Queen Mine Tour
645 Tombstone Canyon, Bisbee, AZ
Bisbee, AZ
A rattling mine-train ride into the heart of one of the richest copper mountains in the world, led by miners who once worked it.
The Queen Mine Tour takes visitors down into the mountain that made Bisbee one of the great copper towns of the American West. Riding a small mine train, you travel from the sunny desert hillside into the cool, dim tunnels where generations of miners chipped, blasted, and hauled ore out of the rock. The guides are often men who worked underground themselves, and their stories give the timbered drifts and drill marks a lived-in weight no exhibit can match.
Bisbee's copper was fabulously rich, and over roughly a century the district around it produced staggering quantities of copper along with gold, silver, and other metals. The Queen was one of the famous mines, and when large-scale operations finally wound down, the town turned the underground works into a way to share that history. The result is a rare chance to feel, firsthand, what daily life was like far below the surface.
What Guests Love
- Riding a real mine train deep into the mountain, hard hat and headlamp on
- Guides who are former Bisbee miners, telling the work from the inside
- The cool, steady underground temperature no matter how hot the desert is above
- Pairing the tour with a wander through Bisbee's steep, artsy old streets
Worth Knowing
- Bring a light jacket; the mine stays cool and damp year-round even when it is hot outside
- You will wear a provided hard hat, headlamp, and slicker, and sit on the mine train for the ride in
- The tour involves some walking on uneven ground underground; wear sturdy, closed shoes
- Book ahead in busy seasons, as tour spots are limited by the size of each train
Details
Bisbee, AZ
Learn about Queen Mine Tour
The mountain that built Bisbee
Copper was found in the Mule Mountains in the late 1870s, and Bisbee grew fast into one of the richest mining districts in the world. The ore here was extraordinary, and over the decades the mines produced enormous amounts of copper, silver, and gold, wealth that helped electrify and wire a modernizing country hungry for copper.
The town that rose around the mines packed itself into narrow canyons, its houses climbing the hillsides on stairs and switchbacks because there was no flat ground to build on. Miners came from across the United States, Mexico, and Europe, giving Bisbee a mix of languages, churches, and traditions. At its height it was one of the largest and most cosmopolitan towns between the West Coast and the Mississippi.
Underground and back again
The Queen Mine Tour puts you in the miners' place. After suiting up in a hard hat, headlamp, and slicker, you board a small train that carries you clacking into the mountain along the same rails that once moved men and ore. Inside, the guides stop to show how the rock was drilled, blasted, timbered, and mucked out, and how the men worked their long shifts in the dark.
Because the guides so often worked the mines themselves, the tour is full of firsthand detail, the sound of a shift, the danger of a blast, the pride and hardship of the trade. Deep in the mountain the air is cool and still, and it is easy to understand both why the copper was worth so much and what it cost the people who dug it out.
Copper, strikes, and a hard history
Bisbee's story is not only one of wealth. Mining was dangerous, exhausting work, and the men who did it repeatedly organized for better pay and safer conditions. The district was the scene of the Bisbee Deportation of 1917, when hundreds of striking miners and others were rounded up at gunpoint, loaded onto boxcars, and abandoned in the New Mexico desert. It remains one of the starker episodes of labor conflict in the West and part of what the town remembers.
When the big operations finally closed in the 1970s, Bisbee faced the fate of many mining towns and might have emptied out. Instead, artists, writers, and others drawn by the cheap old buildings and the setting moved in, and the town reinvented itself. Today its mining past is preserved in the tour, the museum, and the very shape of the streets.
The town, the desert, and the seasons
Bisbee sits high enough in the Mule Mountains that its climate is milder than the low desert around Tucson and the border. Its steep, walkable center is packed with historic brick and stone buildings, galleries, cafes, and stairways, and simply exploring the town on foot is half the pleasure of a visit.
Spring and fall are comfortable and pleasant, ideal for combining the underground tour with time above ground. Summer days are warm but tempered by the elevation, and the underground stays cool no matter the season. Winter can be crisp and clear, and the town's high, dry setting makes for bright days and cold, starry nights.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Bisbee
Bisbee historic district
In town
Steep canyon streets lined with old brick buildings, stairways, galleries, and cafes, one of Arizona's most atmospheric towns.
Lavender Pit
In town
A vast open-pit copper mine at the edge of Bisbee, a striped, terraced crater that shows mining at a colossal scale.
Tombstone
About 25 miles northwest
The famous silver boomtown of the O.K. Corral, with staged gunfights and a preserved 1880s main street.
Coronado National Memorial
About 25 miles southwest
A quiet park in the Huachuca Mountains marking the route of an early Spanish expedition, with high overlooks toward Mexico.