Anita, Arizona

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]

Anita, Arizona
Ghost town
Anita, Arizona Location of Anita in Arizona
Coordinates: 35.861°N 112.249°W
Country	United States
State	Arizona
County	Coconino
Elevation [1]	5,925 ft (1,806 m)
Time zone	UTC-7 (Mountain (MST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-7 (MST)
Area code(s)	928
FIPS code	04-02970
GNIS feature ID	661

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

1. "Feature Detail Report for: Anita Station". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
2. Gerber, Rudy J. "History and Archaeology en Route". The Railroad and the Canyon. p. 118. ISBN 9781455610860.
3. "National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet (Grand Canyon Railway)". National Park Service.
4. Al Richmond (1986). "The Grand Canyon Railway: A History". The Journal of Arizona History. 27 (4): 425–438. JSTOR 41859703.
5. Michael F. Anderson (2005). A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians: Ideas, Arguments, and First-person Accounts. Grand Canyon Association. ISBN 9780938216834.