Prospectors first located mineral resources in the area in the 1840s, including silver, gold, lead, zinc, and turquoise. Chloride was founded about 1863, but mining was not widespread until the 1870s after a treaty was signed with the Hualapai Indians. The railway from Kingman, called the Arizona and Utah Railway, was inaugurated on August 16, 1899 - the last silver spike was driven by Miss May Krider. The town eventually grew to a peak of around 5000 inhabitants, and at one time Chloride was the county seat. By 1917 the population had fallen to 2000, and by 1944 it was nearly a ghost town.
In the 1960s the community was briefly a counterculture magnet, with Roy Purcell, a hippie artist, leaving behind the "Chloride Murals" outside of town.
-Wikipedia