Everything about Bisbee Arizona totally explained
Bisbee is a city in
Cochise County,
Arizona,
United States, 82 miles (132 km) southeast of
Tucson. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city was 6,177. The city is the
county seat of
Cochise County.
History
Bisbee was founded as a
copper,
gold, and
silver mining town in 1880, and named in honor of Judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the financial backers of the adjacent
Copper Queen Mine.
In 1929, the
county seat was moved from
Tombstone, Arizona to Bisbee, where it remains.
Mining industry
Mining in the
Mule Mountains proved quite successful: in the early 20th century the population of Bisbee soared. Copper was the predominant mineral mined there, but gold, silver, lead and molybdenum were also extracted in large quantities. Incorporated in 1902, by 1910 its population swelled to 9,019 and it sported a constellation of suburbs, including Warren, Lowell, and San Jose, some of which had been founded on their own (ultimately less successful) mines. In 1917, open pit mining was successfully introduced to meet the heavy copper demand due to
World War I.
High quality
turquoise was a by-product of the copper mining and has been promoted as
Bisbee Blue.
Bisbee Deportation
» For full article see: Bisbee Deportation
In 1917, the
Phelps Dodge Corporation deported 1,185 suspected
Industrial Workers of the World miners.
(External Link
) This followed a similar incident earlier that year in central Arizona, the
Jerome Deportation.
Mining decline and closure
By 1950, boom times were over and the population of the City of Bisbee had dropped to less than 6,000, but the introduction of
open-pit mining and continued underground work would see the town escape the fate of many of its early contemporaries. However, in 1975 the
Phelps Dodge Corporation finally halted its Bisbee copper-mining operations. The resulting exodus of mine employees might have been the end of the town. Bisbee survived and remains as the county seat.
Modern Bisbee: tourism and art
The sudden flood of real estate onto the market and crash in housing prices, coupled with an attractive climate and picturesque scenery, led to Bisbee's subsequent rebirth as an
artists' colony. The rediscovery of Bisbee by
baby boomers in the 1990s saw it develop a more polished look, complete with coffee shops and live theater. Many of the old houses have been renovated, and property values in Bisbee now greatly exceed those of other Southeastern Arizona cities.
Today, the original city of Bisbee is known as "Old Bisbee," and is home to a thriving downtown cultural scene. Old Bisbee is also noted for its architecture, including its
Victorian houses and elegant
Art Deco courthouse. Because its plan was laid out before the automobile, Old Bisbee has an almost European feel. The town's hilly terrain is exemplified by the old three-story high school: each floor has a ground-level entrance.
Suburbs
The "City of Bisbee" now includes the historic downtown Bisbee, as well as the geographically spaced but administratively combined satellite communities of Warren, Lowell, and San Jose. The Lowell and Warren townsites were founded around their own mining subdivisions before being purchased in large part by Phelps Dodge and then consolidated into Bisbee-proper during the early part of the twentieth century. There are also smaller neighborhoods interspersed between these larger boroughs including Galena, Bakerville, Tintown, South Bisbee, Briggs and Saginaw.
Warren has the distinction of being Arizona's first planned community. Although there were mines operating in the vicinity, it was primarily designed as a bedroom community for the more affluent citizens of the mining district. The centrally located Vista Park and its adjacent downtown area at one time comprised a thriving center of commerce. Warren boasts a fine collection of Arts and Crafts style bungalow houses, many of which are historically registered and can be visited by the public during the city's annual home tour. Since the exit of mining in the 1970s, Warren has seen a steady decline in its standard of living, but its residential district still houses a significant portion of the population and it boasts ownership of many public services including City Hall, Greenway Elementary School and Bisbee High School.
Lowell was at one time a sizable mining town located just to the southeast of Old Bisbee. The majority of the original townsite was consumed by the excavation of the Lavender Pit mine during the 1950s. All that's left today is a small portion of Erie Street, along with Evergreen Cemetery, Saginaw subdivision and Lowell Middle School. These days Lowell is considered by most of the local residents to be more of a place name than an actual community.
San Jose, on the southern side of the Mule Mountains, is the most modern of the city's subdivisions, and has seen the most new growth in the last two decades as it isn't restricted by mountains. Named after a nearby Mexican mountain peak, it hosts many newer county government buildings, Huachuca Terrace Elementary School, and a large shopping center.
Geography
Bisbee is located at (31.418390, -109.897772).
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.8
square miles (12.5
km²), all of it land.
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 6,090 people, 2,810 households, and 1,503 families residing in the city. The
population density was 1,266.3 people per square mile (488.8/km²). There were 3,316 housing units at an average density of 689.5/sq mi (266.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 84.12%
White, 0.46%
Black or
African American, 1.22%
Native American, 0.49%
Asian, 0.07%
Pacific Islander, 11.07% from
other races, and 2.58% from two or more races. 34.38% of the population were
Hispanic or
Latino of any race.
There were 2,810 households out of which 21.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.8% were
married couples living together, 12.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 46.5% were non-families. 39.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.15 and the average family size was 2.90.
In the city the population was spread out with 21.6% under the age of 18, 6.8% from 18 to 24, 24.1% from 25 to 44, 27.8% from 45 to 64, and 19.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females there were 90.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.1 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $27,942, and the median income for a family was $36,685. Males had a median income of $29,573 versus $23,269 for females. The
per capita income for the city was $17,129. About 12.9% of families and 17.5% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 23.2% of those under age 18 and 9.0% of those age 65 or over.
Sites of interest
(excluding those mentioned under
History)
- Cochise County Courthouse is built in the art deco style.
- Phelps Dodge General Office Building, a National Historic Landmark, now the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum
- The Lavender Pit is an inactive open pit mine site in the center of the city.
- The Warren Ballpark, a baseball stadium built in 1909, has housed a number of professional teams and may be the baseball's oldest park still in use.
- The Thomas Ranch, a family-owned and operated beef cattle ranch since 1902, the year Bisbee was incorporated.
Image:Cochise_County_courthouse,_Bisbee,_Arizona.jpg|Cochise County Courthouse
Image:The Lavender Pit, Bisbee, AZ.jpg|The Lavender Pit
Image:Copper Queen Hotel, Bisbee AZ.jpg|Copper Queen Hotel
Image:Evergreen Cementery Bisbee.jpg|Evergreen Cemetery
Sports teams
Professional: Bisbee/Douglas Copper Kings (1928-1955) (2003) Baseball
Semi-Professional: Bisbee Kings (2006-) Baseball
Popular culture
Fiction
Joanna Brady is the protagonist of a series of mystery novels by author J. A. Jance, centered on Bisbee and surrounding desert-mountain-border areas.
It is one of the towns robbed by the "Butcher Bandit" in Clive Cussler's 2007 novel, The Chase
Film
In 2000, the low-budget William Shatner film Groom Lake was filmed in Bisbee and surrounding areas, using many local residents as extras.
In the 1990 film Young Guns II, the New York City classroom from which Pinkteron agents drag reformed outlaw Doc Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland) is actually in Bisbee's historic district.
It is featured in the 1957 film and its remake.
In the double-Oscar winning 1997 film L.A. Confidential, actress Kim Basinger plays Lynn Bracken, a Veronica Lake look-a-like beauty originally from Bisbee.
In the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of the previously alien-abducted characters who was returned to earth at Devil's Tower is identified as "John DeLorean: Bisbee, Arizona".
Music
The song "Bisbee Blue" was included on the 2006 Calexico album, Garden Ruin.
Television
The 1956-1958 TV series Sheriff of Cochise was set in and around Bisbee, legal seat of Cochise County.(External Link)
On the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode originally aired December 5 2005, Bisbee is visited by Larry David. The city's name is misspelled "Bisby" in the episode.
On the television show Supernatural, in the episode "Skin," Dean claimed to be a police detective from Bisbee.
The Stephen King 2006 made-for-television film Desperation was filmed around Tucson and Bisbee, using several extras from Bisbee itself, including Mayor Ron Oertle.
Notable residents
Doug Stanhope — comedian
Richard Shelton — author
Jess Hartley — author
Peter Young — artist
Earl Hindman — actor best known for portraying Wilson W. Wilson Jr. on the sitcom Home Improvement, was born in Bisbee in 1942.
Don Frye — mixed martial arts fighter. He was fired from the Bisbee Fire Department after winning an early Ultimate Fighting Championship event, UFC 8, due to the negative stigma surrounding mixed martial arts
Jack Williamson — science fiction writer, born April 29, 1908 in Bisbee.
Katie Lee — singer and writer. She made a Lady Godiva-style bicycle ride through downtown Bisbee..Further Information
Get more info on 'Bisbee Arizona'.
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