The history of Bisbee Arizona Turquoise is quite interesting:
Miners and rock hounds could find small amounts of turquoise in the Campbell shaft mine, as well as in stream beds in the Mule Mountains.
The vast majority of Bisbee turquoise surfaces as Phelps Dodge Corporation start opening pit mining operations at the location now known as the Lavender Pit.
Furthermore, most of the turquoise on the market is from the eastern side of the pit. The miners remove large amounts of a conglomerate rock bed first. The copper ore is located deeply under the rock bed. As a result, this sedimentary conglomerate “waste” rock is the host for most of the vein and nugget turquoise.
Most noteworthy, the largest quantities of turquoise are extracted from the mine and the company makes little or no effort to recover it. It simply is loads into large dump trucks and hauls off to the “dumps”. These trucks move the turquoise to the famous number 7 dump. During this time (primarily from the late 1950s to the late 1960s), some employees take home the turquoise in their lunch boxes. Though the mine prohibits this activity, the policy is rarely enforced. For several years (mostly the early to late 1970s), these individuals, locally known as “dumpers”, collect this turquoise.
During this time, Phelps Dodge leased out the dumps to Bob Matthews. Matthews was the only legal miner of the Bisbee turquoise in history and was the major source for the turquoise. Matthews would send the turquoise to his brother-in-law Cecil Mickelson to make jewelry. Consequently, the company makes turquoise jewelry up until the 1980s.
To learn more about what this beautiful turquoise, please click ⇒ HERE ⇐
In addition, to learn more about life in old Bisbee, Arizona, click ⇒ HERE ⇐.
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Old Bisbee Turquoise Cabochon
Portions of the preceding history came from Wikipedia.
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