Ray, Arizona

Arizona to Pinal County, Arizona Ray, Arizona

History
The small town of Ray, Arizona, located in the south central portion of Pinal County was founded in 1870. The original founders were most likely a group of copper miners operating a small mine in this copper rich area. One of the miners, Mr. Bullinger, is said to have named the town Ray, after his daughter, Ray Bullinger. By 1909 The Arizona Hercules Copper Company had purchased the rights to the mine and constructed the town as a company town. As the mining operation grew, the mine changed ownership a number of times being purchased by Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1933. At that time the copper mine was operated only as an underground mine but stripping of the surface areas began in 1948 and in 1952 digging of what was to become a huge open pit mine was started. Underground mining operations ceased in 1955.

By 1958, Kennecott had made the decision to continue digging the open pit on the land that had occupied three small towns in that area; Ray, Sonora and Barcelona. They constructed a new town a few miles out of Ray and named it Kearny. Residents of the three small towns began moving into Kearny by 1959 and Ray became an officially named ghost town of Pinal County. There is now a view site on the road to Kearny that features the immense open pit mine but the town of Ray is no longer accessible by roads and almost all of the features of the town have been swallowed up by the open pit mine. The open pit mine has been owned by Asarco since 1986 and produces 250,000 tons of raw material per day. The reserve life of the Ray Mine is estimated to be 2044.

The landscape of Ray was always dominated by the landscape. Rugged mountains surrounded the town and one mountain in particular, Teapot Mountain, stood tall and has not, thus far, been damaged by the mining operation. The crushed rock from the mine has long since filled in the many canyons and gullies of the area and has changed the environment.

Ray had a small red brick elementary school called Lincoln Elementary school that consisted of grades K thru 8, and a high school, Ray High School. By 1909, the company had constructed a hospital and there are birth certificates generated from births at the hospital dating back to 1910. The old patient records from the hospital in Ray are kept in a small clinic in Kearny at this time. There was a small cemetery, but that too was claimed by the open pit and the remains were moved and reinterred at a new cemetery in Kearny.

There was no newspaper in Ray.

There were three churches in Ray. A Baptist church near the high school, a Methodist church on "church hill" leading up to Boyd Heights and a small Mormon church in a little house in Boyd Heights.

The town of Ray consisted of one short main street with small businesses on both sides of the street. Ray had a hospital, an elementary school consisting of grades 1 through 8 and eight classrooms. By 1954, another small building was constructed and a Kindergarten was added to the curriculum. Ray High School was a short walk from the elementary school.