Early on Wednesday morning, the Bisbee City Hall caught fire and burned. The structure has been declared a crime scene and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigators have been called for assistance.
Phoenix television station 3TV brought their Field Trip Friday to Bisbee, interviewing and taking in the cool vibes that chill both tourists and residents alike.
Bisbee and Naco area residents were arrested on warrants during the last 48 hours, on indictments for trafficking marijuana. Nine homes in Naco, Bisbee and Sierra Vista were raided, and several arrests were made.
KVOA leads with a lurid, hyperbolic headline: Feds take down members of a violent drug cartel. What they mean is that a bunch of juvenile delinquents have been smuggling cannabis in school backpacks. This qualifies as violence, under Arizona media guidelines.
Once upon a time in Bisbee, miners and sympathizers were forcibly evicted by a conspiracy of lawmen, businessmen and “good Masons” who met and planned the violent deportation at the Masonic Hall, which is now the Bisbee Mining and Historical Society.
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.
Where poor people and other lost bones come to rest: Bisbee Memorial Gardens. When skull parts and other disturbing bones were found dumped like trash, the local police determined that no laws had been broken, as poor taste is not a crime.
Central School will be renovated soon, thanks to funding from Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation.
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.
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 labor councils.
Cochise County Sheriff Harry Wheeler met with Phelps Dodge officials, and secretly organized a round-up of strikers and sympathizers within two local groups: the Citizen’s Protective League, and the Worker’s Loyalty League. Their members supported the mining companies, while distrusting the IWW’s growing support among Mexican and other foreign workers. These photos are from the Walter Reuther Library, and the University of Arizona’s Bisbee Deportation Collection.
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 denominated in the bond — on the United States maps, and when the camp was first located, the settlement that sprang up around it was called Mule Gulch; and near by was Mule Pass.
