Bisbee and Douglas, Arizona

Bisbee and Douglas, Arizona, both cities just north of the Mexican border in Arizona, produced roughly 8 billion pounds of copper by 1981 and owe their existence to 19th-century miners. Jack Dunn, a civilian scout accompanying the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, located copper deposits near the Mule Gulch in May of 1877. In December of that year, Hugh Jones, with George Warren, located the mine that came to be named Copper Queen, but Jones abandoned it after not finding [Page 56]silver. Warren lost his one-ninth share during a drunken incident, wagering his share on a foot race against a horse.

Edward Reilly, wanting to investigate the Copper Queen mine but lacking capital, turned to Louis Zeckendorf and Albert Steinfeld. These Tucson merchants loaned Reilly $16,000, enabling him to purchase the rights to the Copper Queen. Reilly went to San Francisco and enlisted John Williams and DeWitt Bisbee, metallurgists and mine developers, and the Martin and Ballard construction firm. Williams and his sons, experienced in copper smelting in South Wales and Michigan, invested $20,000 into the venture and received seven tenths interest in the Copper Queen, while Zeckendorf and Steinfeld retained the rest.

Bisbee started out as a male-dominated camp. One hundred Americans created the open trenches of the first mines. By mid-July 1880, the first furnace arrived; Mexicans worked in smelting, preparing charcoal with Welsh coke for fuel. The town rapidly grew to about 500 people within the first year. A post office was erected; restaurants, mercantile stores, a brewery, and saloons followed. By the turn of the century, families started to arrive, giving the mining district a sense of lasting beyond mining. By 1913, the number of workers of the Bisbee-Douglas region reached 6,000. Bisbee had a cornucopia of peoples, though Chinese were barred by unwritten law or open hostility. Visible class hierarchies existed; Slavic, Serbian, Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Italian, and Hispanic camps were divided from the northern European and American camp. Southern and eastern Europeans had their own camp, while Hispanics had their camp, “tin town.” The Calumet and Arizona Company created a planned community in the Warren district, southeast of old Bisbee.

In the fall of 1880, James Douglas urged Zeckendorf and other Copper Queen owners to buy the adjacent Atlanta mine claim. They did not listen, and William E. Dodge, Jr., and D. Willis James, of Phelps, Dodge and Company, bought the Atlanta claim over modern-day Douglas. Unsuccessful at first and investing $80,000 in exploration, the company eventually found rich deposits at 210 feet, assuring the mine's success. To avoid litigation, due to the ore being on part of the Copper Queen property, the Phelps, Dodge and Company bought out the Copper Queen, thinking it had exhausted its ore. Huge investments to improve transportation made this region dominant through the turn of the century under the firm the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company. Rails investment connected Douglas and Bisbee, under the Phelps Dodge Corporation. All smelters shifted out to Douglas by the turn of the century.

In 1901, Black Water, Arizona, became Douglass, named after James Douglas. This site eventually became home to the all smelters in the region because of the presence of water. Water also allowed for small-scale ranching in Douglas. By 1904, smelting ended at Bisbee, and newer, more efficient smelters refined the copper of Bisbee and Mexico. These newer smelters came at a cost of $2.5 million. All focus in Bisbee concentrated on mining; rails connected Douglas to Bisbee, facilitating copper smelting and copper transportation. In 1904, a saloon, five hotels, and a street railway filled Douglas. Calumet and Arizona, a new dominating firm, emerged in southern Bisbee and it, too, placed smelters at Douglas. Calumet and Arizona eventually was absorbed during the Depression in order to strengthen Bisbee's Phelps, Dodge and Company. The year 1987 saw the closing of smelters in Douglas. The smelters did not meet air pollution standards, and rather than wasting resources to refit them in a region not mining heavily, Phelps and Dodge shut down permanently.

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