[Rockhounds] Mining in Arizona

[J. R. Hodel]

Imagine my amaze when standing in line at the tiny 7th Day Adventist grocery store in Sunizona, AZ and I hear the guy in front of me tell the guy running the cash register (all around retirement age) that he was working in his buddy's gold mine. There's a lot of hobby mining in Cochise county, AZ.
I'm not sure about the claim / permit details, but I see places with a ladder sticking up out of the ground outside Tombstone, with a fan to ventilate the dig, some kind of bucket arrangement on the ladder, and a runway out to the tailings dump. Obviously one or two guys at the most, but only a mile or so from long abandoned silver mines that were the bonanza of Tombstone.
On the other side of the Dragoon Mtns in the Sulfur Springs valley there is a flat valley floor with hillocks of various sorts protruding from the valley floor. Many of these show signs of prospect pits, and others have obviously locked metal doors over adits into the hillside. There are abandoned mines all over Cochise county, and people look for tiny bits of ore bodies worth exploring.
I still see wulfenite from the Defiance Mine in Gleeson coming to market... was a prolific silver mine until the mid-20th century, now abandoned, but digging is still on going for specimens and possibly for gold and silver ore. They won't tell and I won't ask.