BISBEE β Arizonaβs oldest operating library has a new claim to fame.
The Copper Queen Library in Bisbee was recently named the best small library in America by the leading publication for bibliophiles.
According to Library Journal, the 137-year-old institution in Cochise County took home the top prize for 2019 thanks to its innovative efforts to expand services to the community, including early literacy programs, a seed library for gardeners, and a slate of unconventional items available for checkout, such as sports equipment and Wi-Fi internet hot spots.
Copper Queen Library Manager Jason Macoviak and Library Program Coordinator Alison Williams traveled to Burlington, Vermont, earlier this month to accept the award.
Library manager Jason Macoviak says, βLibraries are more than librarians shushing people. Theyβre community spaces. We encourage people to sit down and talk to each other.β
A beaming Macoviak said the Copper Queen is the first library in Arizona to win the prize, though the Patagonia Public Library previously finished second in the competition.
He said he couldnβt believe it when a representative from the journal first called him with the news.
βI thought it was a sales call, so I kind of brushed it aside at first,β Macoviak said.
In its Sept. 6 write-up on the award, Library Journal took particular notice of what the city-owned library did when budget cuts forced the Cochise County Library District to park its bookmobile.
After two years of planning, the library opened a rural annex in December to serve roughly 150 families in Bisbeeβs San Jose neighborhood and residents of the nearby border town of Naco.
Using an all-volunteer staff and bookshelves built by local high school students, the grant-funded annex provides everything from preschool reading services to books and computers for adults.
The Friends of the Copper Queen Library will host a celebration of the award on Friday, Sept. 27.
Macoviak said the library has come a long way since it first opened in 1882 inside the mineβs company store with a small collection of books sent from back east.
According to one popular version of events, visiting mine officials arrived in Bisbee to find a man strung up by a lynch mob and decided their workers needed something less aggressive to do with their time.
Joe Gillaland, a Bisbee resident since 1964 and local author, reads a book in the lobby of the Copper Queen Library, which started as a library for the townβs miners
The library moved to its current location, upstairs from the post office, in 1907.
Photos from those early days show a few shelves of books upstairs and a collection of tables on the main floor surrounded by men playing cards.
The spittoons are gone, Macoviak said, but the Copper Queen Library still uses some of the original furniture and still serves as a community gathering place.
Since mine owner Phelps Dodge turned the library over to the city in 1976, it has evolved and expanded to offer a range of programs and services that include photo-copying, a small community garden, patio seating overlooking downtown and a discount used bookstore operated by the friends group as a fundraiser.
Macoviak said Bisbee is home to about 5,500 people and roughly 3,000 of them carry library cards.
βLibraries are more than librarians shushing people. Theyβre community spaces,β he said. βWe encourage people to sit down and talk to each other.β
Itβs been a big month for library news in Bisbee.
The city also made headlines recently when a long-lost bronze sculpture that used to sit in front of the historic Los Angeles Public Library turned up in a Bisbee antique shop.
That prompted a visit from Los Angeles City Librarian John Szabo, a bit of a rock star in the library world, who came to town on the same day in early September that Macoviak and Williams were in Vermont to accept their award.
And while he was in Bisbee, Szabo stopped in to see the local library, βas librarians do,β he said.
According to Szabo, it is βa very, very big dealβ to receive the top prize from the main professional journal for librarians. Judging from his tour of the Copper Queen, he said the honor was well-deserved.
βI immediately could tell it was a wonderful library,β Szabo said.
According to one popular story, mine officials arrived in Bisbee and witnessed the aftermath of a lynching. They decided to create the Copper Queen Library to give workers something less aggressive to do with their time.
Bisbee resident Tom Holz looks through a shelf of books at the Copper Queen Library Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019. Holz often stops by the library after picking up his mail at the Post Office below. The library in Bisbee was named the Best Small Town library in the United States by the Library Journal publication.
Old and new photos of historic Bisbee, Arizona
The Warren-Bisbee Railway opened March 12, 1908, attracting a huge crowd to downtown Bisbee.
The O.K. Trail in Bisbee, Ariz., ca. 1903.
Bisbee's Brewery Gulch, no date. (Opie Rundle Burgess papers, 1880-1943)
The Orient Saloon, Bisbee (circa 1903) by photographer W.E. Irwin. A faro game running full blast. Old timers say: "Them dam good days have gone forever." Caption: Man standing at left is Anthony E. "Tony" Downs, part owner of The Orient; seated is the case keeper Jack Granzhorn; man in derby sitting at corner of table just beyond the case keeper is Orient musician M.E. Doyle; right behind Doyle, standing with derby is Dutch Kid; just to the right of Dutch Kid, with light-colored soft felt hat is Sleepy Dick; the porter (also a "hop head" or opium addict); against the wall, seated in the chair is the lookout, Pegleg Johnson; just behind the lookout is A.S. Bassett, Bisbee Review printer; Johnny Murphy is the dealer; and the man wearing the silt tie at right is Isaac "Smiley" Lewis, clerk at The Orient and also known as a gambler and an opium addict.
Hermit Saloon, Bisbee, no date.
Roulette game at The Orient Saloon in Bisbee, 1907.
The El Paso & Southwestern Railroad at Bisbee.
Undated photo of a steam engine nicknamed "Geronimo" for hauling ore in Bisbee, Ariz.
Delivery wagons in front of the Copper Queen Store in Bisbee, Ariz., 1903.
On June of 1917, 3,000 miners walked off their jobs at the Copper Queen Mine at Bisbee in support of 400 of their fellows who belonged to a union, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW - "wobblies"). The following month, at the behest of the mine operators, Cochise County Sheriff Harry Wheeler, a former Arizona Rangers captain, led a posse comitatus of 2,000 men through the streets of Bisbee, arresting more than 2,000 individuals considered "undesirable." Mine-purchased machineguns stood at the ready as those in custody were herded to a local ballpark - there given an opportunity to return to work. Those refusing, 1,186 of them, were loaded aboard waiting El Paso and Southwestern railway boxcars. They then were "deported" to the vicinity of Columbus, N.M., where they were held for two months. After release, few ever returned to Bisbee.
Undated photo of coasters with wire spoked-wheels in Bisbee, Ariz.
Undated handout photo of the women's Southern Arizona Auto softball team from Bisbee.
Bisbee, Ariz., as seen from Bucky O'Niel Hill in 1892. The canyon at center of the photo is present-day Brewery Gulch.
Bisbee, Arizona copper mine, 1920
Bisbee in the early 1880s, with the Czar shaft at left.
Bisbee residents turn out for a parade honoring Serbian volunteers headed for the Balkan War in 1912.
J. Arthur Detloff and Evelyn Kennedy in a coaster in Bisbee, 1926.
Passing in review during the Parade at Bisbee Arizona, on July 4, 1952.
The Mule Pass Tunnel through Mule Mountain outside Bisbee, Ariz., nears completion in late 1958.The Mule Pass Tunnel through Mule Mountain outside Bisbee, Ariz., nears completion in late 1958.
The Mule Pass Tunnel through Mule Mountain outside Bisbee, Ariz., nears completion in late 1958.The Mule Pass Tunnel through Mule Mountain outside Bisbee, Ariz., nears completion in late 1958.
The Mule Pass Tunnel through Mule Mountain outside Bisbee, Ariz., nears completion in late 1958.The Mule Pass Tunnel through Mule Mountain outside Bisbee, Ariz., nears completion in late 1958.
Bisbee, Ariz., in 1968.
Bisbee, Ariz., in 1976
Bisbee, Ariz., Courthouse, right, and St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1939.
Sacramento Shaft mine in Bisbee, Ariz., ca. 1931.
The Lavender Pit Mine in 1974.
Blasting at the Lavender Pit Mine in 1974.
Zacatecas Canyon near Bisbee, Ariz., 1980.
Brewery Gulch in Bisbee, Ariz., 1977.
Bisbee, Ariz., ca. 1906-07
Blasting in the Lavender Pit Mine in 1954.
The Lavender PIt Mine in 1954.
US 80, right and the Lavender Pit Mine headed into Bisbee, just beyond, in 1953.
Downtown Lowell, lower left corner, and Highway 80 into Bisbee, Ariz., in 1951, prior to extensive blasting and excavation of the Lavender Pit Mine.
Lowell and the highway roundabout (still there) which connects US 80, SR 92 and and the Bisbee Road east of Bisbee in 1953. Cemetery is middle right. The Lavender Pit Mine is center left and Bisbee is just beyond. A haul road from the pit to the slag pile is lower right. U.S. 80 used to go through downtown Lowell. It now goes around it.
Coaster race in Bisbee, Ariz., July 4, 1979.
The lead pack of bicyclists crests a hill in La Vuelta de Bisbee, April 26, 1980.
01 bisbee tourism - Tourists in hard hats and yellow jackets exit the Queen mine tour, Saturday, Sept 1, 2001. Bisbee has drawn on it's historical roots to promote tourism.
The Stock Exchange Saloon in historic Brewery Gulch, downtown Bisbee, in this 2011 photo. The brokerage firm of Duey and Overlock opened up the stock exchange in 1914, after the Federal Government enacted and enforced the 'Noble Experiment' which banned all alcohol sales and terminated all liquor licenses in Arizona. The stock exchange continued till 1964. The original titles and companies are still listed on the wall.
Jan Munsey stands on the back balcony of her home looking out at the snow that fell in December, 2004.
U.S. 80 looking down on snowy Bisbee in December, 2004.
Snow flurries come down as Bisbee resident Ryan Catlett takes a panoramic photograph using a smart phone just above the town in December, 2012.
At bottom, Tim Mahon, left, and David Loeffelman of Sierra Vista watch the Bisbee Blue vs. Roswell Invaders game on June 19, 2014, at historic Warren Ballpark in Bisbee, Ariz.
The Soiled Dove Bed Race team from Old Bisbee Brewing Company race past the spectators watching from railing at the Stock Exchange Saloon during 50th annual Bisbee Brewery Gulch Daze in 2015.
The Bisbee Mining and Historic Museum, at 5 Copper Queen Plaza, in Bisbee, Ariz., on May 16, 2017.
Businesses along Main Street and Subway Street in Bisbee, Ariz., includes Bisbee Grand Hotel plus a number of galleries on May 16, 2017.
Ghost sightings have emerged at the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee.
A home built into a cave in Bisbee features a large, open kitchen with custom countertops, cabinets and stove hood.
A large, walk-in shower makes use of the cave as a natural wall in a home built into a cave in Bisbee, Ariz.
