Long-time readers know that I’m a big baby when it comes to trains. I love them. Trains often are part of my explorations, so when I went exploring a couple of days ago looking for the Wood Plank Road, I spent a lot of time wandering around looking for trains, too.
Yuma, Arizona, happens to be one of those places where my favorite railroad, Union Pacific, runs a lot of trains, fifty or more each day. They are not short trains, either, some being up to two miles long. Sadly, the layout of Yuma with all its little mountains and valleys meant that there was not a place to get good pictures or videos of all the trains.
That left me wandering around out in the desert looking for trains and train history. I went down Ogilby Road where my source book told me there was an abandoned Southern Pacific settlement and an old mine. The settlement, Ogilby, is a ghost town, and although my source book said there were remnants of building foundations, I didn’t find any. My source book was published in 1994, so 25 years of drifting sands might have obscured the remaining foundations.
I did find the old Catholic cemetery. Looks like this:
Ogilby was founded in 1877 as a railroad stop for the Southern Pacific Railroad. The American Girl Mine in Obregon was on the other side of Ogilby Road. The mine was closed in 1939, and Obregon was abandoned the same year. Ogilby, named after E.R. Ogilby, mine promoter. The post office closed in 1942, and by 1961, the town was abandoned.
Interestingly, there were three grave markers that indicated people were buried there well after 1961, and one indicated that the person was born in 1963, a couple of years after the town was abandoned.
Although there are grave markers, I could not if there actually were graves there. If there were, they are well below ground as is done in modern times. My own belief is that a family would not bury a loved one out in the boondocks, in spite of the fact that they might have been born and raised there. I think the loved one is buried in a city cemetery somewhere and a memorial marker was placed in this cemetery.
The Ol’ Road Grader was 75, but the other two were 38 and 50, not only indicative of the lower life expectancy of the times but probably indicative of life in the area as well. There also were a lot of small graves typically of children and babies.
After having visited the area a couple of days ago in my nice, air conditioned 2019 Honda Insight, I really can’t imagine what life was like out there in the desert 150-200 years ago.
Russel Ray Photos 