Visiting Fairbank, Arizona... A Ghost Town

Fairbank, Arizona, named for Chicago grain broker Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank, was established in 1881.  It was a transportation and supply hub for area towns, including Tombstone.  Fairbank had an elegant hotel with a restaurant and bar, a post office, businesses and a schoolhouse.

The silver mine in Tombstone shut in 1887 after the Grand Central Hoist and pumping station was destroyed by fire.

An earthquake in 1887 altered the path of the Sand Pedro River, knocked railroad tracks out of place and demolished buildings in Fairbank.   Floods along the San Pedro River in 1890 and 1894 severely damaged Fairbank and other towns along the river.








This is one of the few
buildings left in Fairbank.

This building was built
in the 1930s or 1940s.

The Fairbank Schoolhouse was

built in the 1920s with gypsum

blocks from Douglas, Arizona.

The Adobe Commercial
Building is under
renovation.

This small building was built

around 1885.

Fairbank held on through the 1950s with a roadside store and gas station pump.  By the mid 1970s the last residents closed the store and moved away.

The Bureau of Land Management acquired Fairbank in 1986 and has worked with Friends of Fairbank to stabilize and restore the Schoolhouse and other remaining buildings.