Detroit Copper Co. was one of the earliest to operate in the Clifton-Morenci district.
The company was officially incorporated on Jan. 14, 1875, with William Church as its president and general manager. It played a major role in the development of mining operations over the next 42 years, beginning with the erection of its first smelter at Clifton, though it was later moved to Copper Mountain several miles south.
The smelter was equipped with two 36-inch round furnaces, and its blast was powered by a water-driven blower. A gray limestone quarry nearby supplied flux to the smelter.
It successfully processed ore for two years, converting 16 thousand tons into black copper while earning a profit.
Church arrived with his brother in Joy’s Camp, which was named after Capt. Miles Joy, deputy mineral surveyor for the Clifton district in 1872.
Church would soon acquire the estate of Capt. Eber Brock Ward, a Detroit industrialist and investor. It included four contiguous mining claims: the Arizona Central, Copper Mountain, Montezuma and Yankie near Clifton. Joy’s Camp was later renamed Morenci.
In need of financial support, Church visited the offices of Phelps Dodge & Co. in January 1881 to request a loan of $50,000 for the Detroit Copper Co.
Phelps Dodge & Co. had been engaged in mercantile business involving bolts, brass, boiler plate, tin, spikes and zinc for the better half of the century.
William E. Dodge, Jr. recognized the market for copper as his brass works in Ansonia, Connecticut, had been treating copper originating from Arizona’s Copper Queen Mine. Furthermore, he had capital to invest in such a venture through a bequeathment of funds by the Stokes’, a founding family of Phelps Dodge.
Dodge would confirm the validity of Church’s property by sending consultant James Douglas, superintendent of a copper smelter and refinery complex in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, to inspect the operation.
Douglas reported back favorably, and Church received the loan and used it to expand his mining operations. He also relocated the smelter to Morenci, which was supplied by a pumping system contrived by Douglas to lift water to higher elevations. Phelps Dodge in turn received a substantial block of Detroit Copper Co. stock, beginning its 126-year involvement in Arizona’s copper mining industry.
Early production was hindered by Apache raids and outlaws. Church was beaten and robbed by Kid Louis and his gang in his own office. The attackers absconded with a rich haul from Church’s company safe.
Additional challenges beset the company, including transportation, high fuel and smelting costs, a depressed copper market, competition from the Arizona Copper Co. and a close brush with bankruptcy.
The 1880s through the mid-1890s saw an annual production averaging 3 million pounds of copper. However, the company was not paying dividends.
High-grade oxide ores quickly became mined out, necessitating more extensive operations deeper below the surface.
The first copper concentrator in the Arizona Territory to treat these abundant sulfide ores was erected by William Church for the Detroit Copper Co. in 1886. A 120-ton furnace to accommodate full production of its mines was started up two years later.
By 1897, William Church sold his interest in the Detroit Copper Co. to Phelps Dodge Co. As an affiliate of Phelps Dodge, the Detroit Copper Co. would go on in 1901 to incorporate the Morenci Southern Railroad, extending a line from the Clifton-Morenci area to Guthrie.
The line was christened the “corkscrew railroad of America” because of its layout involving the construction of three large looping trestles that adjusted to the topography of low hills by an increase in elevation by 1,800 feet.
The company name remained until 1917, when it became the Morenci Branch of the newly reorganized Phelps Dodge Corp. By 1921, Phelps Dodge Corp. was the sole owner of copper holdings around Morenci and Clifton.
