HISTORY128 - Bisbee's Historic Letson Loft Hotel.

Last summer, Pat and I spent a couple of days in Bisbee, Arizona, one of our favorite places to visit.  My mother and Aunt grew up in Bisbee, so I’ve had all kinds of family and memories there to visit over the years.  And Pat had business connections in Bisbee years ago. 

Our regular hotel was closed this time, but they recommended another one.  Let me just say up front that we were delighted with our accommodations at the Letson Loft Hotel and now consider it our preferred hotel in Bisbee.  It's an artfully decorated boutique hotel with eight rooms located on Main Street in the heart of downtown Bisbee, near shops, galleries, restaurants, and bars.  It’s also right across the street from my maternal grandfather’s jewelry store that operated from 1921 to 1986.

 

I found out that the Letson Loft Hotel has quite a history, as do the buildings it’s located in.  I left Bisbee primed to learn more about this history.  So, I started digging and writing down what I found out.  As a teaser, I found out that the buildings that house the hotel are two of the few buildings to survive the great Bisbee fire in 1908 and the more recent fire adjacent to the buildings in 2024.  That’s the story I’d like to tell in this blog.

I wasn’t sure how much readers would be familiar with Bisbee copper mining history or the overall history of the town of Bisbee - basic knowledge of both subjects necessary (I think) to appreciate the history of specific buildings and the hotel. 

So, instead of a formal introduction, I’ve provided a snapshot of both background subjects.  People knowledgeable about the history of Bisbee copper mining and the town of Bisbee, might want to scroll down to the section called “Leading Up to the Letson Block, the Buildings that House the Letson Loft Hotel.”

As usual, I will list my principal sources at the end.

 

Snapshot: History of Copper Mining in Bisbee 

In the summer of 1877, a civilian scout from Fort Huachuca, Jack Dunn, discovered traces of silver and lead in Mule Gulch in the Mule Mountains.  He staked the first mining claim in the district in August 1877, and then grubstaked a local ne’er-do-well prospector George Warren to file additional claims.  One of these claims, filed in late September 1877, became the fabulously rich Copper Queen Mine.  Ironically, the mining district was later named Warren, while the original discoverer Dunn was soon forgotten.

The success of the Copper Queen Mine convinced Phelps Dodge to invest in Bisbee mining, becoming the largest mining company in Bisbee, eventually buying control of the Copper Queen Mine.  The Calumet and Arizona Company formed in 1901 to operate the large and profitable Calumet and Arizona Mine, adjacent to the Copper Queen.  Both companies initially operated smelters in Bisbee, but by the mid-1900s, had built new smelters 27 miles southeast along the international boundary with Mexico, in the newly-developed town of Douglas, named after Dr. James Douglas, the principal engineer of the Phelps Dodge Company.  Underground copper mining operations continued to expand in Bisbee through the end of the Territorial Period in 1912, when Arizona became a state. 

Open pit mining at Bisbee was started in 1917 at Sacramento Hill south of town.  Steam shovel operations there ceased in 1929.  The famous Lavender Pit, one of the largest open pit copper mines in the world, was opened in 1951 and continued in operation until 1974. 

By 1975, with copper depleted, mining came to an end in Bisbee with the closing of the Copper Queen Mine.

Nearly 8 billion pounds of copper and 3 million ounces of gold, along with silver, lead and zinc, were mined out of Bisbee.

Snapshot: History of the Town of Bisbee

The fortunes of the town of Bisbee closely followed that of the copper industry and local mining.   The town was named after San Francisco judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the financial backers of the Copper Queen Mine.

In 1881, the town had a population of 300 people, nearly all living in tents.  Three years later there were 500 people and tents were beginning to be replaced by wood and adobe buildings.  By 1890 there were over 1500 residents, the mining industry had acquired an air of permanence, and Main Street's wood false front buildings were being replaced with substantial brick buildings with intricate ornamentation.  Hillsides were now dotted with miner's frame cottages, creating part of the town's special character.

The town was incorporated in 1902 and the new municipal government soon had brick paving laid on Main, Howell, and Brewery Streets.  Previously the streets were either dust or mud with stepping stones placed for pedestrians to cross the morass.  

Bisbee experienced rapid growth with the success of its copper mines.  By 1904, Bisbee had over 10,000 people and was rapidly adding more brick buildings.  Electric lights and gas were added the same year.

In 1906, with Bisbee running out of residential expansion room, development started to the south for the town of Warren to house Bisbee’s growing population.  In 1908, an 8-mile electric railway was installed to link Bisbee and the mines with Warren.  However, by 1920, automobile ownership and the impending depression in copper prices began to affect the railway operations.  Ridership began to decline, and in 1927 the railway stopped operating.  Electric streetcars were superseded by a bus line that ran until 1971. 

By 1920, Bisbee had emerged as the largest city in the Arizona Territory, boasting a population of 20,000, soon to reach its peak population of about 24,000 (this figure includes all the towns in the district including Warren and Lowell).  At that time, Bisbee was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.

Of course, Bisbee's growth was not without its setbacks.  Floods and fires were the greatest threat to life and property.  Built as it was in a steep canyon, the town was naturally subject to periodic water flow.  Heavy floods consequently inundated the district in 1886, 1890, and 1908.  Bond issues were passed thereafter to pay for a box channel to guide water under streets and buildings, and retaining walls to keep the rush of water out of the streets and buildings.  

By 1908, the town had lived through several major fires, the worst in 1885, 1887/1888, and just a year earlier in 1907.  As a result of these frequent fires, the city council in April 1908 established an official fire department with paid firefighters, a horse-drawn engine, and a proper firehouse.  It also cracked down on the construction and repair of wood frame buildings. These improvements were instituted in the hope that another major fire could be prevented.  In spite of these efforts, the town suffered additional major fires in 1908 and 2024.  See below.

The most notorious single event in the history of Bisbee was the “Deportation of 1917,” a significant labor event involving the illegal deportation of striking miners and their supporters.  On July 12, 1917, approximately 1,300 individuals were forcibly removed from their homes by a posse of 2,000 deputized citizens, led by Sheriff Harry Wheeler.  They were loaded onto cattle cars in Warren and transported 200 miles to Tres Hermanas, New Mexico, where they were abandoned.  The deportation was a response to a strike organized by the Industrial Workers of the World at the Phelps Dodge Corporation's copper mines, fueled by wartime demands and high copper prices. (Google “Warren Arizona - The City Beautiful,” to find the paper my brother Al and I wrote on the complete history of Warren.)

Although Bisbee remained a vital mining town for nearly three-quarters of the 20^th century, the 1920s marked the end of large-scale physical development in the community, due to lowered production in the mines.  The local economy was depressed by a slump in the copper market caused by high wartime stockpiles, the lack of a further military market, the discovery of new copper deposits in South America, and the Great Depression.  

With the closure of all copper mining in 1975, Bisbee's industrial base disappeared, leading to an initial economic downturn and a collapse in the real estate market. However, the availability of affordable real estate attracted new residents, including retirees, artists, and those seeking an alternative lifestyle. This influx of new residents and visitors contributed to the renovation and revitalization of the city.  Downtown Bisbee now boasts numerous businesses that cater to this cultural shift, including art galleries, antique shops, and gift stores. 

In 1980, eighty of Bisbee’s buildings in the Bisbee Historic District were listed on the National Register of Historical Places.  The Bisbee Historical District is a dense combination of commercial buildings, residential houses, and institutional structures sitting side by side along several narrow streets, the two main ones being Main Street and Brewery Gulch.  These include lodging houses, governmental, educational, and religious buildings.  Most of the structures were built between 1890 and 1915.  The Letson Block buildings, including the Letson Loft Hotel, are included in the Bisbee Historical District. 

The distinct Bisbee Residential Historic District developed in the late 1880s and early 1900s to support the booming mining industry, and is located north and west of the Bisbee Historical District.  It consists of over 500 buildings.  Those buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.

Today, the population of the city of Bisbee is about 5,000, with the population of greater Bisbee estimated at about 13,800.  Tourism plays a vital role in Bisbee's economy.

Leading Up to the Letson Block, the Buildings that House the Letson Loft Hotel

The first building in Bisbee on the site of today’s Letson Loft Hotel was constructed in 1883 and occupied by the Goldwater-Castaneda Mercantile Store, owned and operated by Joseph Goldwater, partnered with José Castaneda.  Goldwater was a native of Prussia, great-uncle to Arizona's legendary Barry Goldwater and a pioneering Arizona merchant. The Goldwater-Casteneda Store was the main retail establishment in the early mining town of Bisbee. The store also handled The Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Co. payroll, and since there was no community bank then, also cashed miners' paychecks.  The store had a safe which held the company's cash and deposits by various townsfolk as well as other valuables.

Joseph Goldwater opened a mercantile store on Main Street in 1883.

The Goldwater-Casteneda Store was the site of the infamous "Bisbee Massacre.”  On December 8, 1883, five armed men attempted to steal a $7,000 payroll thought to be kept in the Mercantile Store.  The outlaws discovered the payroll money was not there so they emptied the safe, held up the employees and customers, netting about $3,000.  During the robbery, members of the gang shot and killed four people, including a law man and a pregnant woman, and wounded a fourth.  The five robbers were quickly caught, tried in Tombstone, convicted of the robbery and murders, and sentenced to hang.  A sixth man, John Heath, who operated a saloon near Mercantile, was accused of organizing the robbery, was tried separately, and sentenced to life in prison.  Unsatisfied with Heath's sentence, a lynch mob forcibly removed Heath from jail and hanged him from a telegraph pole in Tombstone on February 22, 1884. The other five men were hanged legally on March 28, 1884.

By 1890, with the rapid growth of mining and an expanding population, Bisbee’s Main Street wood frame buildings were being replaced with substantial brick buildings with intricate ornamentation.  From 1902-1904, businessman James Letson, an Irish immigrant, Cochise County lawman, and Bisbee City Council member and his wife Maggie constructed two adjacent brick buildings of similar style and materials on the south side of Main Street on the site of the old Mercantile.  The second floors of these buildings would eventually accommodate the Letson Loft Hotel. 

The James Letson family: James, Maggie, and their two sons James and John.

Each building had a set of bay windows on the second floor.  The building to the east had a recessed entry and stairs to the second floor.  Ornamentation of the east building was slightly more elaborate than on the west building.  These two buildings are the oldest documented buildings on Main Street and the best examples in Bisbee of late Victorian architecture.  They are known as the “Letson Block,” and still have that name on the facade.  See the first photo in this article.

The figure below is a Sanborn Company fire insurance map from 1906 of the part of Main Street where the Letson Block was constructed.  Buildings colored yellow (tan in this reproduction) were of wood frame construction. Those colored in red were brick buildings.  Fire proof or adobe buildings were colored brown.  Buildings colored blue were made of stone.  The function of each building (e.g., bank, drugs, hotel, etc.) is identified.  You can see the status of converting wood frame buildings to brick along Main Street.  The Letson Block buildings are highlighted within the bright red ellipse.   The extensions of the second story bay windows are clearly shown.  Note that “Furnished Rooms” are indicated on the (presumably) connected second floors of the buildings.  In 1906, the first floors contained a saloon and a grocery and feed goods store.

1906 Sanborn fire insurance map of Bisbee’s Lower Main Street.

The furnished rooms are undoubtedly the forerunner of the Letson Loft Hotel.  The first-floor businesses would change frequently over the years.

Note that the two buildings adjacent to the Letson Block (west side) were also made of brick; they were constructed in 1904.  On the 1906 map, the Woolworth Building (not identified on the map), across and up Main Street from the Letson Block, is colored brown, indicating fireproof construction.

The photo below, from the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum, is a view of Main Street, likely taken in August 1908.  The view is to the east, towards the new brick Bisbee Mercantile Mall, built in 1906, and new brick library building, constructed in 1907.  The Letson Block buildings can clearly be seen in the center of the photo. 

1908 photo of east end of Bisbee’s Main Street.

 

1908 Fire - A Close Call for the Letson Block

Despite recent attention to fire protection efforts, on October 14, 1908 at 6:10 pm, a fire broke out in a closet at the Grand Hotel, located then at the corner of Main and Subway streets.   The blaze spread quickly throughout the hotel.

Flames then jumped Subway Street to lower Main Street, engulfing everything on the north side down to the Woolworth Building (shown on the 1906 map in brown), just across and up the street from the Letson Block.  The Woolworth Building’s new brick walls fortunately acted as a firebreak halting the spread down the street on the north side of lower Main Street. 

But flames had jumped across to the south side, destroying the Angius (Hotel) Building, and then moved down the south side of lower Main Street, where the flames stopped at the two brick buildings next to the Letson Loft.  The Uncle Sam Loan Office was the final building to burn on the south side of lower Main Street.

Meanwhile, the fire had turned west and proceeded to devour most of upper Main Street (Tombstone Canyon), all the way to Castle Rock, about 800 feet up the road.  To the north, the residential area of Clawson Hill was totally consumed by the fire.

The new fire department with its state-of-the-art horse-drawn engine worked hard but a lack of water and pressure hampered the men’s ability to stop the flames from spreading, even with help from miners who came out of the mines.  Eventually, after several fiery hours, dynamite was used on buildings near Castle Rock to block the fire, and finally it was brought under control.  

Aftermath of the 1908 fire in Bisbee.

Three quarters of Bisbee had gone up in smoke.  Damage to business and residential areas totaled $750,000 (over $190 million in 2025) and 100 structures, 60 of them homes, were lost.  Nearly 500 people were homeless. 

Rebuilding started immediately.  New buildings were constructed almost entirely of brick.  By 1912, Bisbee had assumed the substantial character that it reflects today.  

 

The Letson Loft Hotel

Since the 1908 fire, the Letson Block Building has been the home of various businesses.  One source suggests those tenants included jewelers, restaurants, shoemakers, a bank, clothing stores, watchmakers, and a food co-op.  It is likely that the upper floors had a variety of owners for its “furnished rooms.”

According to newspaper articles of the time, in 2005, local owners, Steve and Marijane Relth, and Tom and Susan Firth, purchased the Letson Block Building for approximately $350,000.  An extensive yearlong renovation upgrading the building’s plumbing, mechanical and electrical features ran them approximately $500,000. 

The Letson Loft Hotel, shown in this 2016 photo, opened for business on September 1, 2006.

 

2024 Fire - Damage to the Letson Loft Hotel

On February 14^th, 2024, Valentine’s Day, Bisbee suffered another fire, that destroyed the two buildings adjacent (west) to the Letson Loft Hotel.  These two brick buildings are the same structures where the extensive 1908 Bisbee fire was stopped (on the south side of lower Main Street).

The 2024 fire erupted just after 10 p.m. in the "Many Fine Things" antique store, just west of the Letson Block.  The fire quickly spread to the adjacent building to the west, the Bisbee Oil & Vinegar, Co., a specialty grocery store.  The two buildings were totally destroyed.  Firefighters battled the flames throughout the night. 

The two buildings just west of Letson Block building were totally destroyed by the 2024 fire, with the Letson Loft Hotel suffering severe damage.  Note the Letson Block building at the extreme left of the photo.

Despite the narrow streets and old infrastructure, the Letson Loft Hotel successfully evacuated all guests safely.  However, the damage was significant.

The west side of Letson Block building completely collapsed from fire damage, as did the roof under the heavy weight of water used to extinguish the fire.  Businesses on the first floor were flooded.

Again, according to news articles of the time, the cost to rebuild the hotel was $3.5 million, with the goal of reopening without compromising the hotel's historic charm.  Local contractors and builders played a crucial role in the restoration process.   The hotel underwent a complete transformation while preserving its early 19^th-century roots.  After nearly 13 months of rebuilding, the Letson Loft Hotel reopened on March 11^th, 2025. 

The exact cause of the fire remains undetermined.  While investigators suspect electrical issues behind a sauna, the collapse of the building's wall in the area of origin prevented them from definitively pinpointing the source. 

 

The Letson Loft Hotel Today

Today the Letson Loft Hotel is the epitome of the most comfortable stay in Bisbee, with the same charm and romance of days gone by.  It's a boutique hotel with eight rooms located in the heart of downtown Bisbee, near shops, galleries, restaurants, and bars.  The owners have invested thoughtful renovations to the building, creating eight spacious and artfully decorated guest rooms with original 11-foot ceilings, bay windows, and skylights; private baths; restored hardwood floors; and exposed brick and adobe plastered walls. Their hope is the historic Letson legacy continues through the loving care and renovation of this important Bisbee landmark.

The Letson Loft Hotel today. Note that the buildings destroyed in the 2024 fire have not been renovated yet.

 

Sources

My principal sources included: “Letson Loft Hotel: Boutique Accommodations in Downtown Bisbee,” letsonlofthotel.com; “Letson Loft Hotel - Clio,” theclio.com/28712; “Bisbee Massacre Hanging,” tombstonechamber.com; “Maggie Letson dies, important business woman,” bisbeehistory.com; “Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Bisbee, Cochise County , Arizona,” loc.gov; “Bisbee, AZ Burns to the Ground, Hundreds are Homeless.” southernarizonaguide.com; “Library History,” bisbeeaz.gov; “Heartbreaking: Bisbee buildings hit by [2024] blaze were saved from 1908 fire,” azcentral.com; “Historic Bisbee hotel reopens after devastating [2024] fire,” kvoa.com; “Bisbee businesses decide what to do after devasting fire [2024],” ascentral.com; “Bisbee Fire Department Honor Roll,” tucsonfirefoundation.com; “National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Forms for Bisbee Historic District,” Ring family history private collection; plus numerous other online sources.