By Stuart Rosebrook
In the sixteenth century, the Spanish came north from New Spain in search of treasure, especially silver and gold. In 1540 Francisco Vazquez de Coronado led his famous expedition from the West Coast of Mexico to Northern New Spain, including Arizona and New Mexico, looking for “the seven cities of Cibola”. While cities of gold were never found, every generation of explorers and miners since Coronado have sought veins of precious metals across the Southwest.
In Arizona Spanish explorers Antonio de Espejo and Juan de Oñate ventured into the Verde Valley in the late 16th century, noting deposits of silver and copper. As the Spanish Empire sent missionaries and soldiers north, silver and gold were discovered and mined successfully in multiple locations, including the Santa Cruz River Valley and the Santa Rita Mountains south of present-day Tucson. In the 1750s, Spanish settlers mined copper in Ajo, southwest of Tucson, with limited success. In 1855 early American settlers discovered the Spanish copper mine and began reworking the rich deposit of ore. Little did they realize that copper would someday usurp gold and silver as the state’s most valuable ore.
In the 170 years since Ajo copper veins were rediscovered, copper has been the most significant and consistently mined industrial metal in Arizona. Since 1910 Arizona has been the nation’s leader in copper mining, with 100 billion pounds produced.
Originally, copper was mined in underground mines, as in Bagdad, Bisbee, Ajo, Ray, Globe, Miami, Jerome and Morenci. The latter is the largest and most productive copper mine in American history.
The first mining claims were made on Copper Creek in Bagdad in 1882. An article in the September 1, 1886, Weekly Arizona Miner, reported that Prescott miner John Lawler applied for a mining patent for a vein of gold, silver and copper in the Eureka Mining District near the Santa Maria Mountains and the future town of Bagdad.
Because of the Eureka Mining District’s remoteness and high cost of transporting ore from the Bagdad area, the mine didn’t expand exponentially like other Arizona copper operations. Four decades later, the Bagdad Mining Company invested heavily in an electrolytic copper mill operation to process the ore of the underground mine. The Bagdad Mining Company’s underground operations trucked the copper to the railroad depot in Hillside.
In 1944 John C. Lincoln, the innovative entrepreneur who founded the Lincoln Electric Company, bought the Bagdad Mine and Copper Company. Lincoln is credited with modernizing the town and the mining company. Lincoln oversaw the transition to open pit mining in Bagdad in 1945, and the Lincoln corporation owned the mine and town until they were sold to the Cyprus Bagdad Copper Company in 1973. Phelps Dodge, a major mining competitor of Cyprus in Arizona, merged with Cyprus in 1999, becoming the single largest mine operator in the state. In 2007 Phelps Dodge was purchased by Freeport-McMoRan, an international company with headquarters in Phoenix.
Today Bagdad is a thriving company mining town, home to nearly 3,000 people. Just 60 miles from Prescott, the Bagdad open-pit mining operation is one of five that Freeport-McMoRan owns and operates in Arizona, with mines in Morenci, Safford, Miami and Sierrita. According to the company’s website, “Bagdad is home to the world’s first commercial-scale concentrate leach processing facility (2003) and one of the longest continuously operating solution extraction/electrowinning (SX/EW) plants in the world (1970).” The Bagdad mine contributes nearly $500 million annually to the state economy and nearly $180 million a year for Yavapai County. Copper truly is still king in Yavapai County and Arizona.
Stuart Rosebrook, the executive director of Sharlot Hall Museum, was inspired as a boy to learn about Arizona mining after visiting the historic mining town of Jerome.
“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.