A color postcard of downtown Bisbee. Central School, Sacramento Hill, the library, and YMCA are visible in the image. Also the image is approximately 1918, as the excavation of Sacramento Hill has begun. The front caption on the bottom reads: “Bird’s eye view of Bisbee, Arizona from School Hill 119762” “Sacramento Hill” has been labeled in red type. The back caption on the top left reads: “View from School Hill, Bisbee, Arizona Bisbee, the Copper Crowned Empress of the Great Southwest. Production of the District $ 57,300,000 annually. Number of men employed in the mining industry about 5,000. Monthly mining payroll about $750,000.00 (Equates to $150.00 per man).” The postcard is unused and was published by the Curt Teich American Art and Harry Herz, Phoenix, Arizona. Edward Francis Collection.

Bisbee’s downtown district was the economic heart of the city. Multiple shops, hotels restaurants, churches, library and post office provided rural Bisbee with a metropolitan lifestyle as comfortable as any bustling city back east. The most prominent among the buildings constructed were the Phelps Dodge offices for the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, the Phelps Dodge Mercantile, Copper Queen Hotel, the Copper Queen Hospital the YMCA, the YWCA, Presbyterian Church, Central School and the Bisbee High School. Of the buildings lost to time, the original Williams Douglas House, The Bessemer Hotel and the Orpheum Theater were among those demolished. The area survived devastating fires and monsoon floods that tore the district apart in the early decades, testing the mettle of its residents. As the copper ore had yet to give out, they still had the resources and determination to rebuild the town. Whereas countless other Arizonan boom town went bust and vanished into ghost towns, Bisbee remains as the nature of copper mining allowed it to do so. Visitors from all over the nation can come and appreciate Bisbee’s role in providing the metal that formed the backbone of our modern era.

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