Near the main park entrance stand the stone remains of Scorpion Gulch. Visitors are free to wander in and around the two stone buildings and the dirt area between them. It is quite popular for photography, especially at sunset.
Scorpion Gulch was built as the home and the storefront of William Lundsford, who first came here with the CCC. Lundsford purchased 100 feet of frontage road in 1936 and built these structures with his own hands. For decades he ran a curio/gift/convenience store along with a cactus garden. According to an oft-quoted 1966 Phoenix Gazette article, the local kids (presumably of what was then the small town of Laveen) called him “Grandpa”.
While Lundsford claimed to have the copyright on “Scorpion Gulch” named for the prefusion of scorpions that could be found in the wash beyond, most of the early photographs show a sign saying South Mountain Trading Post. They also show it with a roof.
After Lundsford passed, the building was briefly a bar in the 1970’s, abandoned, and then became annexed into the park. The city “stabilized it” in 2012, removing what was left of the crumbling roof and adding some strategic concrete reinforcements.
Across the road is the trailhead for the Max Delta Trail.
This post is part of my ongoing Phoenix South Mountain series.
Are We Lost Yet? 
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