To My Readers:

As a young boy as luck would have it, my adopted Arizona Grandfather, Kenny Harris and his friend Rudy Mac took me with them to many of the old mining and railroad towns here in Arizona.

Kenny was a master fiddle player and Rudy was an amazing banjo player. They were well known throughout Arizona and it seemed like for a couple of years they had out of town music gigs almost every weekend. I was brought along with them to set up their musical instruments and then I would sit back during their first set and make sure the volume was set. At that point they would take me to my room and they would finish the gig. Of course by the time they got back to the room I was already sleeping.

I remember going to Ray, Arizona as it looks in the cover picture. The guys would play music on the bottom floor of the hotel that is the building farthest to the right and our room would be on the second or third floor.

In 1958 Phelps Dodge Corp decided to abandon all three shafts in the area because they had hit water at a depth of 600 feet. They moved all of the graves from the three towns, Ray, Sonora and Barcelona and created a new town, Kearney, Arizona so they could strip mine the three shafts. Sadly a lot of history was lost as every building in the three towns was consumed by the new Ray Mine.

This is the story of 100 years of the history of these three towns that was lost when these three towns were consumed by the open pit mine and also one man who Phelps Dodge discovered owned his own land and store in Ray and created havoc for Phelps Dodge.

Zeke Crandall Author & Historian

Release date for the digital and printed book-Summer 2015