Copper Queen Plaza

Bisbee was a company town, and this plaza is where the company showed its hand. The Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, soon absorbed into Phelps Dodge, built the cluster around this square to serve both its business and the community it depended on: a headquarters in 1897, the Copper Queen Hotel in 1902, a hospital, a mercantile, and the combined post office and library. Read together, the buildings map how thoroughly one corporation shaped a mining city, from where residents slept and shopped to where they mailed a letter.

What the plaque says

Copper Queen Plaza. The extent of the power and influence of the copper mining industry in Bisbee's early history is evident here in the Copper Queen Plaza. The buildings were built by the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, later to become Phelps Dodge Corporation, to serve the company's and community's needs; Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company Headquarters building (1897), Copper Queen Hotel (1902), Copper Queen Hospital (1914), Copper Queen Store (later rebuilt as the Phelps Dodge Mercantile Store) (1939), US Post Office/Copper Queen Library building (1907).

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bisbee — steps away
  Queen of the Copper Camps — and the deportation it tried to forget
• Tombstone — 21 mi
  The silver strike named for a death that never came

More markers nearby

• Phelps Dodge General Office Building — steps away
• Brewery Gulch — steps away
• Votes for Women — steps away
• Bisbee City Fire Hall — steps away