Whenever I am driving to a new town and I don’t have a specific destination in mind, I just put the town name into my GPS and it usually brings me to either the courthouse or City Hall. Wherever it leads me is usually in the center of town and I can sort myself out from there. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I was approaching Bisbee, Arizona and I turned onto Erie Street and found myself not in the center of town, but somewhere in the 1950s. It was quite surreal to drive up the street and see nothing but classic cars, vintage gas stations and old signs with no streetlights burning and not a person in sight. My GPS told me I had reached my destination but my mind was telling me otherwise. It turned out that it had indeed led me to Bisbee’s City Hall, but that building was situated in the midst of a wonderful local art/history instillation called the Lowell Americana Project which commemorates small-town life in the 1950s.
The Lowell & Arizona Copper Mining and Smelting Company began operation way back in 1899 under the leadership of Frank Hanchett, who named his business after his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. Three years later, the mine would be incorporated into the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company. Two years after that, the town of Lowell was laid out to house local miners and their families and Erie Street became the commercial center. In 1908, Lowell was annexed into nearby Bisbee and the population would grow to 5,000 people. From what I’ve read it sounds like it was a bustling community and a pleasant place to live.
That would all start to change in 1950 when the Lavender Pit Mine was opened and the community’s population had to sell their homes and move out to make way for the expanding mine. By the end of the decade there wasn’t much left of Lowell.
That’s when local citizens banded together and started the Lowell Americana Project which has tried to restore and preserve a quarter mile of Erie Street as a unique outdoor museum recalling the glory days of Lowell. It’s an amazing place to wander and features several businesses which are very much alive today including the Bisbee Breakfast Club and Old Lady Pickers. I probably spent two hours there the day after I arrived when I could see it all in the sunlight, and enjoyed every step. Lowell is a great place to wander and to photograph and it’s been featured in several shows and music videos.
If you’re ever in Southeastern Arizona, definitely spend some time in Bisbee which one of my favorite towns in the state. But be sure you set aside an hour or so for Lowell while you’re there so you too can take a step back in time.
The Lowell Americana Project is run and maintained entirely by volunteers. If you’d like to contribute to this wonderful project, please visit their GoFundMe page here.