Trail Overview
Putz Cemetery and Superior View is an exceptional 4.4-mile out-and-back trail near Superior, Arizona, perfect for history buffs and scenic sightseers looking for an easy-going four-wheel-drive adventure with incredible desert vistas. Starting from US 60 and heading onto Silver King Road, this route guides travelers past the active Imerys Perlite USA mine before reaching the Historic Pinal Cemetery. This quiet historical site holds the final resting place of Mattie Earp, the tragic common-law wife of lawman Wyatt Earp. After paying respects, the dirt track winds upward through a dense forest of multi-armed saguaro cacti and distinct quartz outcrops, climbing from an elevation of 2,661 feet to a high point of 3,871 feet.
Most of this trail is relatively easy and well-suited for high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicles, SxSs, and OHVs, but the final quarter-mile presents a technical challenge that elevates the route to a 3 out of 10 difficulty rating. Here, drivers will encounter a narrow, steep hill climb and a somewhat tippy washout that requires careful tire placement and steady throttle control. Conquering this final stretch rewards offroaders with a spectacular panoramic viewpoint overlooking the town of Superior and the rugged peaks of the Superstition Mountains.
History
Celia Ann Blaylock was born in 1850 in Wisconsin but raised in Fairfax, Iowa. Apparently, she ran away from home at the age of 16 and made her way to Kansas, stopping first in Scott City and then moving to Dodge City. While touring the west in various employment capacities, Wyatt met "Mattie" either in Fort Scott or Dodge, possibly as early as 1873. By this time, the Earp brothers began to have investments in brothels and gambling parlors. (It is the common theory that Mattie, as well as several of the other Earp brother's wives, was a prostitute.) She was certainly his "common-law" wife by 1879 when they left Dodge for the booming mine town of Tombstone, Arizona.Wyatt developed a relationship with "Sadie" Marcus while in Tombstone, and eventually married her after leaving Mattie.Mattie became devastated when she learned of the relationship and developed an addiction to laudanum, a common painkiller of the day, an opium distillate in liquid form.After the gunfight near the OK Corall, Clanton killers sought revenge, wounding Virgil and murdering Morgan. The Earps left Tombstone. Mattie traveled with the Earp survivors to Colton, California where they joined up with Wyatt's parents. However, at some point, she left them and ended up in Pinal, Arizona (about 1 mile south of the grave site) where she returned to prostitution. She told her friends her husband had destroyed her life when he deserted her. Tragically, she died of a laudanum overdose on July 3, 1888, in Pinal, Arizona.
