Paradise's post office was established
October 23, 1901 and discontinued September 30, 1943. Paradise allegedly had 13 saloons at
one time which speaks for itself. The original jail was an open air jail where prisoners
were shackled to a chain run between two trees. Even though the mines closed down in 1907,
the town still has a few current residents today.
Paradise is located in the Chiricahua
Mountains. Turkey Creek Drive is the "main street" with the remains of an
old post office, old houses and various crumbling foundations. Between 1901
and 1903 a Michigan mining company, the Chiricahua Development Co., sank a double
compartment shaft 480 feet to mine for copper. The company sank over a half a
million dollars into the mining operation but the return were poor. The company
moved out in 1905. There were 18 houses, tents, a few stores, hotel and lots of
saloons such as the Old Owl, the Cockatoo and the Mead Park. If you could come up
with $5.00 to buy a barrel of whiskey and a little capital, you could start up a saloon.
Mining camp and Post Office. "Paradise
was a boom camp that went up like a rocket and cam down like a stick in the early years of
the present century. "Along about 1903 prospectors up here had to cross the
valley on their way to San Simon station to get their supplies and a mail. Was about
28 miles, no water on the way, and awfully dry and hot in summer. When they
would get back up here they would take a drink of spring water and lay back in the shade
and say, 'well, this is Paradise all right.' When George Walker and George Myers
went to shipping ore, it made a camp large enough for a post office. When the
department asked what name, they all said 'Paradise". Post office established October
13, 1901.
There are at least three ghost towns in the
vicinity of Paradise, in extreme southeastern Arizona, almost on the Arizona-New Mexico
border. Paradise is one; the others are Tres Alamos and Galeyville where
several of the buildings in Paradise came from.
The area was being prospected in the 1880;s
but the town was born about 1901. it never grew into a large settlement; perhaps
three hundred was its greatest population. There was only one mill in
Paradise; many
operators shipped their ore to a smelter in El Paso. The Panic of 1907 forced the
mines to be abandoned an the town to die.
A few people still live on in Paradise.
One modern home was built around the old jail.
