{{cite news |url=http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1&articleID=17631 |title=Hackberry to get fire station |publisher=Kingman (Arizona) Daily Miner |date=September 24, 2008 |access-date=May 12, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130128013040/http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1&articleID=17631 |archive-date=January 28, 2013 }}

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Hackberry is in eastern Mohave County along SR 66, {{convert|28|mi}} northeast of Kingman, the county seat, and {{convert|60|mi}} west of Seligman. Hackberry Road runs south from the town, leading {{convert|21|mi}} to U.S. Route 93 south of Interstate 40.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hackberry CDP has an area of {{convert|17.6|sqmi}}, all land. The town sits at the west end of Truxton Canyon, followed by Route 66 as it climbs to the east. Truxton Wash flows northwest into the endorheic Hualapai Valley, ending at Red Lake {{convert|27|mi}} from Hackberry.

Most of the CDP is in the Hackberry School District. A portion of the CDP is in the Valentine Elementary School District.{{cite web|url=https://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/DC2020/PL20/st04_az/schooldistrict_maps/c04015_mohave/DC20SD_C04015.pdf|title=2020 CENSUS - SCHOOL DISTRICT REFERENCE MAP: Mohave County, AZ|publisher=U.S. Census Bureau|accessdate=January 24, 2022}}

File:Hackberry Arizona 300 miles desert.jpg|Hackberry

File:Hackberry-Hackberry General Store-1934.jpg |Hackberry General Store

File:Hackberry-Mobilgas Gas Pump.jpg|Mobilgas fuel pump

File:Hackberry-Hackberry Garage-1934-2.jpg |Hackberry Garage – 1934

File:Hackberry-Hackberry Shell Station-1934.jpg |Hackberry Shell station – 1934

File:Hackberry-Hackberry Music Hall in Hackberry, Az.jpg |Hackberry Music Hall

File:Hackberry-Hackberry Motel-1935.jpg |Hackberry Motel – 1935

File:Hackberry-Hackberry-Hackbery Café-1920-2.jpg|Hackberry Café – 1920

File:Hackberry-Bonnie and Clyde Car.jpg|Automobile abandoned in Route 66

File:Hackberry-Charcoal Kiln-1920-1.jpg|1920 charcoal kiln

File:Hackberry-Charcoal Kiln-1920-2-Inside.jpg|Inside the 1920 charcoal kiln

{{US Census population

|align=left|2010=68

|2020=103

|footnote=U.S. Decennial Census{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html|title=Census of Population and Housing|publisher=Census.gov|access-date=June 4, 2016}}

}}

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{{Portal|Arizona}}

• Bullhead City, Arizona
• Fort Mohave, Arizona
• Mohave Valley, Arizona
• Yucca, Arizona
• Santa Claus, Arizona

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• {{cite news|last=Harkavy|first=Ward|title=Lifeblood flows at sluggish pace along old artery|newspaper=The Arizona Republic|place=Phoenix, Arizona|date=October 14, 1984|page=A10}} - [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/15716314/ See clipping] from Newspapers.com

{{Mohave County, Arizona}}

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Category:Census-designated places in Mohave County, Arizona

Category:Census-designated places in Arizona

Category:Unincorporated communities in Mohave County, Arizona

Category:Ghost towns on U.S. Route 66

Category:Unincorporated communities in Arizona