To get to Dos Cabezas, take I-10 exit 336, 340 or 344 at the town of Willcox, Arizona. Take Highway 186 south out of Willcox to Dos Cabezas (about 15 miles). Most of the interesing buildings are located right off the highway. The roads are paved all the way to Dos Cabezas.
In the 1860's a stage station was built at Ewell Spring, the most dependable source of water west of Fort Bowie's Apache Spring. This was a stop on the Butterfield Stage Lines. In the late 1870's, gold and silver were found in the Dos Cabezas Mountains (Spanish for "Two Heads"). The stage station stop grew into a town, taking its name from the mountains above it.
While in Dos Cabezas, I met a local man named Lloyd Barnett. He showed me around his property beside the highway, which includes some of the adobe ruins you see on this page. He also showed me the remaining rocks from an old "arrastra." For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a rock basin in which ore is placed. Then a big boulder is placed on top of the ore and moved in a circle to crush ore. It is usually moved by a mule. The rocks in the basin become extremely flat and smooth.
He also showed me the remnants of a 1800's well. The water level was so high at this town, due to Ewell Spring, that the early miners would dig a hole 15 feet deep by 10 or 12 feet wide. By morning, it would be full of water. One spring there was a problem, heavy rains were washing down the mountains and overflowing the outhouses in the town below. Many people got typhoid fever this spring. The well he showed me is now just a depression about 2 or 3 feet deep.
