A color postcard of downtown Bisbee, circa 1913. This card appears to have been a panorama which has been ripped in two. In the image the Glory Hole, smelter stacks, Copper Queen Warehouse, and Pythian Castle are visible. The front caption reads: “Opera Drive, Bisbee, Ariz”. The postcard was sent by Clayton Ingraham to Beatrix Maki. The message on the back in ink reads: “Was here last Sun. Some town. Can’t get any cards of Naco it is too far out in the sticks for cards.” Also written in pencil on the back: “Written by Clayton Ingraham. Daughter Beatrix Maki, Kalamazoo Michigan 1913” The postcard was published by the PNC Company, Germany.

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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