Lavender Pit

The Lavender Pit is a former open-pit copper mine near Bisbee, Cochise County, Arizona, close to the historic Copper Queen Mine. It is named for Harrison M. Lavender (1890–1952), vice-president and general manager of the Phelps Dodge Corporation, who devised the plan to make the area's low-grade copper ore commercially viable. Phelps Dodge opened the pit in 1950 on the site of the earlier Sacramento Hill mine. By the time production ended in 1974, the mine had yielded about 86 million tons of ore averaging roughly 0.7% copper, or around 600,000 tons of copper, with gold, silver, and turquoise as by-products; Bisbee turquoise from the site is regarded as among the finest in the world. Roughly 256 million tons of waste rock were stripped, some of it later acid-leached for additional copper. Because of its competent host rock, the pit has steeper sides than most open-pit copper mines in the region, covering 300 acres and reaching a depth of 900 feet. A viewing platform with parking sits directly beside the road.

Where it is

Lavender Pit is a historic site near Bisbee, in Cochise County. It is one of the historic sites in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.

How this ranking was reached

No official visitor count is published for Lavender Pit, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the low confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.

Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.

Sources

• Coordinates and designations: Wikivoyage(opens in a new tab)
• County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates

Record last verified 2026-08-12.