A black and white photo postcard of two miners underground. Note the holes loaded with explosives behind them. The fuses are the string-like things coming out of the wall. A loading stick for the explosives is in the right of the image. Also note the candle behind the man on the left. This card is numbered 60. The postcard is unused, and the publisher is unknown. Brian Fairchild Collection.

Underground copper mining in Bisbee in its first years used traditional single jack and double jack mining with hammers and picks. In single jack mining, a solitary miner was working with a handheld single jack hammer striking a chisel into an ore body while rotating the chisel slightly with every hit. Double jack mining was done with a team of two men, one to strike the hammer while the other rotated the chisel. A great deal of trust was needed with a two men team not to end up with busted hands. Aiding the miners was plenty of dynamite. In a solid rock wall, a pattern of holes in a specific size were drilled out and packed with the explosive. After clearing the work area, the dynamite would be set off to obliterate the hard rock into manageable chunks that could be hauled to the surface as waste rock so the hunt for ore could continue. Transferring ore to the surface was handed by special teams: the muckers would drop ore down a chute that was passed to the chute tappers who transferred it to the ore cars which were pushed to the surface by the trammers. During this period of mining, the workspace was lit up with special candles: Instead of beeswax, the candles were made from white stearic acid derived from palm leaves that burned at a slower rate than the average candle. In a single shift, a miner would use anywhere from four to six candles to light his workspace. The miners candlestick was invented by Nathan E. Varney in 1885, his curving iron candle holder could be hammered into the side of the tunnel or hung by its hook from a timber. During this period, the ore removed contained 30% of copper. Mules were brought underground and kept in special subterranean barns where they were well kept enough to endure the strain of hauling ore to the service. The animals were retired when electric trams were installed. When the richest of Bisbee’s copper ore was exhausted in 1884, smelters were built to process the lower grade ore that often only contained around 4% of copper. Miners used powered pneumatic drills to double the output of ore. The downside of this vastly improved drill was that it kicked up a tremendous amount of dust that would cause lung problems for the miners. The drills were upgraded to spray water so that the dust wouldn’t such a nuisance. Around this time the stearic acid candles were replaced with open flame carbide lamps that produced a far brighter light. Other improvements included electric fans to improve air quality and large pumps to remove the ground water that hindered mining efforts. Underground mining came to an end in Bisbee in 1974.

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