Mining Drama in the Frontier

I thought I was aware of most of the mining shenanigans, but the Bisbee Deportation of July 1917 had escaped me.  Bisbee is a mining town in Arizona, USA.  By Wild West customs deportations were not unusual, as it was the time-honored way to get rid of the Native American problem.  However, in Bisbee, some 1200 pesky mine workers and their supporters were deported in cattle trains to the New Mexico desert with the stated purpose of letting them die there.  Now, having lost two-thirds of its mining-heyday population, Bisbee qualifies as a near ghost town, and has joined the Old West mining tourism circuit. 

In Arizona, where Old West nostalgia merges with mining history, tourism is a key economic driver.  Bisbee is not as famous as Tombstone, only 20 miles away.  Founded in 1879, Tombstone was a boom town of the American frontier; now it has become the poster town for the dynamic ghost town tourism.  Although silver had been discovered in the 16^th century by the Spaniards, the Native American hostility prevented any meaningful mining.  The 1849 California Gold Rush largely bypassed the territory, for the same reason.  Prospecting was such a dangerous business that pioneers were told that “the only stone you will find out there will be your own tombstone.”  Hence the name of the mining camp. 

Prospecting started in earnest during the second half of the 19^th century when the Native Americans had been subdued by the joint actions of the American army, pioneers and prospectors (1872).  Prospectors who came from all walks of life, including cavalry patrolmen, were mainly attracted to silver and gold deposits.  Soon, Democrat and Confederate-sympathizing ranchers came into conflict with mining people who were mostly Republican and shoot-outs erupted.  In 1881, a gunfight took place at O.K. Corral, and it forever sealed the fate of Tombstone.  But the free-for-all spirit of the town, with its gambling saloons, and prostitute hotels did not last long.  By 1886, the mining town was already in decline.  Nowadays Tombstone, “the town too tough to die”, has morphed into an unimaginative Wild West theme park.

Nearby in the Mule Mountains, rich copper seams with lead, silver and gold as by-products were discovered; the Copper Queen orebody was a bonanza with 23 per cent copper.  In 1880, prospectors founded the town of Bisbee, and in 1885, the various mines were incorporated into one property under Phelps Dodge ownership.  The Southern Pacific Railroad was completed in 1876, and copper mining became the most prosperous industry of the new state of Arizona.  Phelps Dodge, which was the biggest employer, held a massive clout over the state’s economy.  Moreover, it was probably the world’s most productive copper mining company.

In 1917, Bisbee was the largest town in Arizona with more than 25,000 inhabitants, but its economy overly depended on the miners’ salaries.  Living conditions were atrocious even by the frontier standards of the time, and the town was routinely flooded, notably because the mining companies had cut all the trees.  To cut costs, and speed up production underground mining was done without adequate safety conditions.  Not only salaries were low, but Phelps Dodge directors routinely demanded unpaid work and miners underwent physical strip searches for smuggled precious metal ore.  If miners worked in hazardous conditions, the mules, their partners in hardship, were treated even worse.  They pulled 2.800 pounds ore cars 24 hours, seven day a week.  They would spend up to four years underground, day and night, until their sight was damaged. 

The United States had entered the First World War and to meet the war effort the government required production increases from the mining companies.  As a result, the miners’ welfare became worse and the associated price inflation eroded their already meager income. The stage was set for a showdown.  Not only did the company reject the miners’ request for better working conditions but it refused to recognize their budding union.  The majority of the miners were migrants from Germany, Northern and Eastern Europe and Mexico.  Subsequently, encouraged by their union leaders, they went on strike.  

                                                         Rounding up the miners.

Many miners had joined the radical Industrial Worker of the World (IWW).  The wobblies as they were nicknamed, had strong links with socialist, Marxist and anarchist associations.  Because many of the IWW founding members were immigrants, authorities suspected they had ties to the German government and aimed at war-related sabotage.  Bisbee is located seven miles north of the Mexican border and to further inflame public suspicion, rumors were circulating that Mexico intended to join the Axis powers against America.  On July 12, 1917, with the help of the local police, Phelps Dodge rounded up by gunpoint some 1200 striking miners, loaded them onto railroad cattle cars and dumped them in the New Mexico desert.  This vigilante action became known as the Bisbee Deportation, the town’s claim to shame and a dirty secret for many decades.  Fortunately, the governor of New Mexico, with the agreement of President Woodrow Wilson, provided food and shelter to the deportees.  They were not able to return to Bisbee.  Apparently, no arrests or convictions were made, and in the following decades, Phelps Dodge was shockingly able to perfect its strike bashing practices.  The underground Copper Queen mine was closed in 1950 when open-pit operations started.  Mining ceased in 1975.

The documentary Bisbee ‘17 mixes fiction and reality, and it was a revelation for me[1].  It features the re-enactment of the round-up and deportation by history-minded members of the Bisbee community. The staging took place on the 100-year anniversary.  It was a healing process and a way to atone for citizens whose grandparents had been on both sides of the conflict. The film focuses on soul-searching, arguments and preparation of this shameful hushed-up event.  Besides conveying the group therapy aspect of the re-creation, the film exposes the blatant social flaws and political failings of the period: the all-powerful bully and corrupted corporation, the racial tensions linked to immigration[2], the left-right political conflicts and the dilemma inherent to unionization. 

                                                             The Lavender open-pit

Arizona is still a leading copper producer in North America, and as a boom-bust town, Bisbee is not doing badly.  It has reinvented itself as a heritage tourism destination.  One can visit part of the underground Copper Queen mine and the Lavender open-pit where beautiful turquoise specimens were found.  More than a million tourists have taken the mine train and visited the mining museum.  Some years ago, a friend took the mining ghost towns tour, and he told me that nobody mentioned the 1917 Deportation.  Now there is a sense of reckoning.  The infamous Phelps Dodge corporation, including its assets (mines and reserves) and liabilities (environmental) was purchased by Freeport-McMoRan in 2007.  In addition to being a union basher, Phelps Dodge was a leading air, water and soil polluter.  Freeport is now paying millions of dollars to clean up the mess left behind.  Ironically, many former miners are employed in this remedial effort.

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[1] https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/09/bisbee-17-review

[2] The miners came from some 80 different countries.