A black and white photo postcard showing two pictures of miners working in the Copper Queen Mine, circa 1904. One shows a man drilling with a hand drill by the light of a candle. The photo on the left is captioned: "In the Stope," while the photo on the right is captioned: "First Workings in Copper Queen Mine." Photo by Humphries Photo Company and published in El Paso, Texas. Neal Bush Collection.

In 1877, the Copper Queen Mine began with the Jack Dunn’s discover of a blue and green stain on the side of the Mule Mountains that indicated the presence of malachite, azurite and copper. Development of the Copper Queen started in 1880 when Benjamin Williams, Lewis Williams and Judge DeWitt Bisbee purchased a number of mining claims including the Copper Queen. DeWitt Bisbee invested a large amount of money to build the towns first proper smelter. The town was named Bisbee in his honor. The Copper Queen Mine produced 20 million pounds of copper along with 80 thousand tons of malachite, azurite and cuprite. The richest of the copper ore contained 30% copper and it was mined out by 1884. There was a desperate search for another ore body which was struck, the downside was that the same ore body had been found by the Atlanta mine. To avoid legal battles, the Atlanta Mining company and the Copper Queen merged into the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company. This was taken as a subsidiary of Phelps Dodge after fifteen years of operation. In 1975, after Phelps Dodge ended mining operations in Bisbee, Mayor Eads and former miners came together to create a mine tour. Today the Copper Queen Mine Tour operates giving visitors a glimpse of the former operations in a small section of the former mine.

1994.21.13