Last updated on July 12, 2026
This essay attempts no new insights into the Bisbee Deportation of 1917. Rather, it seeks to summarize the event in a straightforward manner in the equivalent of 3 to 4 book pages. My hope is that anyone who wants to know the basics of this event which is so seminal to Bisbee history can absorb it in just a few minutes.
The United States joined the Allied powers in the war against Germany and other central powers in what we would call World War I on April 6, 1917.
Prior to this, the nation certainly had supported the allies, or Triple Entente, but had not been an actual part of the war. One of the most controversial parts of the nation’s war effort was the draft, which was signed into law May 18, and was designed to take the military from its pre-war strength of 100,000 up to 1 million men.
Another aspect of the war effort was increasing production of war materiél, including copper, which went into brass, used to make ammunition.
In its edition of July 22, the Bisbee Daily Review ran these photos of deportation activities at Jerome.
Because many of the miners throughout the West had roots in allied countries, there already had been a significant de-population of the mining regions as these first- and second-generation citizens returned to their home countries, such as England and Serbia.
With fewer skilled miners, and greater demand for copper, Bisbee companies, including Phelps Dodge (or Copper Queen), Calumet & Arizona, and Shattuck, which historically had little truck with unions, had to hire men from outside the community. Many of these had prior experience with and ties to unions.
One of the major unions (technically a syndicate) of the time, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) saw the national war effort as an opportunity to push through its own agenda.
Thus, in many of the copper mining areas of Arizona and the West, there were requests for major changes in operations, and failing this, strikes. Such was the case in Bisbee, where the IWW called a strike to begin June 26. The three major companies refused to negotiate, opting instead to have its remaining workers cross picket lines to get to the job.
This led to tense times, but there was remarkably little violence, especially when compared with other parts of the West at that time.
Nevertheless, public officials throughout the area allied with mining companies for what they considered their patriotic duty to support the war effort. One of mine union organizers told Sheriff Harry Wheeler on July 11 that he could not be responsible for how his men accorded themselves. Though the strike had been mostly peaceful, Wheeler responded that he would take matters into his own hands to make sure that there would be order and productivity throughout the district.
On the night of July 11/12th, probably in the boardroom of the Copper Queen Hospital, these anti-strike forces came together, made a decision of what to do: Set up a phone tree to bring together about 2,000 men who had been deputized in recent days, and round up and deport about 1,100 strikers and sympathizers.
This was done in utmost secrecy. Early in the morning of July 12, when that day’s issue of the Phelps Dodge-owned Bisbee Daily Review was printed, it notified the people of Bisbee that there would be a round up and deportation.
At the crack of dawn, the deputies, with lists in hand, set out to round up strikers and others. These men were either taken by streetcar or marched on foot from the mining areas where they may have been picketing or living to the Warren Ballpark, which served as a holding area.
All of those who were rounded up were given an opportunity to go back to work. More than 1,100 men chose not to. The railroad, also effectively owned by Phelps Dodge, ran right next to the ballpark, and it brought in boxcars and cattle cars.
The strikers, starting at about noon on this hot July day, were transported to southern New Mexico. They would end up at Columbus, at a military base that had been created about a year earlier to support the fight against Pancho Villa in Mexico.
The men who had instigated the deportation set up roadblocks to the east of Bisbee to make sure that the deportees could not return. And for the most part, they did not. The army took care of them for a while, and eventually most of them dissipated back to other parts of the West.
A few of the deportees returned to Bisbee, some because they had families or owned property, and some because of the draft, but most were gone permanently.
Over ensuing weeks, production of copper, which was decreased by about half during the strike, returned to normal as new workers were hired after being carefully vetted regarding their union affiliation.
For the most part, newspaper editorials throughout the nation supported the deportation. It wasn’t the only one that had taken place in the nation or in Arizona, but it certainly was the largest.
In November, a mediation commission, put together by President Woodrow Wilson to ensure that copper production could thrive, would visit Bisbee and a number of other towns that had seen labor issues to determine what was needed to be done to get the mines producing again.
One thing this commission pointed out was that no federal law had been broken in the deportation.
But state laws had been broken, and over the next few years Cochise County Attorney Robert N. French would begin a major effort to try those who had participated in the deportation.
Extensive preliminary hearings were held in Douglas in 1919, leading to the indictments of hundreds of men, many of them the cream of Bisbee society. In the final analysis, only one of these men would be tried in early 1920, Harry Wootten, and he would be found not guilty because of what would be called the “law of necessity.”
Because it had been so expensive and time-consuming to bring about the single trial, French was persuaded not to take further action.
Also, in 1920, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that Sheriff Harry Wheeler was not guilty of violating federal law in his leadership role in the deportation.
The only action that would be taken against the mining companies was a civil suit against the railroad, and some of those who had been deported received small payments because of the actions.
Be First to Comment