Bisbee, Arizona Mining & Historical Museum Tour!

A Fun History of Copper and Bisbee's role in supplying it.

1834 - Anson Phelps, his son-in-law William Dodge & Daniel Willis James founded Phelps, Dodge & Co as an export (cotton)/Import ( tin, iron & copper) company.

1876 - Copper ore discovered in the Mule Mountains of southeast Arizona when army commander Lt. John Rucker sent scout Jack Dunn to look for better quality water.

1877 - On September 27, 56 days after Dunn located the Rucker Mine, George Warren filed a claim for the Mercy Mine 1 mile up Mule Pass Canyon from Iron Spring… but not after losing his 11% stake in the mine on a drunken bet!

1800 - Edward Reilly and Levi Zeckendorf bought an option to purchase the mine for US$20,000 ($498,403.71 in 2017 @ annual avg inflation of 2.5%).

1880 - Reilly bought out others' interest in the claims in April and went to San Francisco to market the option contract on the claims. Reilly persuaded engineers DeWitt Bisbee, William H. Martin, and John Ballard in San Francisco who later financed the mine into production securing them 70% of Copper Queen Mine and 66% of Copper King Mine.

1885 - Phelps Dodge sent James Douglas, of Phoenixville, PA who had invented new methods of smelting copper, to examine potential copper mines. They purchased the Atlanta Mine which, after extensive exploration, learned the ore bodies overlapped with Copper Queen…. a merger took place forming the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company.

2006 - Phelps Dodge was acquired by Freeport McMoRan for USD 25 billion.

Mentioned in this video:

Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum:
https://bisbeemuseum.org/bm-museum.aspx

Phelps Dodge Sale to Freeport-McMoRan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phelps_...

Copper Queen Mine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_...

Arizona & New Mexico Terriitory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mex...

Bisbee Deportation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisbee_...

Warren Ballpark Bisbee:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_...