Weaver - Yavapai County

Updated: 8/20/2016

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Where: Yavapai County near Wickenburg

 

Operation Dates:  Founded in 1863 and abandoned around 1898.

 

Noted Aspects of Town:  Town was named after Pauline Weaver and was known as Weaver or Weaverville.  In the 1890’s Weaver became a hangout for thieves and murders.

 

History:  Weaver was named after mountain man Pauline Weaver, who worked as a guide for a group of prospectors who discovered placer gold on Rich Hill.   While guiding a small group from Yuma they stopped off at Antelope Creek where some horses wondered off.  While looking for the horses a couple of gentlemen from the group found gold scattered on top of a hill which became known as Rich Hill.  Weaver is located on the East side of Rich Hill near Antelope creek about 15 miles North of Wickenburg.  Two other ghost towns, Stanton and Octave, were established in the area around Rich Hill.  A post office was established at Weaver on May 26, 1899 but remained less than a year before it moved to nearby Octave on April 19, 1900.

 

After the placers played out by the 1890’s the town became occupied mainly by Mexicans and became a hangout for thieves and murders.  According to Arizona Place Names, “In 1898 a newspaper article called for the town to be wiped out because it was the headquarters for a cutthroat gang whose leader was know as the “King of Weaver”, then and old blind man, the degenerate remains of thirty years of lawlessness.  What residence were left in Weaver stampeded nearby to Congress and by January 1899 only two or three people still remained in Weaver.”

 

More detailed information about murders associated with Weaver can be found on the State of Arizona Research Library web page titled Murderous Weaver, Arizona:  https://statelibraryofarizona.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/murderous-weaver-arizona/

 

People:  Pauline Weaver, Abraham Harlow Peeples

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Mine(s) supporting town:  Rich Hill, Octave, and Zeigler mines were in the area.

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What you will see today:  Today an old rock building with the roof collapsing and a few other crumbling buildings remain in the area.

 

Acknowledgement:  Arizona Ghost Towns and Mining Camps, Arizona Place Names, Wikipedia, Arizona Pioneer and Cemetery Research Project (APCRP), State of Arizona Research Library.