Anita, Arizona

Ghost town in Arizona, United States

35°51′40″N 112°14′56″W / 35.861°N 112.249°W / 35.861; -112.249CountryUnited StatesStateArizonaCountyCoconinoElevation

^[1]

5,925 ft (1,806 m)Time zoneUTC-7 (Mountain (MST)) • Summer (DST)UTC-7 (MST)Area code928FIPS code04-02970GNIS feature ID661

Anita was a mining town situated in Coconino County, Arizona on the Grand Canyon Railway.^[2] It was named in 1897 after a railroad surveyor's daughter.^[2]

History

The town was founded around 1899 and was initially called Anita Junction.^[3]

The railroad was originally built to serve the Anita mines, just under three miles away on what became a spur of the line to Grand Canyon. The mines turned out to be worth little, which led to the continuation of the line to the canyon to serve tourists.^[4]

At its peak, Anita contained a school, post office, telephone, and the headquarters of the Anita-Moqui forest service district. It also had several railroad sidings.^[3]

The Anita section of the railroad was closed in 1942. By 1956, no structures remained at the site.^[3]

The school at Anita, along with the neighboring one at the lumber town of Apex, were at one time the only racially integrated schools in Arizona.^[5]

References

^ "Feature Detail Report for: Anita Station". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
^ ^a ^b Gerber, Rudy J. "History and Archaeology en Route". The Railroad and the Canyon. p. 118. ISBN 9781455610860.
^ ^a ^b ^c "National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet (Grand Canyon Railway)". National Park Service.
^ Al Richmond (1986). "The Grand Canyon Railway: A History". The Journal of Arizona History. 27 (4): 425–438. JSTOR 41859703.
^ Michael F. Anderson (2005). A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians: Ideas, Arguments, and First-person Accounts. Grand Canyon Association. ISBN 978-0938216834.