Christmas In July

Another ghost town added to our July adventure. The once-festive town of Santa Claus, Arizona is now run by rattlesnakes. 

Santa Claus was founded in 1937 by an eccentric realtor named Nina Talbot who moved from California to Arizona. She hoped to create a resort town in the Arizona desert, and, inexplicably, gave her destination town a Christmas theme, naming it "Santa Claus, Arizona". Her plan was for the holiday-themed attractions to bring people to the town, and, weirdly enough, her idea worked... for awhile, anyways.

Fourteen miles (23 km) northwest of Kingman, Arizona, along U.S. Route 93 between mile markers 57 and 58, immediately north of Hermit Drive and just south of Grasshopper Junction, Arizona.

There was a post office, which meant every December, visitors could send their kids letters postmarked from Santa Claus. There also was the Santa Claus Inn (later known as the Christmas Tree Inn), a restaurant described as one of the finest in the region. And, of course, visiting kids could meet Santa every day of the year. The town's proximity to Historic Route 66 helped keep it alive.

By the 1970s, business was dwindling and the town was falling into disrepair. In the late 1980s, a visiting writer described padlocked, dilapidated buildings and a run-down gift shop. The last of Santa Claus' businesses closed in 1995.