Lowell AZ

Frank Hanchett, Founder of Lowell AZ

Lowell, Arizona began with the vision of Frank Hanchett, a mining entrepreneur from Lowell, Massachusetts. In February 1899, he purchased key copper claims and launched the Lowell & Arizona Copper Mining and Smelting Company. Within a few months, he opened a deep shaft—900 feet by March 1899—and created jobs for over 60 men with a $10,000 monthly payroll . 

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Frank built much more than a mine—he helped shape a new mining town. Lowell soon had boarding houses, a trolley line, a depot, saloons, and a working-class community that would become a vital part of Bisbee’s copper boom.

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🧡 Personal Note: Travis Bishop, your Big Jeep Tours guide, has deep roots here. His great-grandfather settled in Lowell in 1913 and worked in the very same Lowell Mine founded by Hanchett. When you tour with Travis, you’re hearing stories from a 4th-generation Bisbee local whose family helped build the town from the ground up.

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In 1902, the mine was sold to the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company. It was expanded, modernized with pumps to combat flooding, and became a major producer in the Bisbee mining district.

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Every time your Jeep rolls down Erie Street, you're passing through land that holds both copper mining history and family legacy. It’s one of the reasons Big Jeep Tours gives such a personal and powerful look at Lowell, AZ.