Exploring Arizona's Abandoned Highway 60 and the Claypool Tunnel

today we're just outside of Superior Arizona and we're exploring an abandoned stretch of highway 60. [Applause] [Music] hey everyone welcome to Sidetrack Adventures this is Steve if you've been following this channel for any amount of time you know that I love old roads and if this is the first time you've seen one of our videos welcome I love old roads now this is the Queen Creek Tunnel behind me was built in 1952 and this is Highway 60 but that's not the old road we're looking for today around here there is an older version of Highway 60 and some abandoned Road tunnels that we can explore so let's head out and see if we can find them we are parked at the Viewpoint just past the Queen Creek Tunnel and here is the Queen Creek right below us and it looks like the old road is right over there there are a few other cars parked here at the Viewpoint from what I understand this area is pretty popular for rock climbing the section of Old Road that we're heading to was abandoned as a highway in 1952 with the opening of the Queen Creek Tunnel up ahead but luckily they've kept it open as a hiking trail [Music] so now we're on the Old Highway this road was originally called the Miami Superior Highway and was the Arizona highway Department's most ambitious project of its time the highway travels 21 miles through the mountains between Superior and Miami and if you look at early road maps of the area you can see a pretty big gap in the road between the two towns it looks like a few Boulders have fallen onto the road here I imagine that would have been a constant problem while this highway was active you can see the paving on the road in places but time is doing its job construction of this highway began in 1919 and it cost about a million dollars to build earning it the nickname The Million Dollar Highway not to be confused with Colorado's more famous Highway with the same name I believe this small wall was to keep the road from falling into the canyon below not to stop cars from going down there and wow there's actually a car down there whatever kind of car that was it looks like it's been there for quite some time getting back to the building of this road the construction of this road did use a lot of prison labor so I imagine if not for that it probably would have cost a lot more than a million dollars to build construction of the highway was mostly completed by 1922. because of how steep and winding the road was it took about an hour to drive between Superior and globe a drive that takes about 30 minutes now with the United States highway systems Creation in 1926 this road was first part of U.S Route 180 which was later redesignated as Highway 70 through here and in the 1930s it became part of Highway 60 as it expanded through Arizona this road would remain part of Highway 60 until 1952 when a newer straighter alignment was built higher up the mountain and the Queen Creek Tunnel opened the Queen Creek Tunnel wasn't the first tunnel in the area though and we should see an older tunnel just around this Bend [Music] we made it to the Claypool tunnel we started at the Queen Creek Tunnel which was built in 1952 this tunnel behind me was built in 1926 as part of Arizona's 21 Mile Million Dollar Highway it's definitely not as modern looking as the Queen Creek Tunnel 26 years I guess makes a ton of difference in Tunnel construction but let's go check out the Claypool tunnel to help eliminate some of that windiness through the mountains four years after the road opened this tunnel was blasted directly above the tunnel there is what looks to be a square notch in old photos you could see that there was once a plaque there was also another plaque here at the tunnel that was placed here when it opened in 1926. proclaiming this to be the million dollar Highway but unfortunately that plaque was stolen in 2014. I'm not sure when the plaque above the tunnel disappeared I also don't know why anyone would steal a plaque this is definitely a lot more primitive than the new Queen Creek Tunnel that was built just 26 years later and you can still see all the holes that were used for blasting in this tunnel [Music] it's amazing that this tunnel was open until the 1950s it would definitely be a tight fit with two cars going through [Music] on the roof of the tunnel there's a lot of carabiners so it looks like people are practicing their rock climbing skills in here [Music] the Claypool tunnel is about 300 feet in length and was named for Arizona state senator w d Claypool and also despite the tunnel only being about 300 feet long somehow it was overcast on the other side of the tunnel and it feels like it's about 15 degrees warmer over here it also looks like we're going to get a really good view over here as well that bridge in the distance is the new Queen Creek Bridge and the current alignment of Highway 60 going over it and that's the old highway at the bottom of the canyon and where we are headed and here's a look back towards the Claypool tunnel I think I have an old postcard showing a similar view from the 1940s which I'll put on the screen now [Music] this road is pretty narrow with a rock wall on one side and a drop on the other there isn't a whole lot of room to maneuver here I'm sure that led to some pretty scary encounters here's another small retaining wall like the others this is meant to keep the road from falling into the canyon not to stop any cars from going down there and that big white thing down there is a water tank for the town of superior [Music] coming down this hairpin section of the Old Highway you could really see how steep and treacherous this portion of the road was and why it had to be replaced of course seeing how steep it was also presents another problem because we're parked way back there you can kind of see the old Claypool tunnel behind me and we have to walk back up this section of the highway which I'm not looking forward to but what I've been told is there is the original Queen Creek Bridge down here and some evidence of superior's mining days so we're going to continue down the old highway a little bit longer and see what we can find I had mentioned earlier that prison labor was used to build this road over here you can see where some of the prisoners who work on this road had etched their prisoner ID numbers into this rock [Music] I wonder if any of these numbers could be used to figure out their names down here the road definitely seems to be in a little bit better condition than it was up near the tunnel and if we look over this wall you can see we are right next to the Queen Creek now there it is running below I'm sure in the summertime there's no water going through there and we're getting closer to the Queen Creek Bridge which I think looks pretty cool maybe I spoke too soon about the condition of the road [Music] from here you can get a really good view of the new Queen Creek Bridge and by new I mean it was built in 1949 so it's not that new the new Queen Creek Bridge meets the criteria but has not yet been placed on the national register of historic places they actually plan on building a new bridge over the canyon to take this one's place but the current plans do call for this bridge to be preserved [Music] while the new bridge isn't listed yet the old Queen Creek Ridge which we're headed to right now was put on the national register of historic places in 1988. it looks like the pavement has all but disappeared on this stretch of the road [Music] and from us there's what looks to be a cave now I can't tell if it's natural or man-made and I don't see any Trails heading over to it so that we can go take a closer look but I do have a drone so I guess there's one way to find out I still can't tell if this is natural or man-made yet the town of superior started as a Supply Center for the nearby silver King mine which was the richest Silver Mine in Arizona but by the 1880s that mine started drying up and things didn't look great for Superior luckily copper was found in the area and Superior began its long history as a copper town there was mining done in this Canyon and as we get closer I do think this looks man-made but I'm not 100 certain it doesn't appear to go in very deep though if someone can tell for certain if this is man-made or not please let me know in the comments [Music] there's the original Queen Creek Bridge up ahead that mountain in the distance is called Apache leap where legend has it a group of Apache Warriors left to their death rather than surrender after a battle I'm not sure how true it is but the legend lives on I believe this pipe going across the bridge is a water pipe and it probably connects to that big water tank we saw earlier this bridge was built around 1920 when construction of the road through here began and it looks to be in pretty good condition for being over 100 years old here's a look at the Queen Creek below us and the current alignment of Highway 60 off in the distance [Music] looking back we could see the new Queen Creek Bridge as we keep heading down the road towards Superior we should come across some leftovers from the town's mining days the original name for the town of superior was Queen and that's where the Queen Creek gets its name the town was also known as Hastings at one point but the name became Superior in 1902 named after the Lake Superior and Arizona copper company on the other side of the creek there's an old mine that's been closed off and down below it there's a big orb in [Music] I'm not sure what this was for but there's an old rock wall on the side of the highway here [Music] here's an old foundation for something hiding in the bushes [Music] we've made it to the town of Superior and about to the end of this abandoned stretch of highway 60. so it looks like our Journey's at an end well not our journey because we have to walk all the way back now but this video is at an end so thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed the video please give it a thumbs up consider subscribing and we'll see you next week

Channel: Sidetrack Adventures

Views: 1,399,414

Keywords: Superior Arizona, Legends of Superior Trail, Claypool Tunnel, Queen Creek Bridge, Highway 60, Abandoned Roads, Abandoned Highway, Arizona hiking trails, Abandoned Arizona, Superior-Miami Highway, Abandoned tunnel, Queen Creek, arizona, superior

Id: VMJEY6uCX3k

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 12 2023