CT-Graphics Photography Portfolio Gallery :: Oatman, AZ Outlaws and Heroes photos

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... good ol' western music and whiskey ... then the unmistakable sound of a double barrel shotgun ...

sounds like "serious" trouble between

A small, dusty town called Oatman is the lone survivor and a reminder of Mohave County's gold-mining boom when gold was pouring out of the surrounding mountains, which lasted until the mid-1930s. It's the ghost town that refuses to die.	This rustic but fully functioning town is a place you just have to go. There's not a lot of towns like this left. The history of the Wild West is still alive in this old mining town that takes us back to the 1915 era old west. You will like the town's authentic feel.	Strolling along the plank sidewalk among the handful of stores and four saloons - many containing their original storefronts - is like wandering back in time, and you're bound to meet a few friendly and very interesting characters.	If you happen to drive into town and burros are coming up to your car, guns are blasting, and bodies lay in the street, do not worry. You're just taking a trip back to the Old West as you experience gunfights and showdowns on main street.
Gunslingers face each other, taunts and threats fly as the gunmen try to rouse the lawmen. Voices get louder, dusty heat rises. Suddenly the street explodes in a volley of gunfire. Men fall, dead, their bodies twitching in the dirt. Time freezes for a moment. Then the lucky ones re-load their guns...	The encircling crowd stands within 10 or 15 feet of the action, and these are real guns going off, albeit loaded with blanks. For comfort, you can cling to a wild donkey - they are totally unflustered during the mock killing.	An outlaw carefully aims at the Sheriff with a six-gun in his left hand, but the old lawmen who enjoys a nearly legendary fearsome reputation among the area's troublemakers squeezes the trigger of his rifle a split second before the outcast. The desperado falls face first into the dust.	This is not some forgotten dusty little place, and the gunfights capture perfectly how it must have been to live in a town like this at an earlier time. Oatman with its nostalgic visions of the past, blazing shootouts and the scenic beauty of Arizona along Historic Route 66 is The West at its Best.

Though Oatman, AZ, on Historical Route 66, is only a shadow of its former self, it is well worth a visit. This "living ghost town" not only provides a number of historic buildings and photograph opportunities, but the sights of "wild" burros roaming the streets, as well as fearless gunfights and the haunted Oatman Hotel where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their wedding night back in 1939.
Oatman is a fun place to visit - an authentic old western town and a popular TV and western movie backdrop.

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