On Friday, Oct. 11, local historian and author Bob Bigando will be the featured speaker for the Second Friday Lecture series at Bullion Plaza Museum. His talk, titled “Copper 101,” will trace the early mining history of the Globe-Miami district from 1864 to 1915, introducing audiences to the region's copper ores, geology, and historic mining and processing practices that contributed to its development.
“This is the story of how our community was shaped—literally and figuratively—by mining,” Bigando says. “It’s the foundation of who we are today.”
Bigando brings deep expertise to the subject. In the early 1980s, while serving as Gila County’s Planning and Community Development Director, he was actively involved in efforts to revive the local economy following major copper company layoffs. Those efforts spurred projects such as funding the restoration of Besh-Ba-Gowah, organizing the first Historic Home Tour, establishing the Globe Downtown Association, and converting the old county courthouse into the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts.
During that time, Bigando realized there was no comprehensive written history of Globe-Miami. Determined to fill that gap, he authored Globe, Arizona: The Life and Times of a Western Mining Town—first published in 1984, still in print today, and translated into German. His research drew on the Arizona Silver Belt’s microfilm collection, archives at the Arizona State Historical Society and Sharlot Hall Museum, public records from Maricopa and Gila counties, and photographs from the Clara T. Woody Museum. That work has since become a cornerstone for understanding the community’s mining and cultural heritage.
Bob has served as the Museum Director for the Gila Historical Museum in Globe since 2017 and is currently working on a new exhibit of historic mining photos in the museum's rotating exhibit space.
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