Bisbee, an introduction

Twenty-four miles southeast of Tombstone, on highway 80, is the beautiful little town of Bisbee. This is the town that took the county seat away from a dying Tombstone in 1929. The Cochise County government remains in Bisbee to this day, even though the burgeoning town of Sierra Vista wants to take the county seat away from them.
Bisbee is situated in the Mule Mountains in southeastern Arizona. In fact, State Highway 80 tunnels through the mountains just west of town. At the east exit from the tunnel is the city limit sign for Bisbee. The entire town, except for the newest portion, is located in the mountains and, as a result, there are alot of extremely steep, narrow streets.
The modern-day town of Bisbee is the result of a merger of 8 separate towns that were in close proximity to each other, plus a new area that was developed in the
1960s and now contains the bulk of the population. This area is sometimes referred to as "New Bisbee." Bisbee has 9,787 people.
The oldest and most scenic part of Bisbee, sometimes called "Old Bisbee," or
"Downtown Bisbee," is the most visited by tourists and the most photographed part of town. The majority of this area lies in the bottom of Tombstone Canyon and, in many places, Main Street, whose name changes to Tombstone Canyon Road west of the downtown area, lies directly above Tombstone Creek.
This original part of Bisbee was founded in 1880 when copper was discovered in the surrounding mountains. The town was named for Judge DeWitt Bisbee. He was a major financial backer for the Copper Queen Mine. After several decades of copper mining, turquoise was also discovered, expanding the growth that had already occurred in the area. "Old" Bisbee has steep, narrow and crooked streets. Many of them are so narrow that cars parallel park on one side while traffic goes down the other side of the street. There are also streets that are only wide enough for one car to fit so, as a result, they have one-way traffic. There is one street that is only 5 feet wide! It is still open to traffic, but it is barely wide enough for even one car to fit. Main Street/Tombstone Canyon Road is the original routing of highway 80 through Bisbee. The current highway is south of this area and sits on a shelf that was blasted out of the side of a mountain. Where the old highway and new highway meet,on both ends of "Old" Bisbee, there is an interchange, like a freeway interchange, that involves an overpass, exit ramps and entrance ramps.
On both sides of the canyon, commercial buildings and houses climb up the slopes of the mountains and also snake their way into narrow ravines and defiles between mountains. There are alot of houses that are not accessible by any of the town's streets. Instead, the occupants of the house park their cars in a small parking lot on the side of the street and then climb a bunch of steps up to their house, in some cases, as many as 100 steps have to be climbed! There are many cases where a person in one house can literally look down the chimney into the house below because the slope is so steep! The county courthouse, on Ledge Avenue, is in this situation. A person can stand in the parking lot or at the window on the top floor, and look down the chimney into the house below. Consequently, people that live in the house above the courthouse can look down onto the roof of the courthouse. Ledge Avenue, which runs in front of the courthouse, has a steep dropoff on the opposite side of the street. The dropoff is at least 50 feet. Quality Hill Street, behind the courthouse, has a steep climb up to the houses on the other side of the street. Today, the county courthouse, which dates from 1930, only houses the court functions of the county. The county government now presides on the south end of town,in "New Bisbee,"
in a 8 building complex.