- Hours: Open daily, with several tours per day
- Reservations: Reservations are suggested
- Cost: Admission charged
- Location: Bisbee, Arizona - see directions below
- How Long: Tour lasts a little over an hour, but plan to stay about two hours
- Best Time to Visit: Any time of the year
Bisbee's Queen Mine is one of Arizona's oldest copper mines. Dug straight back into a hillside and spreading to four levels, it was a working mine until 1975. Today, the old Queen offers visitors a rare look at a miner's life underground.
To start the tour, you'll get dressed for "work" just like a miner would have, in a bright yellow slicker and hard hat, with a heavy battery pack strapped around your waist to power the light pinned on the slicker's lapel.
Following a tour guide who was once a miner himself, you'll board a vehicle that resembles a rickety theme park ride and chug off into the mine. Narrow tracks run through an almost-colorless, stone-walled, timber-supported shaft to the "stope," a cavernous room hewn out by late nineteenth century miners to remove its rich ore deposit.
At a second stop, 1,500 feet into the mountain and 700 feet above the mountainside above, is a long shaft, the tour guide talks about advances in mining efficiency (faster drilling, blasting more tons of rock at once and getting it out faster) that made mining lower-grade ores profitable.
I enjoyed this tour for its unique opportunity to visit inside a mine, and because the guide's mining experience gave insight into an occupation I knew little about. When combined with a tour of nearby Kartchner Caverns, you get two very different views of Arizona underground.
Getting to Queen Mine
Queen MineThe Queen Mine is about 90 miles from Tucson. Take I-80 east to exit 303 (Hwy 80) and go about 50 miles east. In town, take the second exit after the tunnel (labeled Historic Old Bisbee). The Queen Mine driveway is about 50 feet ahead.
118 Arizona Street
Bisbee, AZ 85603
520-432-2071
Queen Mine Website
