#69 / 2008 Tour 4 Winter: Bisbee Mining

BISBEE MINING HERITAGE

#69


I want to say something about the Lavender Pit in Bisbee to balance some of my glowing remarks about the town. It was great, but the reason for the town isn't, or wasn't. Mining operations are shut down now but Phelps-Dodge can start the copper mine up again at any minute if the price is right.

As one enters Bisbee east you can't miss the awful yawl of the enormous pit, now fenced off and offered up as a "Scenic Overlook." Deep, deep down at the bottom of this pit lies a liquid a color I find hard to describe beyond the word "bloody." It is a slash so deep into Mother Earth, a color of blood so emphatic, that marks the last scrape of the blade in that mine. And if you ever had any doubts about what we do to the earth and how we rob it of its bounties with no regard to renewal is right or wrong, just look at the fresh leeching wound called Lavender Pit in Bisbee.

But on a lighter note we pulled out of that town and headed for a string of ghost towns Beatlick Joe has been researching for years. We drove about forty miles over to Sierra Vista to stock up at Wal-Mart and then headed to the old Charleston Highway.  There we set up for a few days of rustic camping along the San Pedro River.