A black and white photo postcard showing the unveiling ceremony of the Copper Miner statue in front of the Cochise County Courthouse and St. Patrick Church in November 1935. There is a large crowd and a lot of cars parked along the street. It appears to be the unveiling of the Copper Miner statue. Close inspection shows the statue is covered. The postcard is unused, and the publisher is unknown. Alice Metz Collection.

In 1935, during the Great Depression, artist Raymond Phillips Sanderson was commissioned to create a monument to Bisbee’s Miners through the . It was Sanderson’s first major work, and he was paid 30$ a month by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration for the six months it took to complete the statue. Despite the name, the Iron man is mostly concrete with a thin coating of copper. Sanderson used 200 pounds of copper wire through a oxyacetylene heated gun to spray the solid cement. The physic of the statue was modeled after Bisbee resident Lee Petrovitch. The Iron man statue was Sanderson’s first major commission. Along with the statue, he was commissioned for a second art piece through the WPA Federal Art Project, a bass relief in plaster “A Cavalcade of Cochise County History” tin Cochise County Courthouse. In a 1965 interview conducted by Sylvia Loomis, Sanderson is quoted “It stood up beautifully, except that the people of Bisbee don’t like copper to turn green and they like a bright copper, so every year they paint with copper paint which annoys me to no end. But as long as they like it why it’s all right with me. “ His goal of the statue was to portray ‘Beauty, toil and simplicity”. He was paid 30$ a month by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration for the six months it took to complete the statue. The plaque at the bottom of the statue is inscribed with : “To Those Virile Men The Copper Miners Whose contribution to the development of the wealth and lore of the state of Arizona has been magnificent – Erected by the Citizens of the Warren Mining District this Eleventh Day of November A.D. 1935.” Today, the more mischievous of Bisbee’s residents will decorate the Iron Man statue for various occasions, anything from a festive Christmas hat to a football jersey during the high school’s football games.

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