New Cornelia Copper Mine

 mine, copper mine, metallurgy, mining, smelter

Around 1800, there was a Spanish mine here nicknamed "Old Bat Hole." It was later abandoned due to Indian raids. The first Anglo in Ajo, Tom Childs, arrived in 1847 and found the deserted mine complete with a 60-foot shaft, mesquite ladders, and rawhide buckets. High-grade native copper (so rich it was shipped to Wales for smelting) made Ajo the first copper mine in Arizona.

John Greenway bought the New Cornelia Copper from John Boddie for the Calumet and Arizona Co. about 1911 and expanded it on a grand scale. In 1921, Phelps Dodge, the nation's largest copper company, bought New Cornelia. For several decades more than 1,000 men worked for Phelps Dodge in the open pit mine. In 1950 Phelps Dodge opened a copper smelter next to the mine. Large, black slag piles can still be seen next to the immense tailings piles northeast of the mine.

New Cornelia closed in 1983, following a bitter strike and a depressed copper market.