Copper Queen Hotel: Bisbee’s Grand Old Lady of the Copper Boom

Walk up Howell Avenue from Bisbee’s Main Street and the Copper Queen Hotel appears all at once, a tall, pale Italianate block tucked against the slope of the Mule Mountains. Red tile roofs top its towers. A wooden balcony runs above an arched terrace. From the saloon patio, the whole of Old Bisbee seems to tumble down the canyon below you.

This building has been taking in travelers since 1902, before Arizona was even a state. It is widely described as the longest continuously operating hotel in Arizona, and it has the stories to match: copper barons, movie stars, a president to be, and a few guests who, according to local lore, never quite checked out.

A hotel built by a copper mine

Bisbee’s fortune started underground. Prospectors staked claims in the Mule Mountains in 1877, and in 1885 overlapping mines merged into the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, with the New York firm Phelps Dodge as the major backer. The Copper Queen Mine became one of the richest copper producers in the country, and Bisbee grew into one of the biggest towns between St. Louis and San Francisco.

All that money brought investors, engineers and dignitaries to town, and they needed somewhere fitting to stay. The mining company began planning a hotel in the late 1890s, and Arizona Highways reports that crews blasted away part of the mountainside to make room and pumped water uphill from Main Street. The hotel opened in February 1902, according to KGUN 9.

The Society of Architectural Historians credits the design to Van Vleck and Goldsmith of New York and puts the cost at about $100,000. Thick concrete walls kept rooms cool in the desert summer. Inside came Italian mosaic tile floors, a pigeonhole key cabinet behind the front desk, and a Palm Room with an open wood truss ceiling once fitted with Tiffany glass, now long gone. In its day it was considered about as modern as a Western hotel could get.

Famous names and a good saloon story

Over the decades, the guest list grew colorful. Teddy Roosevelt came through Bisbee before his presidency to visit fellow Rough Rider Buckey O’Neill. John Wayne was a regular, and staff say he liked a room at the top of the main staircase on the second floor. Later visitors reportedly included Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Nancy Reagan and Senator John McCain.

The hotel’s favorite yarn involves Wayne and fellow actor Lee Marvin, who supposedly got into a dispute in the saloon that ended with Marvin going through a window. It is told with a wink, and it is impossible to verify, but you will hear it at the bar.

Those names live on in the themed rooms: the John Wayne room (211), Harry Houdini (312), Teddy Roosevelt (406) and Lillie Langtry (409), among others.

The guests who never left

Then there are the ghosts. Local accounts say as many as 16 spirits share the building. The best known is Julia Lowell, said to be a woman of the evening who took her own life after a heartbreak, and whose name now graces Room 315. Guests have reported a sweet perfume in that room, and some claim their feet have been tickled in the night.

Up on the fourth floor is Billy, a child spirit who, legend says, drowned in the San Pedro River. He is blamed for hidden shoes and stray candy wrappers, and Room 412, decorated with antique toys, is named for him. Whether you believe any of it or not, the staff told KGUN that guests have filled nearly a dozen ghost journals over the past 50 years.

The Copper Queen today

Bisbee’s mines wound down by the mid 1970s, and the town reinvented itself as an artsy, walkable getaway. The Copper Queen rode along. It still has 48 rooms, a restaurant, a saloon with a patio over downtown, and a swimming pool, a rare thing in Old Bisbee. Owners have poured money into restoration in recent years, including a dining room renovation that reopened in 2017.

It is also, notably, for sale. The hotel was listed in 2024 at $12.5 million, and more recent listings show the asking price lowered to $9 million. For now it remains open and taking reservations. As assistant manager Matthew Fink put it, “We’re the only hotel in Bisbee that’s open 24 hours.”

How to do the Copper Queen right

• Book a story room. The John Wayne and Teddy Roosevelt rooms are the most requested, so reserve early if you want one. Ghost fans should ask about Rooms 315 and 412.
• Grab a patio seat at sunset. The saloon patio looks right over Old Bisbee, and it is the best place to hear the Wayne and Marvin story retold.
• Look down in the lobby. The original Italian mosaic tile floor and the old key cabinet are easy to miss on the way to your room.
• Go underground, too. The Queen Mine, which reopened for tours in 1976, is a short walk away and makes sense of why the hotel exists at all.

More than a century on, the Copper Queen is still the grand old lady of Bisbee: a little creaky, a little spooky, and still pouring drinks for whoever wanders up the hill. Whoever owns it next will inherit a lot of history, and probably a few roommates.

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This spotlight draws on reporting from KGUN 9, ABC15, Arizona Highways, True West Magazine, the Society of Architectural Historians’ Archipedia, the Sierra Vista Herald and the hotel’s own website. Top photo: Marine 69-71, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.