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At
the turn-of-the-century, the community of Bisbee, located just east
of the Mule Mountains in southeastern Arizona, reigned as one of the
premiere copper mining towns in the world. Today, tours of Bisbee’s
famed Copper Queen Mine rank as one of the area’s top tourist attractions,
drawing visitors from throughout the United States and abroad. The Mule Mountains
hid a wealth of gold, silver and copper until the late 1870’s, when
a government scout, Jack Dunn, discovered rich ore deposits while
chasing Apaches. Dunn and a couple of partners grubstaked a prospector,
George Warren, to explore the area and file claims on their behalf.
Warren, however, spent a good share of his time drinking, and what
few claims he did file were not in Dunn’s name, but in his own.
During a drunken
spree two years later, Warren bet one of his claims that he could
outrun a man on horseback in a two-hundred yard dash. He lost the
race, and he forfeited his claim to what turned out to be one of
the richest copper mines in the West.
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By 1908, Bisbee, with
a population of over 20,000, was Arizona's largest town and "the
liveliest spot between El Paso and San Francisco." Homes sprouted
from the steep canyon walls. Forty saloons lined Brewery Gulch. The mines
ran day and night. The Phelps Dodge Company became the largest operator,
and copper was the life blood of Bisbee.
For 95 years, the
hills surrounding Bisbee produced copper and impressive amounts of gold,
silver, lead and zinc. Eight billion pounds of copper were mined. Finally,
the deposits were exhausted. Operations were no longer economic. The mines
shut down.
The tunnels are dark, cool and narrow. The temperature is between 47 to
50 degrees Fahrenheit. During it's history more than 125 men have been
killed inside the mine.
Three
miners murdered in the 1890s during a labor dispute at the Queen Mine
are believed to haunt the mine. Mostly the phenomena simply includes the
feeling of being watched and occasionally feelings that are a mixture
of anger and sorrow.
Required equipment
for ghost hunting in mines |
The
Queen copper mine was an easy five-minute walk from the center of
town, in fact, the mine extends under much of the town itself which
has led to a problem with streets collapsing in its past.
We
had been warned in advance that the mine is cold (47° F. year
round), so after being bundled into yellow slickers, fitted with
white hard hats and strapping on lead-acid battery packs with lights,
we straddled the crude benches on a string of tiny open-frame railroad
cars and rode a little narrow-gauge (about 12") electric railroad
about a quarter of a mile into the mine.
Our guide was
a large man named Al. He had worked in the mines from 1951 until
the mid-1980's. Knowledgeable and informative, Al also had a sense
of humor and knew this mine firsthand. He really gave us a good
idea of what it was like to work underground.
According to
Al, safety was relatively good at the Queen: he only knew of 15
or 16 men who died in mine accidents during the 35 years he worked
there.
It certainly
was cold in the mine, a pervasive cold that seeped into your bones
and stayed there. If your looking for cold spots of a paranormal
origin, forget about it here. In the mine they would probably be
"warm" spots.
The mine is
pitch black of course and at one point Al had us all turn off our
lights. Utter darkness that was actually kindda creepy. Pretty soon
people started turning on their lights again.
We
only found three electromagnetic fields in the mine. All of them
were A/C and probably originating from electrical wiring. The majority
of the employees doing the tours at the mine did not believe that
the mine was haunted. The few that did said that the "activity"
was more common during the winter months.
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Photographs
Click
on the thumbnails to view the larger image
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During
our visit we found very little to substantiate the idea that the mine
is actively haunted. The photo thumbnailed on the left was taken in
an unusually warm area of the mine. The temperature difference was
27 degrees. We were not able to locate anything in or around the area
that would produce such a variation in temperature. No EM fields were
found in the area of the "warm" spot. |
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