This is Bisbee. Bisbee is a small town in southern Arizona not far from the Mexican border. It is a unique town in many ways that grew up when minerals and copper was discovered and mined by 'those virile men the copper miners.' It lies scattered amongst some hills in a haphazard way as though dropped from an airplane. One didn't expect those early miners to be town planners so consequently the streets don't follow any pattern and there are a lot of steps going up to wooden houses perched on the denuded hillsides.
I came over the hills from Tombstone and encountered Bisbee down to my left on the way to Naco the crossing point to Mexico and pulled in and parked up near the Copper Queen. As I said it is a unique town and one of the unique aspects is that it is populated by cardboard cut-outs standing outside shops along main Street.
These two dimensional local celebrities have all played some part in the evolution of this town. I saw the occasional three dimensional human inside one of the shops but they were generally hidden behind a counter amongst second hand clothes, shoes and hats and books and crockery and china and antiques and designer furniture. I also saw a cardboard cut-out of a grinning Roy Rogers holding up a second hand store.
The mellow voiced smiling Rex Allen looking dapper with his quiff and bow tie and his tight slacks. But his six guns seem to me to be pointing backwards.
More after the jump
