Copper Queen Mine

Darryl suggested we all go take a tour of an old copper mine in Bisbee, about half an hour away. Bisbee was already on my list of places to see, and going with friends sounded like fun. Best of all, I didn’t have to drive my home or take the bike and wonder where I’m going to put my riding gear. I’d been on a mine tour once before, a coal mine in Pennsylvania, but I was a little kid at the time and don’t really remember it. (I do remember the pieces of coal that became stocking stuffers every Christmas afterward!)

They got us all geared up for the tour. That means a safety vest, hard hat, light, and a numbered tag to wear. Just like in an operational mine, they collect all the tags at the end. If a tag is missing, they know who is missing and go looking for them.

They put us on a special train to go into the mine. Rather than sitting in traditional seats, we straddled a bench like riding a motorcycle. This gave me an advantage over my friends, since I already knew how to grip the bench with my knees, just like the gas tank, to hang on when the ride got bumpy.

This particular mine was operational from 1915 until 1975. They mainly mined copper, but they also got a little silver, gold, and other metals. When the mine closed, the town turned it into a tourist attraction, which continues to boost the local economy to this day.

This wasn’t just a train tour, either. Vinnie, who used to work in this mine, took us to a few different places inside. He showed us the various methods they used over the years, from sledge hammers to drills to dynamite, all of which he used himself at some point. He had a great sense of humor and kept the tour entertaining as well as educational.

These are some of the chutes from higher caverns that brought rocks and ore down to the train cars to haul them out. The contraption with a banana seat is a special bicycle the company made so that supervisors could get around the mines quickly and easily to check up on their workers. Vinnie certainly never participated in shenanigans that involved riding off on one and leaving the boss to walk all the way back out of the mine.

This wall is all set up and ready to blow with dynamite (not really, it’s just for demonstration). Vinnie explained how it was drilled and how the dynamite set off in just the right way to ensure maximum fragmentation for the amount of dynamite they were using. It blows my mind (pun fully intended) how they’d light the fuse, run off to a nearby area, and blow it up, risking a cave-in that they might never escape. Vinnie said that he’d “carried three people out” of the mine during his time working there.

When you’re down in the mine for 12 hours a day, nature is going to call. They had a car just for that which you’d sit on and do your business. All of the tunnels were built on a 2% grade so that water that the machinery used would flow out. This also meant that the new guy, while doing his business, would end up taking a ride down the tracks when the wheel chocks were removed in a hazing ritual. They’d tell him to turn the wheel on top to activate the brake. This wasn’t the brake, but opened the dump valve. Then the unfortunate victim got to clean up the mess. I knew mining was a dirty job, but wow.

This is the album cover for the new band I’m in, Yellow Wolf and the Copper Queens. (I can dress in drag to become a queen if I have to.)

After the tour we took a short walk around Bisbee and had lunch at Bisbee’s Table. We had a round table and back room all to ourselves. The pizza was great, but I’ll have to go back and try the Diablo Pasta sometime. I’ll probably do that when I take the bike ride I’ve already planned up through both Bisbee and Tombstone. Going with a group of friends is fun, but on the bike I can look at whatever I want whenever I want.

But one of the main reasons I’m here is to hang out with my friends, as well as wait for Quartzsite to cool down to habitable temperatures. We all went back to Wayne’s, reheated spaghetti and pizza for dinner, talked, and played with Taco, Wayne’s dog who will fetch for hours on end. Eventually we all went home for the night.