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When I learned about this very different, yet interesting ghost town, I had to do some research on it! Wow, I was stunned! While my husband and I were taking a ride out to beautiful Parker canyon lake, thinking about the ghost town that exists not to far in this forest. I managed to find some old photos of this mysterious ghost town called “Sunnyside.” It lies Up in the gorgeous Huachuca Mts., in the Coronado national forest on a rocky dirt road, meant for high clearance vehicles. A storm must’ve hit the road that leads to this ghost town as many tree branches had been on the road, in which we had to walk about a mile! It was a good walk, yet only to find this!

I spotted these very small, yet stunning yellow flowers out along the dirt road! The story starts out back in 1886, when a man named Sam Donnelly who was an alcoholic in California became a changed man and became a preacher. He had his own ideas that didn’t sit well with other religious leaders.

Sam decided to move to the lawless Tombstone and start preaching there. As well as preaching in Tombstone, he also became interested in mining as well. Donnelly became co-founder of the Copper glance Mine, which is 9 miles SE of Sunnyside. He managed to interest a few followers and traveled to what he named “Sunnyside” There, he made them work and listen to him preach. All of them built a kitchen, dining area, barn, schoolhouse with room. It had up to 80 people. Then a newspaper made allegations against him, and Donnelly sued the newspaper. Years after he died, his followers were called the “Donnellites” which Sam hated when he was alive. So, you can see that this is a Holy Ghost town that had no beer, no painted ladies, no saloons!

Thanks for reading about this communal ghost town! Keep looking for new and informative articles and please donate to my fundraiser, anything you can give will help support this site! Have a great weekend!