Bisbee, Arizona:

Revival of a Ghost Town

By Bob Difley

The "Girls of the Gulch" were legendary in both reputation and character. There was Red Jean, known for her auburn hair, who would boast that she could fight anyone, any size, and win. Black Jack, who dressed like a man and robbed stages. Anita Romero, so beautiful that men killed for her, ran the wildest dance hall in the Gulch. Kate Elder was Doc Holiday's mistress. Ma Reilly ran a dance hall with her husband and was considered to be as respectable as any other woman in town. Little Irish Mag, was the first dance hall girl in Bisbee to have a mining claim named for her.

Brewery Gulch's wild and uninhibited brothels, dance halls and saloons existed to extract the fruits of labor from the camp of 25,000 miners, who came to Bisbee, Arizona in the late 1800s to make their dreams a reality--riches in just a few short years from the fledgling copper mines.

Founded in 1880 around the Copper Queen mine, by the turn of the century Brewery Gulch and the building boom tenaciously clinging to the sides of Tombstone Canyon etched Bisbee permanently in the book of wild west towns. Johnny Heith opened the first dance hall in l88l. The opening of the establishment coincided with his gang's robbery of the Castenada and Goldwater store, which resulted in the famous Bisbee Massacre. Heith was hung from a telegraph pole in Tombstone by Bisbee residents who claimed the act was to correct a judge's "sentencing error" of life imprisonment.

The Gulch managed to survive the economic jolt of mine closings, but the "catastrophe" which eventually took its toll was Arizona becoming a dry state in l9l4. Enacting prohibition before the rest of the country eventually drove Bisbee on a downward spiral toward ghost town status.

In the 1970's hippies and artists, the avant garde, the creative independent types would discover and reestablish the town in their vision. The labyrinth of narrow alleys and hilly streets, unusual structures on precarious perches, resuscitated and abandoned derelict buildings, makes wandering mandatory. Some of the buildings look about to tumble, others are shored up on the rocky hillside and appear sturdier than granite. Paint jobs are imaginative and decorations creative.

Even the cars of the residents are fancifully adorned. For a photographer the place is irresistible For movie backdrops the imagination is stimulated--easily visualizing bandits spilling out of the bank six-guns blazing, and proper matrons strolling the board sidewalks with their wide decorated hats and parasols.

The chamber of commerce/visitors center has lots of information and has put together a self-guided walking tour with maps and historical data.

This is not a Holiday Inn sort of place. All the accommodations are either B & B's in old houses or in historic hotels. At an elevation of 5300 feet, Bisbee is a year round destination, avoiding the Arizona extremes of summer heat.

On Mother's Day, this year May 10, Bisbee's Art & Craft's Fair presents the town with one of its most enterprising and artistic faces. Crafts and art booths line the streets, musical groups keep things lively, and drawing contests go on all day long. Artists--Bisbee is loaded with them--work on projects and offer their creations for sale.

It is also the time for the Bisbee residents to show off their cars. Not BMW and Mercedes, but originals by "Art Man" and others who employ the most imaginative of articles to embellish their transportation treasures. A pickup truck painted with goblins and witches, map car, completely covered with a map of the world and sporting a globe in the middle of its hood, the "Reflectormobile", every inch covered with red, blue and yellow plastic light lens reflectors, some on long wands extending from the fenders and roof like a prancing peacock, or how about the doll car, completely hidden by the dolls hitching a ride on every available surface.

The visualizing of the matrons with parasols becomes a reality on Mother's Day as locals in period costumes stroll the streets posing for photographers, antique cars are lovingly brought to their finest example of spit and polish, and even those with culinary talents offer their wares for the hungry traveler.