AURA

I know and love these places, but I asked the fellow who has been transcribing our chats to write something up about Bisbee because he knows it very well. One thing that’s true of both Jerome and Bisbee is how their populations exploded when they offered something valuable to extract from the earth, and then imploded when the goods had been taken, leaving nothing but what the extractors viewed as debris. Anyway here’s what our scribe says:

Bisbee

Bisbee is my kind of town, or maybe I’m just kind of Bisbee. Even though all I did for this site was write down the conversation the others had, I guess I’m elected to tell you about Bisbee, probably because my wife and I had a “getaway” house there for many years and really dug it, even in winter. Snow is pretty rare in ol’ Biz, and shortlived at that. That makes its rare appearance all the more pretty. Mostly what got us there was getting out of the summer heat of Tucson. Bisbee is usually maybe 10, 15 degrees cooler than Tucson, and in the summer, that can mean the difference between excruciating and borderline comfortable.

The way to get to Bisbee if you’re coming from the north like we did from Tucson all the time is to head east on I-10 then south on Arizona route 80. Benson is where you turn off to take AZ 80. One cool thing about Benson is tours of the caves there. It’s not a big town so just keep your eyes open for the caves on the right about six miles after you get off I-10. Then get back on 80 to Tombstone that still has an old west look, and even reenactments of the shootout at the OK corral. I ought to bring Coronado to Tombstone since all he seems to know about the wild west is Dodge City. Just hang a right from 80 to go west a block to see what makes Tombstone worth the stop. I mention these places that are on the way to Bisbee not just because they’re on the way, but because they’re special in their own right.

After Tombstone, get back on 80 till you eventually enter a long tunnel that’s antique compared to what Elon Musk would make today, but it’s a fun ride to the other end. When you come out, you’ll see Bisbee spread over the hills to your left, and if you stay on 80 you’ll be driving parallel to Bisbee’s main street, Tombstone Canyon. You'll feel like a bird seeing the town from above if you stay on 80, but if you want to get a close-up of pretty much the whole thing, hang a right soon after the tunnel to get onto Tombstone Canyon heading down and right through the floor of the canyon that most of Biz is built along. You’ll pass houses at first and eventually you’ll get to downtown where I suggest you stay at the Copper Queen hotel, a proud old place with a decent restaurant inside. My favorite is huevos rancheros for breakfast. If you decided to stay on 80 after the tunnel, you get to the Copper Queen by turning right once you see downtown down on your left and then following that curve as it goes under 80 till you cross Main Street (that's also called Tombstone Canyon). Just about a block before you end up on Brewery Ave you want to make a left on Howell going up a steep hill where you stop with the hotel on your right. That's the best spot to unload your bags.

After you’ve settled in, you may remember passing the Bisbee Queen Mine that you passed during that hard right from 80. That’s where the underground mine tour starts. That’s probably the most unique thing about Bisbee and you’ll be missing out if you don’t get on that small underground train that used to haul the rock out to see where it came from and the work it took to get to it. You’ll feel like you belong there once they outfit you with a hard hat and a lamp. You’ll also have a good time just wandering around downtown, stopping in the shops, galleries, etc. Houses up Brewery Gulch appeal to artists thanks to cheap rents. It’s breathtaking what an industry’s leaving town can do to property values. Bisbee was a company town, and mining copper was its lifeblood. The mine closed in 1965, and when my wife and I decided in the early 80s that Bisbee would be a good spot to cool off from Tucson’s hot summers, we went house hunting and ended up buying one at a foreclosure sale for $6500. When the US real estate market went nuts in 2006, we sold for $120,000. Bisbee’s having been discovered by more and more tourists over the years, mostly on account of the artists finding cheap digs there, helped also. But you can still find very cheap digs there. You just have to look.

Though it’s not in quaint old Bisbee, the Lavender Pit mine is real close and is mentioned in most of the tourist literature. It shows what our fellow man can do to the earth in the quest to feed our materialistic appetites. It’s not as geometrical as Meteor Crater, but it’s one heck of a hole in the ground. Just get back on 80 and hug the pit till you get to the Bisbee Breakfast Club that overlooks it. The Bisbee Breakfast Club is kind of unique in that it started after Bisbee fell on hard times and has proven itself sufficiently to have opened a couple branches in Tucson. It’s not the Copper Queen, but they’ve got huevos rancheros, tambien. And plenty of other choices, too.

The main attraction, after all is said and done, is the town’s charm and scenery. Same as Jerome,. Unless you’re a rockhound, that is, like Sine, or the designer of our flying saucer logo, Dave Garski of Minerals and More. Now, on to Jerome.

● Bisbee's history

● Overview

● Underground mine tour, Hours, Fees

● Mine tours directions

● Virtual mine tour

● 10 day weather forecast

Jerome

Had Coronado been looking for copper instead of gold, Bisbee and Jerome would have been lucky finds. Copper is what attracted mining companies and the laborers they needed to these two hilly spots. But from a high population mark of 25,000 in Bisbee and 15,000 in Jerome, once the copper ran out, so did the people, such that at present Bisbee's population is down to 6800, Jerome 400. Less than 3% of the residents stayed in each place when the mines closed. It was even less in both until the realization hit that these are pretty places where cheap digs can appeal to hippies, artists, and retirees.

Scenic beauty that attracted the activities of artists is what draws tourists to both these places. Bisbee is kind of off the beaten track, and so gets only about a third as many tourists as Jerome, even though Jerome’s population is only about 6 % of Bisbee’s. Jerome lives or dies by tourism, and has managed to survive partly because of being near to upscale cool getaways from Phoenix like Clarkdale and Sedona, and because when Jerome’s last mines closed in 1953, some of the 200 remaining die-hards formed the Jerome Historical Society to call attention to its history with a museum and its quaint appearance. Tourists to Jerome number over a million a year, versus Bisbee’s 300,000.

If you’re at the Grand Canyon, the fastest way to get to Jerome is to head south on AZ64 to Interstate 40 east to Flagstaff. But if you’re somebody aiming for Jerome, you are not the hurrying type. So you should instead take 64 east to US89, checking out what the Indians have for sale by the roadside along the way. Then hang a right on US160 to Tuba City to see what Mars looks like. Having done that, retrace your tire tracks to US89, and then head south to Interstate 40 and Flagstaff. (If you're on your way north to the Canyon, see my directions to Jerome here instead.)

I know Sine has something to say about Tuba City and Flagstaff, so I’ll just say head south from Flagstaff on Interstate 17 and then on AZ89A when you come to it. That takes you to a steep, winding. scenic drive south to Sedona, but shortly before you get there you had better stop at Slide Rock State Park, especially if it’s a hot day. Most people don’t bother going to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, so you’re just crazy if you don’t at least have the fun of literally sitting down in the stream on slide rock and letting it carry your body till you’re in sync with nature. Dry off and proceed to Sedona where artsy outdoor cafes await. Having been charmed by the red rocks and all the gallery-going you require, proceed south again on 89A for a good ways, passing through Clarkdale and then on up the steep incline to Jerome, noting homes, lodging and eateries on your left, and very soon the heart of Jerome with its galleries etc. The heart is small, so stopping anywhere will put you in the center of things. If you must see the gouges in the earth that previous residents labored to create for the sake of lighting up the night with copper wire and such, ask someone to point.

If you’re intent on getting back to Grand Canyon, you could do worse than continue on AZ89A for a somewhat hair-raising ride to Prescott, a nice laid-back western town and then head north. Or, if you’re into architecture and other things we're ranting about, you might prefer to back track on AZ89A east to AZ60 which puts you on I-17 with a choice to make: go north immediately about 4 miles to Montezuma Castle to see how the Indians built an apartment building into a cliff, or first go south about 13 miles to Arcosanti that's on our Map called Expeditions and Places to Go.

● Jerome's history

● Overview

● Jerome State Historic Park Intro, Hours

● Fees and map

● Directions

● 10 day weather forecast