Bisbee History

Here is a current list of web resources from Bisbee's cultural and historical chapters. From the Arizona Archives and Public Records, and the Arizona Secretary of State.
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These pictures are from a pamphlet distributed by the Cochise County Board of Supervisors in 1915.
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In 1907, Hotel Gadsden was built in Douglas, Arizona. It is a warm combination of carmel colored marble columns, Tiffany stained glass skylights and murals, shamelessly gilded in Art Nouveau motifs that celebrates the wealth of Bisbee copper and the Douglas smelter.
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Bisbee, Arizona burns to the ground, on October 14th, 1908. Pictures and text from GenDisasters , posted by Linda Houston.
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The most iconic of films shot in Bisbee is Violent Saturday, starring Victor Mature. Lee Marvin is a menacing thug, while Ernest Borgnine plays a pacified Amish farmer. Having Bisbee fill in for a Pennsylvanian town sort of works, but the train scenes are definitely filmed around Douglas, Arizona.
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On the morning of July 12th, 1917, a well armed band of vigilantes and lawmen rounded up and deported over one thousand members and sympathizers of the International Workers of the World, known as the IWW. Its members favored worker owned and operated industries, and proposed to abolish wages, while controlling industrial production through...
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A traveling writer, George Wharton James, wrote about Bisbee, Arizona in 1917, in a book called Arizona the Wonderland. This book is available from Google books. The following is an excerpt on Bisbee in 1917: BISBEE, THE COPPER MINING CITY OF THE SOUTH Why they called them the Mule Mountains no one knows, yet it so...
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In 1908, Bisbee had three daily newspapers: the Bisbee Daily Review, the Bisbee Evening Ore and the Daily Square Dealer. Bisbee was modern and wealthy, compared to other communities in the West. Bisbee once had a Chinese community of workers that could work by day, but would be required by law to stay inside at...
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Bisbee, Arizona is notable for many curiosities and tall tales, and Bisbee folks have often found themselves "between a rock and a hard place." This phrase originates in Bisbee, and has its beginnings in the labor struggles of the early twentieth century. The phrase described the circumstances of the workers of Bisbee, who were...
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