Bisbee — Copper Mines, Brewery Gulch & the Artist Town

Draped across the steep Mule Mountains near the Mexican border, Bisbee was once the richest mineral site in the world — a copper camp that produced billions of pounds of ore and, at its early-1900s peak, rivaled San Francisco as the largest city between St. Louis and the West Coast. When the mines finally closed in the 1970s the town nearly died, then reinvented itself as a bohemian haven of artists, writers, and refugees from the ordinary, who settled into the vertiginous Victorian houses climbing the canyon walls. Day one goes underground on the Queen Mine Tour, riding a mine train deep into the mountain with retired miners as guides, then explores Brewery Gulch, the notorious saloon district that once packed dozens of bars into one raucous ravine. Day two digs into the human story at the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum, climbs the town's famous public stairways stitched between the hillside houses, and drops down to Lowell, a frozen-in-time fragment of old Bisbee lined with vintage storefronts and neon. Both nights are spent in Bisbee itself, ideally at the 1902 Copper Queen Hotel, the grand old dame the mining company built at the height of the boom.