Bisbee, Arizona

As we traveled west to our winter "home" in Arizona, we made a few stops.  First, Bisbee Arizona.  We'd been here years ago and remembered it as a cute little town so wanted to check it out again.

Bisbee, established in 1880, has been the county seat of Cochise County in southeastern Arizona since 1929 when the county seat was moved from Tombstone.  It is about 90 miles southeast of Tucson and 11 miles north of the Mexican border.  The city was founded as a copper, gold, and silver mining town in 1880 and was named in honor of Judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the financial backers of the adjacent Copper Queen Mine. 

Today, the historic city of Bisbee is known as "Old Bisbee" and is home to a downtown cultural scene.  Because its plan was laid out to a pedestrian scale before the automobile, Old Bisbee is compact and walkable, although very hilly which you can get a feel for in some of these photos.

Fortunately, we were not there the third Saturday of October, although just a few days shy, so we missed the Bisbee 1000 Stair Climb which is held annually.  It is said this is 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.  We did meet some folks who were completing the course early and they were pretty challenged.  We learned that there were many artists set up along the streets painting different scenes and we were not disappointed.

It was interesting to see them from the back so we could see what they were painting.

This sign makes quite a claim. 

Seemed odd to me so I looked it up.  Wikipedia states that it has a typical semi-arid climate with warm to hot summer days before the monsoon brings the wettest season from July to September with 10.65 inches of Bisbee's total annual rainfall of 18.63 inches, often with severe thunderstorms.  The winter can bring occasional rainfall or even snowfall, though typically the winters are typically very mild and sometimes even warm.  Does that qualify as the best year round climate?  It was about 80 the October day we visited which was pretty perfect in my book.

By now you may have learned that Ron likes rocks.  I mean really, really likes rocks.  So he was in heaven when he saw containers of rocks along the roadway.

Holding the distinction of being Arizona's longest continuously operated hotel, the Copper Queen was built from 1896 to 1902 to serve as lodging for investors and dignitaries visiting the nearby copper mine.

The Copper Queen is allegedly haunted and has been featured on at least two paranormal investigation shows, the third season of Ghost Hunters and the sixth season of Ghost Adventures.  The most famous ghost is that of a woman in her 30s by the name of Julia Lowell.  It is said that she was a prostitute and she used the hotel with her clients.  She fell madly in love with one of her clients and when she told him of her feelings he no longer wanted to see her.  She took her own life at the hotel and guests and staff at the hotel say that they feel her presence on the second and third floors of the west side of the building.  Male staff and guests have reported hearing a female voice whispering in their ear and others have reported seeing her dancing provocatively at the foot of the stairs.

The hotel is beautiful inside and out and no, we didn't see or hear any ghosts.

I'm not sure what this is.

August in Bisbee brings the flies out so in 1912, the Commercial Club came up with a way to try to control the flies.  They set up a contest to see who could collect the most flies, with the winner receiving $10 ($326.49 today).  The lucky person was Richard Phillips, who killed about 500,000 flies.  

A plaque next to the Mining Museum provides more information.

Champ for month gets $10

In August 1912, the Commercial Club of Bisbee went public with a novel method of fly control. The seriousness of the continuing typhoid problems experienced in Bisbee around the turn of the century found some relief in humor as well as creativity.

The rules for a 'systematic campaign of extermination' against those 'advance agents of pestilence' were quite straightforward. . . . and the pestiferous little nuisances must now take the consequences.

They will be bottled and trapped and caught, done up in packages and duly measured up and counted. . . It makes no difference how the dead flies are obtained or where within the district. They may be killed either with sticky fly paper, caught in traps or just swatted with a swatter, folded newspaper, or any other fly-killing device. If caught on sticky paper, however, they must be picked off, the committee not volunteering to do this work for the contestant. 

When a contestant desires to turn in his or her proof of prowess as a fly exterminator, the flies are to be placed in . . . a pasteboard box. The county health officer will be the judge of the contest and will count and measure flies that are killed

Bisbee has taken a position at the front in advance of all other cities in the southwest in war upon the fly and typhoid fever germs… – Bisbee Daily Review, August, 1912

The anti-fly crusade is at its end. Richard Phillips was the winner of the competition, exterminating within 5,000 of 500,000 flies – Bisbee Daily Review, September 3, 1912

The effectiveness of such a campaign? Alas, "more flies this year than last, despite a more aggressive fly-swatting campaign among the public generally…" – Bisbee Daily Review, June 8, 1913

We continued walking the streets....

.....and stopped at an interesting shop.  I'll admit it was shortly before Halloween but this display was odd.

As we headed back to the RV we made a detour to Sierra Vista which we heard was a cute town with a weekly Farmer's Market and today was the day.  We didn't spend too much time there but we did enjoy the market.

We had a great time talking with a woman who makes her own jewelry and when we picked something out, she detailed how she'd made it.  

We love turquoise!

My eyes glazed over but it was fun to hear how she did it.  And then she was kind enough to take a photo with me.

It was a fun day!