Studio Four Magazine: THE VANISHING OF JAMES KIDD IN MIAMI ARIZONA

James Kidd traveled out west from New York in the early 1920’s, ending up in the remote mining town of Miami, AZ. He never had a drivers license, was never fingerprinted, never married and vanished without a trace except for the $500,000 he left deposited in banks and a will that offered it to anyone who could prove a human had a soul.

A road trip beckoned me, this time Cowboy and Indian Route 70 starting just East of Miami, in Globe, AZ. I left early, in the darkness of predawn to avoid the Phoenix rush hour. You never know just where daybreak’s first burst of sun will catch you. This time it was on the outskirts of Miami. Traffic was stopped in both directions. A huge iron piece of some long forgotten mining machine emerged from the side road on a flatbed truck. It passed by and traffic began to move again.

Route 70 still miles off and I was in a hurry. But the site of sun hitting a scenic church drew me in. I turned off the road to take a photo. A quiet deserted town stood before me, abandoned buildings, empty streets and broken windows. I wondered what had happen here.

As I walked the streets with my camera, a feeling surrounded me of a place that had served it purpose and just wanted to be left alone. It wanted to vanish just like James Kidd. There were a few antique shops but mostly just the worn buildings, old trucks, their colors drawn and hued by the harsh desert sun. The light wind teased torn curtains in some of the windowless buildings, mines and rusted equipment on the surrounding yellow sage brush hills presided over the town.

Copper ruled here, its color still in the streets. Globe, AZ was a silver town, but it played out. Miners moved to and started Miami. Cleve Van Dyke pioneered the founding of Miami in 1909. He sought to become rich with his land holdings but never did, nor anyone else who lived there except James Kidd. A workers town where 2,000 once lived, earning $5 a day deep in the dark underground mining the copper for companies who did become rich but lived far away. They toiled in this isolated town buying goods from the company store and living in their houses. The miners revolted and struck in 1917 against the carried off riches. They wanted a part but only gained small concessions in the starved resource years of World War One. Their hard lives felt in all that is left here.

It is said that James Kidd worked in the copper mines until illness forced him to quit. A friend helped him pack up and drove him to the superstitious mountains, were he prospected for the rest of his life. His body and claims have never been found. His vanishing went unnoticed for years because he knew few people. The ones that did described him as a recluse dedicated to spiritualism. When he was finally declared dead in 1956. The E. F. Hutton Company produced his will and the details on his large estate. Many years of court battles ensued between various organizations that said they were best to pursue his spiritualist research and identify the human sole. The Barrow Neurological Society in Phoenix finally won the money. Still the search goes on for his source of money and his soul.

In reality, James Kidd did not have to look beyond Miami to find the soul of man. It is all around you here forged by the human story of so many played out with hard work, raising a family and just living what we call life.

David Young