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| History of Kearny |
Before large scale mining operations began in the Copper Basin area, many pioneers
and colorful characters passed this way. The ghost towns of Troy, Cochran, and Butte were host to a multitude of fortune seekers
trying to tap into the mineral wealth of the region. Now, all that is left of Butte, are the coke ovens once used to smelt ore.
Built in 1850 by Welsh miners, the cost of mining, smelting and hauling the ore exceeded its worth; so, the ovens as well as the
surrounding towns were gradually abandoned. Between Kearny and Ray Mine, the small settlements of Kelvin and Riverside were once
bustling little towns. A Butterfield Overland stage stop was established in 1879 at Riverside along the Globe-Florence route.
It was there in 1889 that the Apache Kid escaped from lawmen transporting prisoners to Casa Grande to be placed on a train destined
for the territorial prison at Yuma. Riverside is also the site of the last stagecoach robbery in America, which occurred in 1899
when a young diminutive woman named Pearl Hart and her associate, Joe Boot, held up the Globe-Florence stage. Miss Hart served some
time in the Yuma Territorial Prison for that ordeal, then used her notoriety to launch an unsuccessful stage career.
Kearny was founded in 1958, and is named for Brevet Major General Stephen Watts Kearny. General Kearny led 100 dragoons through this
area on his way to California in 1846. The official log of this trip kept by Lieutenant William H. Emery records, under the date of
November 7, they traveled down the Gila and camped that night at the junction of the Gila River and a creek that Lieutenant Emery
named Mineral Creek, because of its rich mineral content. It is on this creek that the (ASARCO, Inc.) Ray Mine is now located. It
displaced the towns of Ray, Sonora, and Barcelona, three small copper mining communities that were once "boom towns". They were
engulfed by the mine after Kennecott Copper Corporation converted from underground mining to open pit mining operations in 1948.
Most residents of the communities moved to Kearny, which Kennecott built to relocate the miners and their families.
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