Bisbee, Arizona

“The importance of copper mining. Rich copper mines transformed Bisbee from a rough camp in the late 1800’s to one of the largest and most cultured cities between St. Louis and San Francisco by the early 1900’s. From the time of the discovery of rich surface deposits in 1877 until 1975, when the last of the underground mines closed, Bisbee’s mountains yielded more than 8 billion pounds of copper, as well as gold, silver, lead and zinc, representing one of the most productive mining districts in the world. The wealth generated by copper mining built not only the expensive business and residential districts, but was responsible for untold contributions worldwide.”
Today we drove down to Bisbee to walk around town and check out the mines. The above statement was on a plaque on a large boulder in front of the Copper Queen Mine visitor center and tour office. While we had also planned to stop at Tombstone on the way back, we weren’t able to get the tour of Bisbee’s Copper Queen Mine until 2pm. They had a tour at noon, but it was already filled with 70 5th graders. One of the older tour guides asked us to pray for him. Lol! We strolled through the mine visitor center and gift store, than sat down to watch a very interesting video about copper mining. Interesting and old! Video was produced in 1955. Still very informative to see what’s involved from getting the rock out of the ground and to the finished sheets of copper. After watching the video, since we still had a couple hours until the tour, we walked through town and got lunch. The tour was well worth our 105 mile drive down to Bisbee. After the tour, we drove past the large Lavender Pit, open pit copper mine. Then past historic Warren Ball Park, the oldest operational multi-use sports park in the U.S. The first ballgame recorded is June 27, 1909 when the El Paso Browns matched up against the Bisbee Beautiful.. From there we drove down towards Naco, Mexico, getting a glimpse of the border wall. Thought about crossing the border for some tacos, recommended by our lunch waitress, but decided to pass this time. By this time it was getting late, and not enough time to see Tombstone, so we decided to take a different route home. While at lunch, another local suggested we take hwy 83 to miss some of the I10 construction, and visit some of the wineries along the way. Ended up passing a couple wineries on hwy 82, enroute to hwy 83, but missed the turnoff to one and passed another, thinking there would be more on 82. There were none on 83, and it was already after 5p when most close anyway. All in all a fun day in Bisbee. Maybe tomorrow we’ll just lie low. We’ve been driving pretty hard for the last four days now. Late note I forgot to add earlier. On the way down to Bisbee, Rosanne was googling information on the mine tour, and realized her open toed sandals were not going to cut it for the tour, as closed toe shoes were required. So we made a quick stop at a Family Dollar store in Tombstone, that fortunately had a cheap pair of sneakers that fit Rosanne. And some socks as well. ...Læs mere