More than 40 members of the Lifelong Learning Club got to experience the Old West, Arizona-style, on an early March field trip to the Vulture Mine.

In 1863, Henry Wickenburg saw potential gold veins in a rock formation. He returned alone to start digging his Vulture Mine, which became the state’s richest, producing nearly 10,000 kilos of gold and 7,000 kilos of silver.

Recent owners Rod Prat and Robin Moriarity spent several years lovingly and authentically restoring the crumbling buildings and have created a visitor-friendly historic destination. An on-site artist, Ray Villafane, fabricates art sculptures and mini-city structures from recycled materials found amid the rubble.

Tour guides Lance Kramer, a Vulture gunfight reenactment show member, and “Tumbleweed,” an on-site blacksmith, told the group stories about the spaces they explored: the bunkhouse, schoolhouse, post office, gas station and the blacksmith’s forge, where all tools and machinery were kept in working order. The brothel was self-contained, with a kitchen, a piano in the parlor, a full-length front porch and an attached doctor’s office. Authentic artifacts accent the purpose of each building, including old cans of diesel fuel, lanterns, scales and measuring devices, glass storage jars and metal cooking utensils.

The oldest structure is the mineral assay office where ore was tested for gold and silver content. It is said rocks used in its construction contain many thousands of dollars-worth of un-extracted gold.

Each day’s take of refined ore was stored in a pit in the middle of a fortified room, guarded 24/7. Rotating guards cooked their meals and slept in an adjacent space. Few attempted to rob the gold, and those who were caught ended up at the still-living "Hanging Tree." Over more than half a century, only 18 hanged, which is not bad for a city with a population that went up to 5,000 during its peak years.

Huge old rusted equipment was left in place to show how ore was taken out and processed. Diesel generators, compressors that provided oxygen to men working deep in the mine and steeply inclined ramps with buckets and carts used to carry the rock up from below all pose as historic sculptures.

Lance demonstrated how a large hammer and hand-held chisel made holes for placing dynamite in a big circle to blow a path following the gold vein. Then he reminded the group that the men had to work in darkness, lit only by a candle or two.