Two Guns um 1950

Here is another "then & now" of the iconic Two Guns with the subject this time being the fantastic real photo postcard of the "Two Guns Station, Arizona" Zoo on Route 66. The "now" photo taken in 2015 is so excellent that you can even see the same stones in both the postcard and the "now" photo. This is not the new zoo you can see from the interstate but the original one. The story goes that Cundiff leased the property for 10 years to a man named Harry E. "Indian" Miller in 1925. Miller claimed to have lived among the Philippine headhunters while he was in the Army during the Spanish-American War (1898). He called himself "Chief Crazy Thunder" and said he was part Apache and part Mohawk.
Miller moved there with his wife and built his trading post west of the bridge, it had a cylindrical shaped turret and also a Texaco filling station. He placed a Hopi House next to the bridge, added fake stone ruins, and posted a sign stating that they were part of the "Apache Caves". He also built his "Zoo" along the Canyon behind his gas station - store (and home) it held local wild animals like mountain lions (pumas).
Miller realized that the caves had potential so he built some fake Pueblo ruins by the first cavern's entry and linked it to the store with a path and wooden bridge. The tourists paid to visit the Hopi ruins and the caves. Miller called his complex "Fort Two Guns", but when Cundiff applied for a post office, the name was not acceptable, so "Canyon Lodge" was used instead; the post office opened in 1925. But Cundiff and Miller did not get along well, and on March 3, 1926, Miller shot an unarmed Cundiff and killed him; he claimed it was in self-defense and was acquitted.
The store's interior burned in 1929, and that same year Earl's widow, Louise Cundiff built her own tourist store on the eastern side of the bridge. Miller left the state to avoid further prosecution.
Louise Cundiff married Phillip Hesch in 1934 and they built their Two Guns Texaco service station in 1938 along the brand-new Rt. 66 alignment that had just been completed that year (now overlaid by the freeway) Behind it they relocated the new zoo.
The zoo had already closed by the time S. I. Richardson bought the place in 1950. He leased it to several operators and finally sold it to Benjamin Dreher, who replaced the old service station in 1963 with a modern one with a cafe that burned down in 1971. In the late 1960s, the place revived: a motel, restaurant, coffee shop, gift shop, garage, and service station were now on site. The zoo was rebuilt and a reptile exhibit was added. Some of the old stone buildings were restored. But the fire ended it all. Later, a Shell service station was built and a KOA campground opened. Both went out of business and are now abandoned.
The "now" photo is courtesy of https://cali49.com/mojave/2014/12/11/rt-66-two-guns-az and Charles Hartley.
"That episode is well documented but an enduring myth associated with Two Guns is far more nebulous and less easy to prove. That legend concerns the so-called Apache Death Cave." This is a sentence from Blue Miller's "The Man Who Invented The Apache Death Cave." Her article tells the rest of the story and is well worth reading. https://neverquitelost.com/.../the-man-who-invented-the.../