Two Guns
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It's easy to pass by Two Guns on Interstate 40 despite its colorful name. The firearms moniker apparently is tied to a local black hat who referred to himself as "Two Gun" Miller. He lived in a cave in nearby Canyon Diablo, according to historian Marshall Trimble. Other reports identify him as Harry E. Miller.
Visitors will notice that Two Guns has been holstered. There are no tourist services, just the remains of a mid-1970s Shell gas station and KOA campground with an A-frame office in ruins for years and now gone. Taggers have painted colorful murals at the camp's pool. The gas station has been blanketed with graffiti. Two Guns includes the ruins of a zoo that Miller started as a roadside attraction on Route 66. The former menagerie housed mountain lions, panthers and bobcats. The crumbling zoo is west of the former campground. It's near a bridge over Canyon Diablo that was part of an early Route 66 alignment. In the early 1880s, railroad construction halted at Canyon Diablo to complete a bridge over the deep gorge. A Hell on Wheels town emerged on the eastern side of the canyon with saloons, brothels and merchants along Hell Street. Canyon Diablo was about 3 1/2 miles north of Two Guns, but vestiges of the town have all but disappeared. Nevertheless, the zoo ruins at Two Guns are among the most interesting faded tourist attractions on Route 66 in Arizona. Two Guns is about 30 miles east of Flagstaff at Exit 230. |
At one time, Two Guns was known as Canyon Lodge.
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Henry "Two Gun" Miller is credited with starting a zoo along Route 66 east of Flagstaff that included mountain lions, panthers and bobcats.
The roadside attraction of the Two Guns zoo is among the most fascinating road ruins along Route 66 in Arizona.
Taggers have splashed a lot of color and words on the pool deck of the former KOA camp. San Francisco Peaks are visible to the right.
That's me in the pool on a fall afternoon in 2015.
A Shell station with no gas, no oil and no air pump in this shot from 2015.
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A cross and a random shoe at the Shell station ruin at Two Guns.
Vandals leveled a former KOA campground office.
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Taggers have colored this shell of a Shell Station. This shot is from June 2025.
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Harry E. Miller opened a trading post here in 1925.
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This crumbling 1915 bridge over Canyon Diablo is on an early alignment of Route 66 about 30 miles east of Flagstaff.
Interstate 40 has left Two Guns in the dust. Motorists, big rigs and fleeting clouds roll by the ghosts of Route 66 that are here.