Arizona Copper Discoveries

Copper discoveries never created a rush, as did gold or silver strikes. World suppliers of this utilitarian metal concentrated in Cornwall, England, and Andalusia, Spain, but these places gave way to Michigan, Montana, and Arizona. Copper, employed in kitchenware and roofing materials, gained value with the advent of electricity. Antonio Espejo noted copper's presence near Jerome in 1582. Areas richest in copper concentrations were Mexican until after the Gadsden Purchase of 1854. Lack of cheap rail transportation for importing needed supplies and exporting metal made copper mining unprofitable until the 1870s. Apache presence compounded the problems of mining southern Arizona. Ultimately, the presence of copper brought a steady flow of different peoples into this arid region.

An early venture into copper extraction occurred during 1854 in Ajo, an area of southern Arizona that Mexico disputed as possessing. Surface copper removed and carted by mule from Ajo across to San Diego was shipped to Swansea, Wales, for smelting. The copper then sold at $360 a ton. Crude extraction methods left most subterranean copper behind, but mining resumed in the early 20th century. Ajo had high numbers of Mexican laborers due to its proximity to the border. Ajo busted and now is a small town of 1,700 people with over half its population being white, a third Hispanic, and about 10 percent Indian.

The first successful region to extract copper was Clifton-Morenci. In July of 1870, Jim and Bob Metcalf discovered two major deposits at Clifton and Morenci. Apache hostility prevented the Metcalfs from laying claim to these deposits until 1872. Fear of Apache raids kept labor away. This prompted the Arizona Copper Company at Clifton to import both Chinese and Mexican labor. In the 1870s, Clifton Camp was only about 200 workers strong, mostly Mexican. Transportation problems lost the company money, but the company managed to stay afloat by employing a store system to sell supplies to the miners. The Arizona Company sold out to Scottish investors. They added transportation rails to this mining region. Fuel and market accessibility drove down production and transportation costs. By 1883, Clifton had a significantly larger labor force, including 400 Chinese. Mexicans and Anglo workers drove out the Chinese that year, making it a “white man's camp.”

The Detroit Copper Company claimed Morenci. Morenci mirrored adjacent Clifton in its working force and problems. In 1882, this site suffered an Apache raid, forcing smelters near the San Francisco River to be relocated to Morenci. Though not as large as the Clifton site, these sites, combined, by 1911 had 3,500 miners, the second highest region in output, the lowest accident rate, and a workforce that was half Mexican.

Copper discoveries continued through the 1870s, as seen in Globe and Jerome. Globe, known for its silver “rush” in the 1870s, ignored copper until the Old Dominion Copper Mining Company operated in 1881. The Globe-Miami region by the 20th century hardly had any Mexican labor, but the Globe region had received immigrants from mining communities since [Page 32]its inception. People from regions with mining history, such as Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, and England, traveled to Michigan, Montana, and Arizona as their highly specialized mining skills were needed. Mining techniques simplified by machines allowed an influx of semiskilled labor in the form of Czechs, Serbs, Italians, Montenegrins, and Bohemians. Balkan encroachment by Austria forced some Slavic migration. Mining towns were melting pots for Europeans, though often camps were segregated.

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