Henry Wickenburg and his companions were apparently attracted to the area around Wickenburg by ore that Territorial Colonel, King Woolsey, had shown to Mr. Wickenburg.  It was thought to have come from a mine in the Harquahala Mountains, southeast of the Wickenburg area.  Henry Wickenburg discovered gold in October 1863, which initiated the development of the Vulture Mine and ultimately the establishment of the Town of Wickenburg.  The mine was located fourteen miles west of what would become the town of Wickenburg and was well known for its size and richness.  In 1864, Henry Wickenburg, with the assistance of Charles E. Genung, built an arrastra to process the ore.  They ground out a ton of ore and cleared one hundred fifty dollars.  In 1866, Wickenburg sold the mine to a New York company.  The governor’s message, reported in the December 12, 1868 Miner called the Vulture ‘one of the richest and most extensive and remarkable deposits of gold quartz on the continent’.  A variety of stories exist regarding the name of the Vulture mine.  The most famous is that Henry Wickenburg saw a vulture at the same time he captured his first view of gold.  Another version says that Henry Wickenburg discovered gold as he went to find a buzzard that a member of his party shot.  Since the bird had led to the discovery of gold, he named the mine after it.  The Vulture Mine is said to have produced $16,000,000 worth of gold.  Small gold bars bearing the Vulture stamp were current exchange in Arizona for years.  Wickenburg’s early history depended upon the Vulture Mine.