Bisbee

I was putting together an album of a trip to Bisbee last November, and as I started writing the narrative about the small town, I realized it was something I wanted to share on my blog, too.

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In November of 2006, we took a trip to southern Arizona to the historic town of Bisbee. This old mining community is located 200 miles southeast of Phoenix, just north of the Mexican border.

Founded in 1880, Bisbee is the site of the Copper Queen Mine, one of the richest mining sites in history. It drew tens of thousands of people into the town, and by the early 1900's, Bisbee was the largest city between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California. The Queen mine produced millions of ounces of gold, copper, silver, lead and zinc, until mining operations were shut down in the 1970's. Since then, Bisbee has become a quaint artist and retirement community that draws people from all over the world.

As a first-time visitor, it was a refreshing change of scenery from the concrete jungle. The homes that seemed to teeter on the hillsides were old and historic, and the topography reminded me of San Francisco. Strangely enough, they also had the same parking and access problems as the City by the Bay.

On our first evening there (it was the day after thanksgiving), hundreds of people gathered on Main Street to celebrate the "Parade of Lights", which wasn't really a parade but rather a large gathering. A local church choir sang Christmas carols, a group of 8-year-old girls did a ballet presentation, and the town mayor addressed the crowd, all before Santa came by in a big red fire truck to switch on the seemingly meager single-strand of Christmas lights that were strung along Main Street, suspended above, zigzagging all the way up the avenue. It didn't have the enormity or the spectacle or the excess and the glitter of the urban setting, but I liked the smallness of everything. It reminded me of the community where I grew up, where everyone knew each other. You don't feel this sense of affinity in the big cities.

On our second day, we took a two-hour jeep tour that brought us about town, from the first paved street in Arizona (the jeep barely fit) to the Continental Divide marker in the surrounding Mule mountains. We also took a tour of the historic Queen Mine (hard hats and all!) led by a gentleman who actually worked there in its heyday. He talked about, among other things, setting up dynamites and getting out of the way before they blew; showed us the elevators and equipment and how they worked; even pointed out two customized toilets, side-by-side with no walls around them. The experience of learning about a miner's life was unforgettable.

Bisbee turned out to be a charming, wonderful town with friendly people, beautiful architecture, and an air of history that can only be found in the Old West.

[ View the album ]

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