A black and white postcard of the underground mine workings at Bisbee. The image shows a bulkhead of a mine, with mine timber lining the walls, electrical wire hanging from the ceiling, and track running through the drift. The images have yellowish borders on the sides of the card. The caption on the left reads “Bulkhead in Copper Queen Mines in Bisbee, Ariz.” The postcard is unused, and the publisher is unknown. Martin Maggie 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.

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