Description

Baumann Mine Office, ca. 1897, with mine superintendent Jules Baumann at the front desk.

The Baumann Copper Co. held extensive mining properties near Humboldt, in Yavapai County, Arizona. The town, named Val Verde originally, was changed to Humboldt in 1905 to honor Baron Alexander Von Humboldt who promoted the riches of the area. In 2004, Humboldt was incorporated with the neighboring ranching community of Dewey to form the present-day Dewey-Humboldt. 

Jules Baumann, a native of Switzerland, arrived in Prescott, Arizona the late 1870's. He was a multi-talented individual. He was an artist and draughtsman. Among other creations, Jules' lithographs of the Grand Canyon and an 1891 color plat map of Prescott were notable achievements. He also managed Prescott's first candy factory/store and its first ice cream parlor. A talented musician, Mr. Bauman was also one of Prescott's first civilian bandmasters. In later years, Jules' interests grew to include mining, and he helped form the Baumann and later the Logan Copper companies.

The Baumann Copper Company was incorporated in 1901. It held deed to twenty five mining claims (500 acres) in the Aqua Fria section of the Bradshaw Range. The claims followed a northwest-southeasterly coursing spur of the Black Hills, at an elevation of about 500 feet above and two miles away from the Aqua Fria River. (AZ Daily Journal-Miner, August 3, 1901, pg 1.) The Bauman mines lay within the so-named “Verde Copper Belt” which was fifteen miles east of Prescott and extended from Jerome on the north to Copper Mountain on the south.