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Mines/United States

Bisbee copper mines

Bisbee copper mines, United States. Heritage site, underground, mining copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc.

Why Bisbee copper mines is famous

The city history dates the first claim to 1877 (the Queen Mine sheet says Hugh Jones found copper in 1875). DeWitt Bisbee and investors bought the Queen mine in 1880. Phelps Dodge announced closure in December 1974 and ended underground work in 1975. The city was the largest in the territory in 1910 with over 25,000 people. The Queen Mine tour opened in February 1976 and goes 1,500 feet underground.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1877Schieffelin finds silver at Tombstone4

Bisbee copper mines today

Where copper is mined todayWhere gold is mined todayWhere silver is mined todayWhere lead is mined todayWhere zinc is mined todayMining in United States

Where next

Sources

  1. Bisbee History City of Bisbee, Arizona
  2. Queen Mine Tour Facts City of Bisbee, Arizona (Queen Mine Tour Facts, L Mattson, 2006)
  3. Wikidata item Q79720 (Bisbee, Arizona) Wikidata (CC0)
  4. Tombstone Historic District, National Historic Landmark nomination US National Park Service

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Ball mills and SAG mills by photosmith2011, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Froth flotation and tailings by Nina111955, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Kimberley, South Africa: miners and washing gear at the Bultfontein diamond mine. Woodburytype, 1888, after a photograph by Robert Harris., Harris, Robert, active 1881-1888. (Public Domain Mark 1.0).