We wish to thank Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for some of the information on our web pages. We share images and information with Wikipedia. We also donate to Wikipedia, & would suggest that others do the same. During the fall of 1877, Lt. Jack Dunn, in command of a cavalry detail from the frontier Army post of Fort Huachuca, was on a scouting mission against the Apache Indians. Lt. Jack Dunn and his men headed for a spring in the Mule Mountains to camp for the night. The party camped at a spot of fairly flat ground in a canyon slightly below the spring�a site now occupied by Old Bisbee, just a few hundred yards from where tourists begin the present day Copper Queen Mine Tours. While taking a walk after dinner, Lt. Jack Dunn picked up an interesting rock. He found some more interesting pieces along the slope of the south walls, of the canyon that they were in. Because of his being in the army, Jack Dunn made an oral agreement with a prospector, named George Warren where George Warren would locate claims and work the claims with Jack Dunn as a partner. They were attracted by outcrops with the lead mineral cerussite, which often carried silver. But, his prospector partner, George Warren was a whiskey drinker. It wasn't too long and his whiskey drinking friends had staked out a new group of their own mining claims, leaving Jack Dunn completely out of the deal. Poor ole jack got nothing! Then, in about 1880, copper production began on a rather limited basis. In 1880, a rich copper carbonate ore deposit was found & given the claim name of Copper Queen claim. Bisbee was also established as a mining camp in 1880. It was named after Judge DeWitt Bisbee, who financed the Copper Queen Mine. At first individuals, & then companies with capital, gradually became involved, & took over the individual claims, & brought them into production. An option on the mine was acquired in 1880 by entrepreneur Ed Reilly who raised $80,000 capital from Dewitt Bisbee to begin production. When the surface pockets of cerussite were soon exhausted, the owners found that the orebody ran 23% copper, with silver and gold as byproducts. Most mines of that era could profitably mine ore containing 3% or 4% copper, so the Copper Queen orebody was considered extraordinarily high grade. The surface oxide ore was exhausted after three or four years, but miners explored deeper and eventually found even larger orebodies. In 1884-5 the mine was offered for sale to London investors for �350,000, but the offer was not taken up, and the mine was acquired by Phelps Dodge, now Freeport McMoRan. The Phelps Dodge Corporation, through it's subsidiary; the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, became the dominant force and eventually the sole operator of the mining district in the Bisbee area. In the early 1900s the Copper Queen was the most productive copper mine in Arizona. Building upon its base, in Bisbee; Phelps Dodge then became one of the largest copper producers in the United States. Since mining in the Mule Mountains proved quite successful; in the early 20th century the population of Bisbee soared. Bisbee was incorporated in 1902, by 1910 it's population swelled to 9,019 and Bisbee had a group of suburbs, including Warren, Lowell, and San Jose, some of which had been founded on their own (yet less successful) mines. In 1917, open pit mining was successfully introduced to meet the heavy copper demand needed for to World War I. In 1917, the mine was involved in the Industrial Workers of the World miners' strike which led to over 1000 miners being arrested and deported in what became known as the Bisbee Deportation. By the middle 1960s, the grade of ore from the Copper Queen had declined to 4%. The Phelps Dodge Corporation closed the Bisbee underground mines in the summer of 1975. The Queen Mine Tour was officially opened to visitors on February 1, 1976. Since then, more than a million visitors, from all 50 states and more than 30 foreign countries, have enjoyed the underground mine tour. High quality turquoise was a by-product of the copper mining and has been promoted as Bisbee Blue. Bisbee is noted for the variety of copper minerals and the high-quality specimens that have been taken from its mines. Bisbee specimens can be found in museums worldwide. Cuprite, aragonite, wulfenite, malachite, azurite, and galena are just a few of the minerals that have been found underneath the town. The Copper Queen orebody is about 64 m (210 ft) long, 54 m (177 ft) wide, and 107 m (351 ft) deep. This is all about 900 feet under the Queen Hill in Bisbee. In less than a century, from 1881 to 1975, approximately 3.6 billion kg (8 billion lb) of copper were removed from the Bisbee area. That is enough to form a cube of copper with each side the length of a football field! The Bisbee area also yielded silver, gold, lead, and zinc.

If you are planning to visit Bisbee and the Bisbee area and you are coming from outside of Arizona, you could fly into Tucson and then rent a car. Bisbee is a little over an hour drive from Tucson off of the scenic I-10 route by taking Arizona 80. When you turn off of the I-10 onto Arizona 80, you will pass through Tombstone, Arizona; on your way to Bisbee. Tombstone is also worth a visit. If you are at Bisbee; Noco, Mexico is only about 4 miles further South. You need a passport to go into Mexico. There are hotels and motels all along the way in nearby towns. We have some links to Priceline.com on this page since they can arrange all of your air flights, hotels and car. You may need some outdoor clothing and equipment, if you plan to visit the Bisbee area. We have some links to Altrec on this page since they are a good online source for outdoor gear. We of course, appreciate your use of the advertising on our pages, since it helps us to keep this page active.