Lowell in Bisbee
Arizona Travel Guide visits Lowell in Bisbee, Arizona, a total Americana delight & great roadside attraction, with old cars & gas stations on the main street.
‘You must go and see Lowell,’ the guy said as he walked by our trailer at the Shady Dell. He was looking for Dot’s Diner, which is admittedly hard to find, and paused to tell us a bit about what to see in Bisbee.
‘It won’t be there in ten years,’ he said, ‘even less. It’s next to the Lavender Pit and the subsidence is getting so bad the mining company won’t renew the lease for the Bisbee Breakfast Club. I’s a historic part of town, with old gas pumps and old cars. You really should see it.’
Visiting Lowell in Bisbee
He forgot to mention that it was only a two-minute drive from the Shady Dell, on the other side of Highway 80, as we found out the next morning when we looked it up. We would go see Lowell, we decided, before we left Bisbee and headed for home.
We parked right by the fence around the Lavender Pit, a former open pit copper mine so deep (900 feet) that you can’t see the bottom from the sides. They took about 256 million tons of materials out f the pit, mainly copper but also some gold and silver. That is one big hole in the ground!
Lowell was originally a separate town, established in the early 20th century as a residential and commercial hub for miners and their families working in the nearby Copper Queen Mine. The town was named after Lowell, Massachusetts, the hometown of a mining executive. At its peak, Lowell was a bustling community with schools, businesses, and homes that catered to the mining workforce. However, as the mining industry declined in the mid-20th century, Lowell’s population dwindled, and it eventually became part of Bisbee.
Thanks to the work of the Lowell Americana Project (see below), Lowell was preserved and revived, with old buildings being restored to how they would have looked in the 1950s and 1960s. As we walked round, we could see that there were only two real businesses – the Bisbee Breakfast Club and an antique store next door – the rest being ‘pretend’ store fronts, including a hat shop, a Harley-Davidson store, and several gas stations and garages.
Lowell in Bisbee Attracts Photographers!
The main street (which is about all that’s left of Lowell) is also lined with old cars and trucks, and even an old Greyhound Bus, renamed as a Strayhound. The police station is still there. There was a flurry of excitement as a Tesla Cybertruck drove up the main street and was about to pass a rust-bucket of an old car coming the other way. We’d been chatting to a photographer (one of several firing off hundreds of shots), and he leaped into action, persuading the two drivers to stop next to each other while he captured the moment.
We fired off a lot of photos ourselves, as you can see, because Lowell is such a photogenic place. We’re glad we made the stop, but sad that the place is slowly sinking into the ground. It can’t be long before Lowell is also fenced off for safety reasons, so if you’re in Bisbee, go look.
Lowell Americana Project
The Lowell Americana Project is a community-driven initiative aimed at preserving and celebrating the historic character of Lowell. The project was born out of a desire to honor Lowell’s history and prevent its unique character from being lost to time. As mining declined in Bisbee, Lowell faced economic challenges, and many of its historic buildings fell into disrepair. In the early 2000s, a group of local residents and history enthusiasts came together to revitalize the area. Their goal was to preserve Lowell’s 1950s charm while creating a space that could attract visitors and support the local community.
All photos (c) Mike Gerrard for Arizona Travel Guide.
More Information About Lowell
Visit the website of Discover Bisbee.
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