Blue Rock Canyon

Blue Rock Canyon

Lunch pail mining in the Lavender Pit mine has gone on as a way for the miners to take a little extra home beside their pay. The miners worked all day picking that reddish ore from the foothills mine. The new find of that new stuff called copper, miles south of Globe was found when prospecting below Tombstone.

The Indians found turquoise in the low foothills for ages. They used it to make colorful jewelry. It was sometimes found laying on the sand washed down from the red rocks dotting the low mountains. Apache Indians ruled the land, they were fiercely tribal people who saw the blue and green rocks first. They used the rocks to cover their war headdress. The women of the tribe found other colorful uses for them. Other tribes like the Hopi made costumes for their tribal dances as they were a more peaceful tribe. Those costumes were used to worship or represent their many gods, like the sun, moon, or rain.

Well once someone found more uses for copper, weapons and cookware, the miners went to work. They picked the red rocks loose for the ore buckets. Mixed in the ore was more of these colorful stones. The mine company saw them as something not worth as much as the copper ore, so many of the miners put the turquoise rocks in their lunch pails. They carried their food wrapped in animal skins that were later used to cover the few colorful stones in the bottom of the lunch pail. These were something that could be cleaned up at home and traded for things they needed.

In Globe they watched for and sold turquoise at the mine for it’s jewel value to jewelers who would polish them. At the mine they would also separate the gold and other precious metals for sale raising the company profits. The Lavender Pit mine was only after the copper, so the miners had a little extra in Blue Rock Canyon.