Iron King Trail

The Iron King Trail follows the first four miles of the old Prescott and Eastern Railroad grade from the Granville neighborhood of Prescott Valley west into the Granite Dells. It starts on Santa Fe Loop Road at the foot of Glassford Hill, crosses open Lonesome Valley grassland on wide dirt and gravel doubletrack, and ends at Point of Rocks, where it meets the Prescott Peavine Trail beside Watson Lake. Rusted railroad cars stand at intervals along the way. The ride is rail-grade easy: a barely noticeable climb west for two miles, a flat run into the boulders, then a short drop to the Peavine junction. Most riders pair it with the Peavine for an out-and-back of ten to twelve miles.

• The Prescott and Eastern Railroad was incorporated on September 14, 1897, and its 26.4 mile line from Entro to Mayer was completed on September 30, 1898.
• The rails of the Prescott and Eastern were pulled up entirely in 1949, and pieces of the old roadbed can still be seen along Highway 69 between Dewey and Mayer.
• The Iron King Mine near Humboldt, the trail's namesake, was discovered in 1880, shipped its first ore in 1903, and produced zinc and lead until its last year of production in 1968.
• Before the railroad came, Point of Rocks was one of the most feared stretches for wagon trains and stagecoaches, a hiding place for renegades and highwaymen.
• Point of Rocks later held a cluster of railroad buildings at the junction where the Prescott and Eastern branched off toward Humboldt and Mayer.
• The granite of the Dells has been radiometrically dated at 1.4 billion years old, and its rounded boulders were shaped by weathering along joints, a process called spheroidal weathering.
• Glassford Hill, which stands over the eastern trailhead, is a volcano that erupted about 12 million years ago and rises to 6,177 feet.
• Glassford Hill takes its name from Colonel William Glassford, who in the 1880s helped build a network of 27 mountaintop heliograph stations across Arizona that flashed mirror signals like Morse code.
• Watson Lake, which the Peavine Trail follows beyond Point of Rocks, was created by damming Granite Creek in 1916.
• The Iron King and Prescott Peavine trails were inducted together into the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame in 2010.

The Prescott and Eastern laid its rails across Lonesome Valley in 1898 to reach the mines of the Bradshaw foothills. Point of Rocks, at the western end of this trail, had been a hiding place for renegades and highwaymen who preyed on wagon trains and stagecoaches. In the 1880s Colonel William Glassford used the bald volcanic hill above the eastern trailhead as one of a chain of heliograph stations that flashed mirror signals across Arizona. The railroad was incorporated on September 14, 1897, under the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway. Grading began at Entro, the junction near Point of Rocks, in March 1898. By the end of September the 26.4 mile line to Mayer was complete. It hauled ore and passengers through Humboldt and Poland Junction to Mayer, and it gave the Iron King Mine at Humboldt its outlet to the smelters. In 1911 the Santa Fe folded the company into its California, Arizona and Santa Fe Railway. The mine kept producing zinc and lead until 1968, but the railroad did not last that long. The rails were pulled up entirely in 1949. The Town of Prescott Valley, working with the rails-to-trails program, opened the first four miles of the grade as the Iron King Trail on July 10, 2004. In 2010 the Iron King and the Prescott Peavine Trail entered the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame together. The town has since built a path along Jasper Parkway that ties the Iron King to the Glassford Summit Trail.

• Iron King TrailheadMILE 0Directions
• Granville Dog ParkMILE 0.9Directions

• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (TrailLink) · Iron King Trail
• MTB Project · Iron King Trail Mountain Bike Trail
• Prescott LIVING Magazine · Prescott Valley Improvements Expand Access To Glassford Summit, Iron King Trails
• Wikipedia · Prescott and Eastern Railroad
• Sharlot Hall Museum · Railways Prompt Fall of the Peavine
• Arizona Highways · Peavine Trail
• Wikipedia · Granite Dells
• Prescott AZ History · #PrescottAZHistory: Glassford Hill's History Included Many Names
• Western Mining History · Iron King Mine
• Point of Rocks RV Campground · Prescott Hiking Trails & Parks
• Kingsnake's Home Den · Iron King Trail
• Hiking Project · Iron King Trail Hiking Trail