Bisbee, Arizona Small Town of the Week

No matter when you go to visit there is always something to see and do in Bisbee! With a full calendar of events to experience there is something for everyone. With a strong community spirit of fun and friendly people it’s worth a visit.

https://www.discoverbisbee.com/annual-events

Bisbee is a city in the Mule Mountains of southeast Arizona. Both the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum and the Bisbee Restoration Museum chronicle the city’s copper-mining past. The vast Queen Mine offers underground tours. Homes that once belonged to miners run up Tombstone Canyon from Old Bisbee, the historic town center. The grand Muheim Heritage House has 19th-century furniture, plus gardens and mountain views.

Whether your diversion of choice is birdwatching or gallery-gazing, fine dining, mine tours, city tours, or a day at the pool with the kids – Bisbee offers you a wealth of choices. Our events draw crowds from throughout the southwest and beyond. And should you decide to stretch your visit a bit, Bisbee serves as a perfect launching point for your own adventures, exploring the rugged natural beauty of our unique Sky Island region.

The Lavender Pit is a former open pit copper mine near Bisbee in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. It is located near the famous Copper Queen Mine. The Lavender Pit was named in honor of Harrison M. Lavender (1890–1952), who as Vice-President and General Manager of Phelps Dodge Corporation, conceived and carried out this plan for making the previously unprofitable low-grade copper bearing rock of the area into commercial copper ore.

Phelps Dodge Corporation opened the Lavender Pit in 1950, at the site of the earlier, higher-grade Sacramento Hill mine. Production through 1974 totaled 86 million tons of ore averaging about 0.7% copper, or about 600,000 tons of copper produced, with gold and silver as byproducts. About 256 million tons of waste were stripped, but a portion of this was acid-leached for additional copper. Turquoise was also a by-product of this mining activity. Bisbee turquoise, also known as Bisbee Blue, is amongst the finest turquoise found anywhere in the world. Mining operations in the pit ended in 1974. The undeveloped Cochise deposit, located immediately north of the Lavender pit, contains an estimated 190 million tons of rock containing 0.4% acid-soluble copper, which may be mined in the future.

Because of the competent host rock, this pit has much steeper sides than other open pit copper mines in the southwest area. The pit covers an area of 300 acres (1.2 km²), and is 900 feet (274 m) deep. Large tonnages of dump rock are placed around Bisbee, notably north of the residential district of Warren and other parts of the southeastern Mule Mountains area.

Return of the Turkey Vultures is an annual celebration welcoming back these migrating birds to Bisbee. Always the second weekend in March because that is usually when they start showing up!

The Bisbee Woman’s Club (BWC) hosts a creative showcase fundraiser of painted chairs and other furniture done by local artists. During the Thanksgiving Day Weekend it also organizes a tour of some of the most interesting, unique, and historic homes in Bisbee. The home tours are a ticketed event.

The most unique physical fitness challenge (or friendly fitness walk) in the USA! Bisbee 1000 The Great Stair Climb is arguably one of the most unusual and challenging events in the world. The 4.5-mile course features nine staircases (over 1000 total steps) connected by winding roads. While enjoying the challenge, runners and walkers alike see some of the most scenic parts of Old Bisbee. Take a delightful journey up the stairs and down the roadways in Europeanesque Bisbee!

Every Labor Day Weekend the western mining town of Bisbee salutes its historic Brewery Gulch with a variety of town-wide events including a pet parade. and some rowdy fun! The Gulch, as it’s known locally, with its 1890s buildings, was once home to 20 saloons and all sorts of revelry.

The three-day Bisbee Pirate Weekend is when swashbuckling high seas adventure comes to the high desert in this citywide costume event. Join in the reverie dressed as pirates and mermaids to pub crawl, enter costume contests, enjoy magic, music shows, and so much more.