Copper Square

The Morenci mine in eastern Arizona, with one of the largest copper reserves in the world. It's owned by Freeport-McMoRan, formerly Phelps Dodge (Tom Blackwell photo).

One of the misbegotten efforts to revive downtown Phoenix in the early 2000s was to rename it. "Copper Square" was the monicker chosen on the, er, thinking that people in the metropolitan area didn't even know where the city's downtown was. Phoenix had nothing to do with copper — aside from the low dome of the Territorial Capitol and an occasional freight car going through with equipment to the mines — and thankfully the name went away.

But the story was far different for Arizona. Copper was one of the "Five Cs," along with cotton, citrus, cattle, and climate and for decades the most profitable. Arizona has by far the largest concentration of copper deposits in the nation — including Butte, Montana — and second only to southern Peru and northern Chile. Copper mining also produces such byproducts as gold, silver, and molybdenum.

Arizona is the only state with an elected Mining Inspector. His office estimates more than 100,000 abandoned mines dot the state. About 10 major copper mines remain today, with controversy over efforts to start the Resolution Mine near Superior.

No wonder the Grand Canyon State is also the Copper State.

Let's take a tour through the years (click for a larger image):

Jerome, a classic mining town, on Cleopatra Hill in the 1930s (Library of Congress). 

 

The United Verde Mine in Jerome produced 2 billion pounds of copper, silver, and gold from the 1880s to 1953 (Library of Congress).

An ore train passes through Jerome's Hopewell Tunnel circa 1920s (Library of Congress).

 

Ajo's New Cornelia Copper Mine in 1922, soon after it was purchased by Phelps Dodge (Photographer unknown).

A classic company town, employing about 1,000, Ajo boasted a handsome passenger depot built by Phelps Dodge on the town square. A short line connected it to the Southern Pacific main line in eastern Pima County (Photographer unknown).

Ajo's open-pit mine in recent years (Library of Congress).

Bisbee, location of the Copper Queen Mine, another Phelps Dodge company town, in the 1940s (Russell Lee, Library of Congress).

The infamous Bisbee Deportation of July 1917, arranged by Phelps Dodge during World War I. About 1,300 striking union miners were forced aboard railroad cattle cars by a 2,000-strong posse. The trains went 200 miles into New Mexico and the miners, with little water and no food, were warned not to return to Bisbee (Library of Congress).

Phelps Dodge employees in Bisbee "owned their souls to the company store." Actually, in its heyday, Bisbee paid the highest wages in the state (Russell Lee, Library of Congress).

The miners monument in Bisbee, 1940 (Russell Lee, Library of Congress).

The Bisbee Lavender Pit Mine, named after Phelps Dodge executive Harrison Lavender. It yielded 75 million tons of ore from 1954-70, including copper, gold, silver & Bisbee Blue Turquoise (Peter Corbett photo).

Miami's copper smelter at work in 1940 (Russell Lee, Library of Congress).

Another view of Miami's smelter in 1940, serving the Inspiration Mine, another Phelps Dodge operation, this one in Gila County near Globe (Russell Lee, Library of Congress).

Morenci's copper concentrating plant in 1942, when World War II kept copper prices high. It was a boom-and-bust industry. Morenci is in Greenlee County (Library of Congress).

Whether underground or open-pit, mining is a dangerous business. Here's a blast worker in 1942 at Morenci (Library of Congress).

Bagdad Mine in Yavapai County, another Phelps Dodge property, 1935. It's still going today with one of the state's largest copper deposits (McCulloch Bros.Collection/ASU Archives).

Hayden's mine and smelter in 1935. The mine and town, on the border of Pinal and Gila counties, was founded by Kennecott Copper, Phelps Dodge's arch-rival (Library of Congress).

The interior of Hayden Mine. The copper has been so depleted that Hayden is becoming a ghost town, although the smelter continued to operate in the 2010s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Ray Mine, flagship of Kennecott's Ray Mines Division in eastern Pinal County, in 1935 (Library of Congress).

The interior of Ray Mine, with tracks for hauling ore cars (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

A Southern Pacific ore car stands near the Ray works in 1935 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Superior early in the 20th century. It began as the richest silver mine in the state. When silver played out, the Magma Mine was developed for copper. The mine closed in 1982, reopened in the 1990s, and fresh discoveries make it the site of the controversial Resolution mine (Western Mining History).

The Clifton Southern Pacific station and railroad yard, circa 1940. The Greenlee County town was a marshaling point for ore cars from Morenci. SP served southeastern Arizona'a copper country from two directions: From Phoenix to Superior, Ray, and Hayden, and from Bowie to Globe and Miami. Yet another line went from Lordsburg, New Mexico, to Clifton. The Clifton depot is preserved today (Library of Congress).

A Southern Pacific GP-9 locomotive hauls empty ore cars at Bisbee in 1971. A spur from the SP's southern line — originally Phelps Dodge's El Paso & Southwestern — served Bisbee (Photographer unknown).

A five-unit lash-up of SP locomotives at Hayden in the 1960s (Photographer unknown).

After SP spun off its mining branches in the 1980s, the Copper Basin Railway handled the job. Here's a train near Kearny (Bruce Schwierske photo).

A three-year strike convulsed Arizona's copper country from 1983 to 1986. Gov. Bruce Babbitt was forced to bring in state trooper and eventually the National Guard. In the end, Phelps Dodge hired replacement workers who voted to decertify the unions. It was a major defeat for organized labor (Photographer unknown).

The Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum in Phoenix attests to the state's major exports. It closed in 2011 but reopened in 2017 under the auspices of the University of Arizona (Photographer unknown).

 

Heavy equipment moves ore at Morenci (Brad Prudhon photo).

Epilogue: Unlike other extraction-based states, Arizona saw little of the billions from its copper. It couldn't even afford a state capitol, even on the scale of Montana much less Oklahoma. Instead, the money went to eastern capitalists and Wall Street. Phelps Dodge finally moved its headquarters to Phoenix in the 1980s; now Freeport-McMoRan has its sign on a downtown building.

The General Mining Law of 1872 "declared all valuable mineral deposits in land belonging to the United States to be free and open to exploration and purchase," according to the Bureau of Land Management. It led to the mining boom in Arizona Territory and across 350 million acres of the West. But it required no royalties be paid to the taxpayers. And it caused disastrous environmental consequences, leading to numerous Superfund cleanups. We live with its consequences today.

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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.

 

 

Comments

[Helen Highwater]

Arizona five C's 1900 - 2000

COPPER
Cattle
Citrus
Climate
Cotton

Arizona five C's 2001 - Present

Crazy politicians
Cop shootings
Car crashes
Climate change
Californians

[DoggieCombover]

The 1872 Mining Law is one of the most disastrous public lands policy decisions ever made. And it stands to this day, pretty much the same as it was 150 years ago, with efforts to amend or repeal stonewalled in Congress. As Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the US Forest Service said, "there is nothing so sacred as an abuse..."

[AzRebel]

Curious if anyone out there could provide an update on southwest mining cities.

Californicated - the condition of being overrun by Californians.

Bisbee, Jerome, Silver City NM, Prescott? these cities have been Californicated.

Anyone know about Morenci, Globe, Bagdad, others?

[Cal Lash]

SUPERIOR SILVER MINE.
The Diner has a good lunch and the old Dairy Queen now a cafe has a good salad and Spaghetti.
Turn right to go to Ray and San Manuel.
Go Straight for Miami and Globe.
What no photos of Top of the World or the Keystone Hotel? From "the Pen Warmed Up in Hell?"
Take off the tie and go big and hard.

[Cal Lash]

Jon, great photos.
In the Jerome photo is KINGs the current Spirit Room. A long time ago I hurt my back climbing the fire escape at the request of some "ladies" from the rooms above.

[AzReb]

cal, was it Mae West? “Come up and see me some time?

[Cal Lash]

AZREB. Ill try and get to Payson, soon.

[[email protected]]

AZREB. I used to have a place on the river in Cottonwood. Besides climbing Woodchute and Mingus Mountains I would go to events in Jerome. Back then you could watch the cowboys sit in one part of the Sprit Room bar and the hippies in the other. About 2300 hours myself and my friend would leave the bar as the fight was on. We went up the side stairs above the bar to what was called the Connor Hotel. As soon as you turned the lights out the rats ran wild. Since then the family has really fixed the place up.
I have no idea who the ladies waving me on were?
I have seen many changes in Jerome from Mining,to arts,to hippies,to motorcyle gangs,to liberals to unwoke Capitalism.
I recall a time when it wasnt safe to drink the water. i recall when DPS arrested a really nice Jerome Town Marshal for growing 13 Marijana plants in his yard.
Some of my best days were putting on The Arizona Road Racers Jerome Hill climb, a footrace that started at the old High School. Many years ago Jerome hosted a european auto race.
A worth while thing is to visit the mine owners house now a museum and look at a descripition of the 100's of holes mined into the area. A place that has a volcanic fault line.

My dauhter attended Mingus High School and her mother was the Cross Country Coach. My parents are buried in Lovely Clarkdale. The area still has an active concrete plant.

I'll try and get up the hill to see you, ASAP.

[Helen Highwater]

I wonder if it's the arsenic used in mining and getting into the ground water that is causing the rural republicans to lose their minds?

[100 Octane]

Great pictures and comments, I'm never disappointed visiting this blog.

[Cal Lash]

You can check but i think Arizona water comes with a bit of Arsenic to begin with.

[B. Franklin]

That would explain a lot.

[Ruben]

Damn Phoenix exaggerating TV weather people.

The wife and I were already seated on the Ark, near the cash bar, and all we get is one stinking quarter inch of rain?

There oughta be a law.

[Cal Lash]

Since females started doing TV Weather casts things have been hyperer and blusterier.

Tons of rain in AJ.
Gold rivulets running down the Arroyos.
Mules braying "Jacob" in the wind.

Dam releases flooding the Salt. The dancing gods of the indeginous solving drought.

Humans freaking out at perceived calamities.
But its just another day in Earths glorious rotuine of magnificent eruptions.
A photographers dream.

[Cal Lash]

Ruben your at Noahs Ark CASH bar because thats the only way an agent for
Lloyds of London
could get on the boat.

[Cal Lash]

California declares Drought is OVER.

[CDT]

Helen: Arsenic doesn't make you crazy. Seems more like a mercury or meth thing.

[Kelly O'Kelly]

1,600 years ago St. Patty woke up after a night of too much beer. His friends said, "Patty, you look a little green".

The rest is history.

Happy St. Patty's Day.

[DoggieCombover]

NYT article about the homeless encampment in downtown PHX is truly chilling.

[Cal Lash]

Soylent Green

[Rich Weinroth]

The New York Times article was very well researched and written. Now why can't the Arizona Republic write an article like that?

[Cal Lash]

With a couple exceptions Arizona Republic
strong well researched investigative reporting died with Don Bolles.
Politicans let organized crime win.
Prior to former newspaper editor,
Dave Wagners passing he said and
i agreed that the
Owners of the Arizona Republic
were complicit.
A conspiracy of doing nothing.

[Cal Lash]

Sonoran Wilderness?
Monsoons swept the desert.
Rains came
Desert flowers bloomed
Folks negativity was vanquished
Drought was moved to the back pages.
by a nine iron.
Championship Golf is back.

[Joe Schallan]

@ Rich Weinroth -- because they no longer have the staff.

[Cal Lash]

Agreed limited staff and many with limited experience.
Also owner and managerial philosophy.
Reporter Robert Anglin is probably the last of the indepth investigative reporters at the paper.
I sincerely miss Al Sitter.

[Mariam Cheshire]

Jon - Your research and presentation, as always, wonderful in this special largely unknown part of Arizona.
Even better are the comments your Columns bring forth. History and Opinions appear that might remain unknown without the presence of the Rogue. The 'back-and-forth' of your Historians is always funny/interesting.
Thanks for your hard work. Mariam