A sepia toned black and white postcard of the Shattuck Mine. The front caption on the top left reads: “Shattuck-Arizona Mine Bisbee, Arizona” The postcard is unused and was published by Albertype Company, Brooklyn, New York-C.W. Barker. Nick Pavlovich Collection.

The Shattuck & Arizona Copper Company formed by Lemuel Shattuck bought the Iron Prince Claim and began development. The shaft was sunk on August 1st, 1904. Like other mines in the area, the Shattuck mine struggled with ground water and installed pumps to remove it. The Shattuck mine was unique due to its location being difficult to navigate to so the company installed a special tramline with fourteen towers on the hillside to remove the ore. Ten tramcars would run bringing ore down and shafting timbers back up to the mine. A beautiful cave was found at the 300 level in April 1913 and was named Shattuck Cave. The company light up the interior with electric lights and allowed thousands of Bisbee residents to come and witness the cave’s natural beauty. The cave unfortunately had to be filled in with waste rock so that mining operations could continue. In 1925, the Shattuck and Denn mining companies merged to create the Shattuck Denn Mining Company. Soon after this merger, a high quality ore body was found. Phelps Dodge purchased the Shattuck Mine in 1947 and by then it had produced 3 million tons of copper alongside special copper silicate named Shattuckite. In 1973 Phelps Dodge installed the old head frame from the Spray shaft at the Shattuck with the hope of finding more mineral wealth but the exploration proved to expensive for what it produced. In the early 1980’ s exploration teams scoured the mine for traces of gold ore but nothing substantial was found.

1981.38.240