The Indian Wars: Chapter Nine
"Bighorns at the DQ, Morenci, Arizona" (c) 2008 Stu Jenks
Morenci. The largest copper producing mine in North America. The above postcard of Old Morenci, circa 1910, is telling, in the simple fact, that none of what you see exists any longer. It’s either air or under dirt.
Mining began in the Morenci area in 1872, soon after peace was declared with the Apaches, two years before Cochise died. The railroads came and the mines grew large. They mined underground at Morenci until the 1930’s and then they went to the open pit. They blacked the skies with hot smelting until the 1990’s and then turned to the considerably cleaner leaching-electro-winning method of getting the Color. In 2006, Freeport Copper and Gold (formerly Phelps-Dodge) produced 400,000 tons of refined cooper, roughly one half of one percent, per weight, of all the rock they dug up. That’s not counting the molybdenite and other minerals they recovered, which were substantial and profitable.
As I drove to Eagle Creek the other day, through this huge mining area, I couldn’t help but think of all the telephones throughout America over the last 100 years, that were connected with wire made from the copper that came from this mine. A lot of phones.
But at what price? In the wake of those telephone lines, lies moonscape of huge pits, toxic leeching fields, black slag heaps, expanding concentrator buildings, long conveyor belts and truly monster trucks. Yes, the mines have given good jobs and security to the workers for many years. But Phelps-Dodge also broke the back of the unions in 1986 and there were violent strikes in 1915 and in 1983, when families were torn apart and as many people hurt as were helped.
I’m of two minds, as you may have guessed, but most of my mind is with the Land and with the Apaches. I bet the hunting was wonderful in this area, before the Anglos arrived.
I passed a tall conveyor and took its picture. I wish I had been able to record its sound. Like a hundred huge stone giants applauding. The clunk and clatter and thud was like nothing I’ve ever heard before.
I went to Eagle Creek and was turned away by the high water, but saw the ruins of a century old Catholic chapel near the pumping plant. What were the prayers of the women and men who attended that church, back in the day?
“Please, Lord, don’t let my husband, my son, die in the mines today.”
And then I saw what I thought were bronze sculptures of Bighorn Sheep, until one of them raised its head.
They were grazing on a small patch of Bermuda grass, planted in front of the Administration Office of Freeport Copper and Gold, my guess the only Bermuda grass within 500 square miles. Two adults and three adolescent sheep were grazing there, tame as house cats. They only got spooked, when I crossed the road to get a better angle.
Desert Bighorns live on grass and other plants. And one truly bizarre by-product of the mines today is that the sheep and other wildlife thrive here now. Freeport owns literally thousands of square miles of land, only a small percentage do they actively mine. The remainder is wilderness. And no man can hunt on mine land and the Bighorns have few predators beside the occasional Mountain Lion and the stray Eagle or Coyote that attack the sheep's young. They just eat, climb, sleep and mate.
As I clicked these photos of The Sheep Family, I wondered and then instinctively knew that this wasn’t the first time Bighorns had come to munch on this patch of grass. I bet they came often or often enough. It’s like taking the family out to the Dairy Queen on Saturday, for some extra sweet grass.
“Come on Dad! Let’s go to that place of the amazingly tasty green grass in the land of The Big Holes. I’m so hungry for that grass. Can we? Can we?”
“Ok,” says Papa Sheep, “but just this once,” knowing full well that the kids will be clamoring for Desert DQ within a week.
“Yea!!! Thank you, Daddy! Thank you!”
