Massacre, murder and general mayhem describes the treacherous past of Two Guns Arizona. No one lives here anymore, aside from the occasional road weary RV'r that spends the night here behind the burnt out remnants of the KOA campground building. Interstate 40 is just a few hundred feet away and the unknowing modern motorist who passes by has no idea of the misfortune that has hung over this area for centuries – at least since the massacre of 42 Apache Indians in 1878. A group of Navaho chased the Apache to Canyon Diablo where the Apache found a small cave to hide in. The Navaho proceeded to light sagebrush at the mouth of the cave to smoke the Apache out. The result was that the 42 Apache stayed in the cave and died from asphyxiation.
Other legends about the area include buried loot from a 1889 train robbery. The silver and gold coins were estimated at approximately $100,000, but when the bandits were apprehended they only had about $100 between them. It is rumored that the coins and loot was buried on the rim of Canyon Diablo near Two Guns. Around the turn of the century the area around Canyon Diablo where the Santa Fe trail crossed the canyon was named Two Guns. A concrete bridge was built and subsequently in 1926 the Santa Fe Trail became part of Route 66 – the famous road traversing the country from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Above: The KOA campground
Below: The RT and Mario stand at the foot of the Route 66 concrete bridge.
Below: The RT and Mario stand at the foot of the Route 66 concrete bridge.
In 1922 the Cundits built a gas station, restaurant and a store. Capitalizing on the traffic of the road, Henry Miller leased some land from the Cundits at the crossing and created a business for tourists. A nice way of describing the endeavor is to call it a “Roadside Attraction” but more accurately it would be a noted “Tourist Trap”. Henry built a gift shop and cages which housed small animals ranging from Mountain Lions to gila monsters and snakes and birds. Henry reportedly cleaned out the Apache 'Death Cave' of the bones and remnants and gave tours for a fee. Sounds creepy to me to be messing around with the final resting place of a sacred American Indian tribe. Perhaps the spirits of the Apache tortured Henry Miller in his mind, because in 1926 Henry murdered Earle Cundit who was unarmed at the time. There was a dispute over the terms of his lease. Miller was later acquitted and left the state.
The Two Guns site continued to prosper until the 1970's when Interstate 40 essentially passed the little town by and made it an irrelevant stop. Most of the structures in the area have been abandoned and left to crumble since then. Do you think the area is cursed? During our adventures to the location we decided to camp there over night. It was a very unsettling feeling which was not made any easier by the wine of the highway of interstate 40 just a few hundred feet away. Sleeping with a bat only an arms length away we did make it through the night to find that our throats were not slit in the morning. Its unsettling, no wonder no one lives here anymore.
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