George Warren

George Warren (c. 1835–1893) worked as a prospector in the Tombstone and Bisbee, Arizona region during the late 19th century. He is credited with having located the body of copper ore, which later was known as the Copper Queen Mine, one of Arizona's most productive copper mines. Warren drank too much and bet his interest in the mine on a foot race against a horse and lost.

In 1880 pioneer photographer C. S. Fly often visited Bisbee on miners' paydays and he took a photo of Warren. The image was used as a model for the miner posing with long-handled spade on the Seal of Arizona. His pauper's grave, originally only marked by a wooden plank saying "G.W. 24" in the Bisbee-Lowell Evergreen Cemetery was later commemorated by a large monument erected in his honor.

Biography

George's mother died when he was very young and he lived with a maiden aunt until he was 10, when he was sent to New Mexico to join his father, who was a government teamster and later a herder. While herding horses, the Warrens were attacked by Apaches. George was wounded and his father was killed. George was held captive for 18 months until prospectors saw the white boy among the Indians and traded 15–20 pounds of sugar for Warren's freedom. Warren remained with these men for some time and learning about prospecting.

Warren didn't keep his agreement with Dunn. On his way to the claims office, Warren stopped in a saloon, got drunk, and gambled away the grubstake given him by Dunn and the others. He went to Fort Huachuca and recruited additional backers from Tombstone. On September 27, 1877, 56 days after Dunn located the Rucker Mine, Warren filed a claim for the Mercy Mine up Mule Pass Canyon from Iron Spring. Over the next six months his name is mentioned either as the locator or witness in several other claims in the Tombstone Canyon and Mule Mountains and established what became known as the Warren Mining District. and got into fights. He was shot through the neck when fighting a duel and was shot in the arm and a leg on another occasion. The first wagon and team was dispatched into the mining region to bring a barrel of whisky to Warren.

Entrepreneurs Edward Reilly and Levi Zeckendorf bought an option to purchase the mine in 1880 for US$20,000. When the ore assayed at 22% copper, Reilly became enthusiastic about the mine's possibilities. He bought out others' interest in the claims in April, 1880, and went to San Francisco to see if he could market his option on the claims. Reilly persuaded engineers DeWitt Bisbee, William H. Martin, and John Ballard in San Francisco to visit the mine, and they were pleased with the prospects. On May 12, 1880, Martin and Ballard agreed to furnish the funds to mine and smelt the ore and received seven-tenths interest in the Copper Queen mine and two-thirds interest in the Copper King. Reilly retained the remainder.

James Douglas, who had invented new methods of smelting copper, learned of the Warren mining district early on. He was sent by the Phelps Dodge company of Pennsylvania to examine potential copper mines. During his research, Douglas concluded the risk was great but persuaded the company they should go forward. Offered the choice of a flat fee or a 10% interest in the property for his services, he chose the latter, a decision that subsequently made him a fortune. The company bought the Atlanta Mine and poured over $76,000 into exploration before they found the ore body. When the claims and ore bodies in the area would likely overlap, leading to potential costly litigation, they merged with their neighbor the Copper Queen mine, forming the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company in 1885.

Reilly raised $80,000 capital from Dewitt Bisbee to begin production.

On June 1, 1881, Warren's interest in three mines—a one-twelfth interest in the Mammoth Mine, a one-third interest in the Safford Mine, and his one-third interest in the Crescent Mine—were sold at public auction for US$923. as the miners called it. He swept floors or cleaned the cuspidors in exchange for a drink of whisky.

Death

Sources for Warren's death date differ. The plaque on his cemetery monument at the Bisbee-Lowell Evergreen Cemetery lists the date of death as 1892. A Cochise County death certificate for a George Warren states he died of pneumonia and heart failure on February 13, 1893., and a newspaper blurb from the Tombstone Weekly Epitaph says February 12, 1893. An Arizona Republic article on September 15, 1897 stated Warren had died "three years ago." Penniless at the time of his death, Warren was buried in a pauper's grave and was practically forgotten for a number of years. and the mining district around Bisbee was named for him. A suburb planned and built near Bisbee and Warren Ballpark in Bisbee were named after Warren.