 |
| The Ray Mine with Teapot Dome in the distance. |
In an Instagram post a couple of weeks back I referred to a side trip to the threadbare copper mining town of Winkelman, Arizona. We were driving back from the California coast and planned to avoid Interstates where possible and to use so-called Blue Highways from Apache Junction, Arizona to I-40 in Grants, New Mexico. We had in mind driving northeast from Apache Junction on US 60 through the copper mining towns of Superior, Miami and Globe then through the White Mountains and plains of northeast Arizona into New Mexico at Quemado. From Quemado we’d traverse more grasslands before entering El Malpais National Monument and the junction of I-40.
 |
| Betwixt and Between |
It was a daunting 12-hour haul from Arizona’s Copper Country to Taos in one long day. In the lead-up to the turn northeast Peggy expressed interest in visiting the less known copper mining town of Winkelman where her grandfather once lived and where she believed her uncle George was born. I told her, “We absolutely have to do that.” The math suggests that her grandfather would have arrived in Winkelman around the turn of the twentieth century and that her uncle would have been born there in 1920 give or take,
 |
| Winkelman, AZ |
 |
| A shell of its former self |
Fate made that a necessity. As we approached Superior, population 2.407, we saw signs saying that US 60 was closed from Superior to Miami and Globe and that we’d have to take a detour through Winkelman and back to US 60 in Globe. We had no idea whether Winkelman still existed or that copper mining was alive and well. Perhaps 15 miles south on AZ 177 we caught our first glance of the sprawling Ray Mine in Hayden, AZ. It is still functioning and now Mexican owned. I photographed the mine which stretched from north of Hayden and into Winkelman with its smelter on a shallow rise above the village of 353. The town was founded when the former Kennecott Copper Mine was built in 1881. The town’s bones are of that era and there has been little new construction since. Gotta love it. In another IG post I wrote that I could spend a week in what’s left of the once bustling burg. One of my favorite portfolios, dare I say an important one, is The Edge of What’s Left. Winkelman is what's left. I am and will always be drawn to the decaying and forgotten.
It should be noted that the Ray Mine encompasses 59,000 acres and is the second largest producer of copper in Arizona, a state that produces 65% of America’s copper.
Click to blog below.
Posts
1 comment:
King Copper is one of your best blogs of late. The Ray Mine with Teapot Dome in the distance is stark and stunning, with magnificent differences between light and shadow and gradations in between. And thank goodness for the detour yielding the wonderful Betwixt and Between Winkleman and Superior, with selective coloring. What a great sky, filled with almost every type of cloud in the book! Although we had a neighbor in Albuquerque who worked the copper mine in southeastern Arizona, I had never seen the Ray Mine before your image, nor did I know that Arizona produces 65% of America's copper. Although after a 12 hour day in a car with your bones and muscles feeling ever mile, it was certainly worth it to see the resulting photographs. Thanks, Steve!
Post a Comment