Saturday, October 9, 2021

Cars...in the Middle of Nowhere

There is little that gets me excited more than some old Detroit Iron, even if the ravages of time have pitted the chrome and rusted the paint away. Especially the era of my youth, the 50's and 60's make my heart pitter-patter just a little more. Add in a little architecture from that era, and I am practically swooning. You see (and perhaps already know from some of my earlier posts), I am a car guy. I spent my high school years working in a gas station, mainly to support my addiction to the smell of oil and high octane gas, and the texture of cast iron engine blocks...not to mention the bloodied knuckles that are the result of slipped wrenches. 

On our excursion to the remote southeast corner of Arizona, we stumbled upon the town of Lowell. Located on the south side of Bisbee (another blog post, by the way) and truly teetering on the brink of the Sacramento Pit, an old copper mine, the town boasts an assortment of buildings straight out of the 60's, complete with an old Sprouse Reitz storefront (no longer open, by the way) and various auto-related businesses. Parked on this relic of Main Street, USA are a number of cars, as though time had stopped and the dust of the desert came in and settled on the steel.


A 1959 Chevrolet Impala with the distinctive horizontal fins - one of my favorite cars of that era. Note the old gas pump on the sidewalk


Lowell has the appearance of a street in the 60's where people parked their cars and then...disappeared. First founded in the late 1890's as a town to support the Lowell Mine, the first businesses were a pair of saloons and a livery stable in 1910. Over time the town grew to include the usual accompanying businesses such as brothels and boarding houses.

The main drag through town in Erie Street, perhaps the best example of mid-century architecture, largely preserved through the "Lowell Americana Project" made up of volunteers who paint, repair and provide much of the accessories reminiscent of the era. 

What could be more representative that a caddie and a gas station? It does seem fitting, since the 1957 Cadillac Coupe de Ville was notorious for drinking gas like it was soda pop. Shell was also nostalgic for me, since my dad worked for Shell as an engineer in the late 40's and 50's, and Shell was my first credit card.
What speaks more of the open road and travel than an old Greyhound Scenicruiser, ca. mid-50's? I'm guessing that's a ca.1940 Chevrolet under the Texaco sign...let me know if you discover otherwise.

Lowell kinda dried up in the late 50's when mining slowed down, and the open pit to the north encroached into Erie Street. Most businesses and services moved to neighboring communities and the relocation of the highway (because of the pit) sealed the demise. It's largely the volunteer efforts of private individuals that help keep this reminder of our past alive and available to visit. 

Friday, October 8, 2021

Mayberry...on Acid

Mayberry...on Acid. Such was the bumper sticker that I still regret not buying. It was when we visited the little town of Bisbee, Arizona, tucked away in the southeast corner of the state, just a few miles from the Mexico border. It's a old western town known for being among the more lucrative copper mines in the western US. Teetering on the edge of the open pit and snaking up the hills surrounding the town, there is a wild collection of old western architecture as well as Victorian and Art Deco buildings, roads that wind around and suddenly end, antique stores, hippy shops, and an assortment of counter-culture facades that belie the otherwise conservative values one would usually expect in a "red" state like Arizona. It is actually pretty refreshing to me. 

         The main drag, or Tombstone Canyon Road.  

Bisbee was founded in 1880 with the discovery of copper and grew to a sizable community of more than 9,000 people. The adjacent Copper Queen Mine was the main employer and was eventually operated by Phelps Dodge Co. The open pit mine was started in 1915 and operated until 1975. The town floundered until the 1980's when it became a counter culture mecca. 


Art can be found in many forms and on many surfaces throughout Bisbee, and certainly reflective of the varied tastes and proclivities found in the community. Some are larger than life, using spray can media on the canvasses of building exteriors (and some are more subtle, such as the pair of rabbits in upper right corner of the window). 



Bisbee also boasts one of the longest (and skinniest) galleries I've ever seen. This one bore paintings and drawings on the fences and sides of buildings along an alley almost a block long. I'm not sure what the criteria for posting the artwork (or if there is any at all), but certainly entertaining.

Of course not all artwork comes in canvass form, or on a two-dimensional media. Some carry a message, as the rear window of the pickup truck 

 

There are many reminders of Bisbee's mining past throughout the town. Pieces of mining equipment, such as drills, winches and small rail cars are scattered at various locations. The grandeur of some of the larger buildings, like the bank and various stores along the main drag are all reminiscent of the opulence of days gone by. The Copper Queen Hotel, perhaps the Grande Dame of hotel accommodations in Bisbee is a stunning example of Edwardian architecture not commonly found in the Old West. Filled with Art Nouveau antiques, pianos and Tiffany chandeliers, one cannot miss the the glories of days past.

 

Then, of course, there is the mine itself. One can tour the 10,000-foot long Queen Mine tunnel into the mountain on special cars that used to carry miners to their shift. The underground mine was started around 1880. 

Just to the south of the mine tunnel are the Lavender and Sacramento Pits, which begun during World War I. Between the 900-foot deep pits and the tunnel, the mine produced 600,000 tons of copper, plus silver, gold and turquoise.