Boras Headframe

A headframe is the tower that stands over a mine shaft, holding the pulleys that raise ore and miners, and this one is the last wooden example from the Warren Mining District around Bisbee. Built in 1917, it lifted more than fifty thousand tons of copper ore over a shaft that dropped 1,034 feet, then served for decades as a ventilation and escape route for the linked Dallas and Cole mines. Moved to Phoenix in 1998, it stands in the capital as a wooden monument to the copper that built Arizona.

What the plaque says

The Boras Headframe was the last of the wooden headframes built in the Warren Mining District near Bisbee, Arizona. Erected in 1917, it hoisted over 50,000 tons of copper ore by 1926 when the mine was closed during the Depression. Production resumed in 1938 and continued to 1944. In 1952 the headframe was reconditioned and some of its wood supports were replaced with steel. Until 1975 it served as a ventilation and escape shaft for the interconnecting underground workings of the Dallas and Cole mines. The relocation to Phoenix was completed in 1998. The shaft was 1,034 feet deep.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Phoenix — 1.0 mi
  The fifth-largest US city, built on the canals of a thousand-year-old one
• Heard Museum — 2.0 mi
  The Native Southwest, told in the first person
• Taliesin West — 18 mi
  Frank Lloyd Wright's desert masterwork, grown from the ground it stands on

More markers nearby

• Arizona Copper Company's Locomotive #2 — steps away
• Jacob Waltz — steps away
• Arizona's Pioneer Women — steps away
• Eusebio Francisco Kino — steps away