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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Arizona >> Pinal County >> Smelter Town >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Smelter Town (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Smelter Town. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Smelter Town is located in Pinal County.

To see how the shape of Arizona's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Pinal County: Gila, Graham, Maricopa & Pima.

Below are the counties that are near Smelter Town. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Smelter Town:

  • Pinal County     (The home county of Smelter Town)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Smelter Town, with the one closest to Smelter Town listed first.
    • Gold Camp
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
      • Gold Camp is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gold Camp
    • Queen Valley
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Pinal ‑ Historic
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
      • Pinal is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinal
    • Superior
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Gold Canyon
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Silver King ‑ Historic
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
      • Silver King is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silver King
    • Cochran ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Cochran is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cochran
    • Goldfield ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Goldfield is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goldfield
    • Youngberg
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Youngberg is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Youngberg
    • Florence
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Adamsville ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Adamsville is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Adamsville
    • Riverside
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Riverside is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riverside
  • Gila County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Smelter Town, with the one closest to Smelter Town listed first.
    • Top-of-the-World
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Top-of-the-World is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Top-of-the-World
    • Inspiration
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Inspiration is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Inspiration
    • Miami
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Claypool
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Midland City
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
      • Midland City is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Midland City
    • Roosevelt
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Globe
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
    • Copper Hill ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Copper Hill is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Copper Hill
    • Pinal
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Pinal is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinal
  • Maricopa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Smelter Town, with the one closest to Smelter Town listed first.
    • Tortilla Flat
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Apache Junction
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Queen Creek
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Silver Spur Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Silver Spur Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silver Spur Village
    • Sanokai Village
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Sanokai Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sanokai Village
    • Chandler Heights
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Buckhorn
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Buckhorn is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buckhorn
    • Higley
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Royal Palm Village
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
      • Royal Palm Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Royal Palm Village
    • Gilbert
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Sonora
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Summer Place Village
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Summer Place Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Summer Place Village

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Smelter Town, see our County-by-County Page for Smelter Town.

Cemeteries Near Smelter Town ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Smelter Town.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Smelter Town - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Smelter Town covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Smelter Town, with the one closest to Smelter Town listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<4>

While we didn't find Smelter Town in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Smelter Town.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Smelter Town, with the one closest to Smelter Town listed first.

  • Reymert ‑ Historic
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Reymert is located in Pinal County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Reymert
  • Pinal ‑ Historic
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Pinal is located in Pinal County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinal
  • Silver King ‑ Historic
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Silver King is located in Pinal County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silver King
  • Florence
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
  • Riverside
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Riverside is located in Pinal County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riverside
  • Globe
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Smelter Town. See our List of 1890's Communities around Smelter Town.

Newspapers Published in Smelter Town ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 66 newspapers that have been published in the area around Smelter Town.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Smelter Town, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Smelter Town.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Smelter Town:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Smelter Town) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<4>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Smelter Town, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.