Chloride is a onetime silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 mining camp in Mohave County

Mohave County, Arizona

Mohave County is located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2010 census, its population was 200,186, an increase of 45,154 people since the 2000 census count of 155,032. The county seat is Kingman...

, Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

, and is considered the oldest continuously inhabited mining town in the state. Chloride has a ZIP Code

ZIP Code

ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

 of 86431; in 2000, the population of the 86431 ZCTA

ZIP Code Tabulation Area

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are statistical entities developed by the United States Census Bureau for tabulating summary statistics from Census 2000. This new entity was developed to overcome the difficulties in precisely defining the land area covered by each ZIP code...

 was 352.

History

Prospectors first located mineral resources in the area in the 1840s, including silver, gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

, zinc

Zinc

Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...

, and turquoise

Turquoise

Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl648·4. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue...

. Chloride was founded about 1863, but mining was not widespread until the 1870s after a treaty was signed with the Hualapai

Hualapai

The Hualapai or Walapai are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the mountains of northwestern Arizona, United States. The name is derived from "hwa:l," the Hualapai word for ponderosa pine, "Hualapai" meaning "people of the ponderosa pine"...

 Indians. The railway from Kingman

Kingman, Arizona

Kingman is located in a desert climate on the edge of the Mojave Desert, but its higher elevation and location between the Colorado Plateau and the Lower Colorado River Valley tempers summer high temperatures and contributes to winter cold and rare snowfall. Summer daytime highs reach above 90 °F ...

, called the Arizona and Utah Railway, was inaugurated on August 16, 1899 - the last silver spike was driven by Miss May Krider. The town eventually grew to a peak of around 5,000 inhabitants, and at one time Chloride was the county seat

County seat

A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

. By 1917 the population had fallen to 2,000, and by 1944 it was nearly a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

.

In the 1960s the community was briefly a counterculture

Counterculture

Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...

 magnet, with Roy Purcell, once a hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

 artist, leaving behind the Chloride Murals outside of town. The Chloride Murals were restored from their 1960's condition in 2006 by the same artist, now widely known for his western etchings and other art which he refined while working as a curator for the Southern Nevada Museum in Henderson, Nevada

Henderson, Nevada

-Demographics:According to the 2000 census, there were 175,381 people, 66,331 households, and 47,095 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,200.8 people per square mile . There were 71,149 housing units at an average density of 892.8 per square mile...

 and which were sold worldwide from nearby Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

casinos and shops.

External links

• Chloride Chamber of Commerce
• Community website
• Chloride entry from Desert USA
• Photo gallery from Western Mining History