Dawn Berkoski

When I left Tombstone, I thought I left the past behind. But my next destination was filled with ghosts.

Driving through parts of Arizona is like wandering into a Georgia O’Keeffe or Salvador Dali painting, with long stretches of desert valleys, rust to fiery-orange hills, and the occasional skeleton.

There is something mystical about the areas where the red rocks form. The buzzing energy in the air that makes you feel like you’ve crossed through the Veil. You can drive for miles, see the same sand and spiky cacti, yet the scenery is completely different. It’s a place where time slips but never changes.

As you go south, towards the burnt sienna sands of the Sonoran Desert, where the Hohokam people once lived, and tribes like the O’odham live today, you find massive, mysterious cave systems that stretch deep beneath the surface. And something darker: the remnants of gold mines, greed, Tuberculosis, and violent death.

Dug Too Deep lives there.

The Copper Queen Mine is one of those haunted places, where hundreds died and the ghostly sounds of their coughing and moaning can still be heard.

Of course, I had to go.

So, after visiting one of the oldest libraries in Arizona, the Copper Queen Library , I hurried to join the last underground tour, and learn about the rise and fall of the historic mining town. A lesson that would come back, once the sun went down.

Dawn B~