06/03/2026
Grief Hill earned its name from the extreme difficulty pioneers and soldiers faced while traversing the route between Prescott and the Verde Valley during the 1860s. The trail was notoriously steep, narrow, and rocky, often involving an 11 percent grade that made the descent hazardous for heavy wagons. To prevent wagons from running away, travelers frequently had to chain logs behind them to act as a drag, and accidents were common. The Arizona Miner newspaper famously described the route as an infernal break-neck pitch, capturing the daily hardship that caused so much grief for those who relied on it for supplies.
While local folklore often attributes the name to a legendary massacre of an entire wagon train, historical and archaeological evidence suggests otherwise. Although there were four documented skirmishes involving Indians on the hill between 1865 and 1869, there is no record of a mass slaughter of the scale described in popular tales. The rock mounds often cited as graves have been investigated by experts and identified as foundations for prehistoric or historic Indian brush shelters and mescal pits rather than burial sites.
The Grief Hill route served as a primary, albeit difficult, entry point for the military and settlers for only a few years. By 1868, civilians had begun using a road through Copper Canyon, and by July 1870, the military completed the Cherry Road, which offered a safer, more manageable path into the valley. With these alternatives available, the original Grief Hill road was largely abandoned by 1870, leaving behind only the rugged trail that remains a point of interest for hikers and historians today.
~ CVHS Digital Historian / Digital Archive Project
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