Contention City, Arizona
| Contention City, Arizona | |
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| Ghost town | |
Mason's Western Hotel in Contention City, 1880.
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 Contention City, Arizona
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| Coordinates: 31°46′8″N 110°12′7″W / 31.76889°N 110.20194°WCoordinates: 31°46′8″N 110°12′7″W / 31.76889°N 110.20194°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Arizona |
| County | Cochise |
| Founded | 1880 |
| Abandoned | 1888 |
| Named for | Contention over ownership of a silver claim |
| Elevation | 3,799 ft (1,158 m) |
| Population (2009) | |
| • Total | 0 |
| Time zone | MST (no DST) (UTC-7) |
| Post Office opened | April 6, 1880 |
| Post Office closed | November 26, 1888 |
| GNIS | 24378 |
Contention City or Contention is a ghost mining town in Cochise County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Arizona. It was occupied from the early-1880s through the late-1880s in what was then known as the Arizona Territory. Only a few foundations now remain of this boomtown which was settled and abandoned with the rise and fall of silver mining in and around the area of Tombstone.
Prospectors Ed Williams and Jack Friday discovered what was to become the Contention and Grand Central mines when their mules broke free from a nearby camp one night. The mules, in search of water, dragged a chain behind them, which allowed Williams and Friday to track the animals the next morning. As they walked, they noticed the gleam of metal where the chain had scraped away the overlying dirt, and upon investigation, they found what would develop into a significant silver lode. The mules were tracked to the nearby camp of well-known prospector Ed Schieffelin, who had been prospecting extensively in the area, and who had staked claims to many of the Tombstone area mines. Unhappy that two competitors had discovered a claim in what he considered to be his territory, Schieffelin disputed the ownership of the claim. Eventually, the claim was split in two, with the upper end going to Williams and Friday, and named the Grand Central Mine, and the lower end going to Schieffelin, and named the Contention Mine after the disputed ownership that earned him the claim.
Contention City, named after Schieffelin's nearby mine, was originally established in 1879 on the bank of the San Pedro River as a milling site for silver mined from the Tombstone area mines including the Contention and Grand Central mines. Mills were constructed along the San Pedro River in Contention City as well as Charleston due to a lack of water needed for refinement in the immediate vicinity of the mines. The two mills in Contention City — Sunset (later renamed the Head Center) and the Contention mill (the Grand Central mill was two miles south of Contention City) — processed or "stamped" the silver ore into fine powder in preparation for smelting.
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Wikipedia