(upbeat music) (Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, we take you off the beaten path in Bisbee, Arizona from a perfectly preserved historic house.

(Mike) It's a trek if you like to hike and explore.

This is the place to be.

(Tom) To a library that is evolving to meet the changing needs of this community.

(Alison) We don't shush people anymore.

We foster conversation.

We foster interaction.

(Tom) The future plans of this historic Buffalo Soldier military base.

(Lobo) If this can become a center for education of kids and grown-ups alike, that would be absolutely phenomenal.

(Tom) And Arizona's first microbrewery is still serving up classic beers.

(Joe) You know, the beers that we make here are primarily English ale.

We don't make sour beers.

It's not because I can't do that.

It's because I don't want to.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to an all new episode of Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

And today we're taking you off the beaten path in the small and beloved town of Bisbee, Arizona.

The town sits 11 miles north of the border with Mexico and it's the governmental seat of Cochise County.

This community tucked into the Mule Mountains was founded in 1880 because of the area's rich copper and precious metals reserves.

And it was incorporated in 1902.

The mines here helped the United States meet its copper demand during World War I.

In 1920, Bisbee's population peaked at just over 9,000 people.

The population declined, but the city slowly annexed the surrounding suburbs of Warren, Lowell, and San Jose.

Today, there are just under 5,000 residents, but the area's become a popular tourist destination because of the arts, culture, climate, the food, bars, and well-preserved and architecturally significant downtown area.

One of the best things about this area of Old Bisbee is the fact that you can park your car and explore the community on foot.

And if you do that, you might wanna climb a few stairs and a few hills so that you can step back 100 years in time and see the home of the first prominent developers of this community.

Here's a visit to the Muheim House.

[Old piano music] My name is Mike Roscoe.

I was born and raised here in Bisbee.

And went to ASU.

And got a degree in teaching.

Came back, thought I'd leave after three years while that didn't happen and ended up in the system for 55.

Married my wife and she became interested in this home.

My wife is in charge of the Muheim House and that's the way I got started with this.

I fell in love with this house about 15 years ago, and I'm in charge of what they call the docents.

I'm your host today.

The house was owned by Joseph and Carmelita La Forge Muheim.

They got married in 1890.

They had the house built, took 15 years.

And the reason for that was they had the contractor they had he was a, he liked to drink is his beer, and he'd get paid, not come back for a while.

1915 was when the house was finally finished.

It started with three rooms.

What you'll see is a lot of furniture and pictures, whatever that might be, that have been donated by friends of the Muheim's or of the museum.

And this is the way we got some of the furniture.

When you're go into the dining room, you will see a complete set of china from the family.

You'll also see a few other things.

And maybe after a while we can see one of the amazing features that is unique to the area.

You don't see anymore.

[Toilet flushing] [Hearty laugh!]

From Main Street you have to come up what they call Brewery Gulch.

And we're sitting on top of the hill and we overlook that the really, the town of Bisbee is what the house looks right here.

And it's, I would say, off the beaten track.

What we have here is what we call the wine room.

And Joseph Muheim set up like a brewery type thing in here for his own personal wine.

And we have his original recipe.

He was born in Switzerland, came to the United States in search of his two uncles.

Found out that the two uncles were here in Bisbee.

He made his way down here, went to work for them, and a brewery that they had.

In two years, he became owner of the brewery and became one of the richest men in Bisbee.

Here we are.

You'll see a house sitting on top of the hill.

And there's always an American flag flying.

And you look up, you know, Oh, man, there it is.

And we have steps that you can come up and you could also come up what they call Youngblood Hill.

You could drive here.

We have a parking, but it's a trek, if you like, to hike and explore.

This is the place to be.

I'll be more happy to help anybody out.

You call me, I'll come get you.

[Laughs] [Piano music...ends] With easy access to the internet, eBooks and digital media, it's easy to see how local libraries could become a thing of the past.

But here in Bisbee, the Copper Queen Library has evolved to meet the needs of the community.

Established in 1882, this is the oldest continuously operating library in Arizona.

And among its accolades, well, back in 2019, it was named the best small library in the country by Library Journal Magazine.

(upbeat music) (music) (Jason) This is our third library building for the Copper Queen Library.

This was built in 1907 by a local architect.

You can really tell from the arches of the balcony its Romanesque revival.

That's the key feature are the balconies.

(Cristina) This is, to me, one of the most protected, well-kept secrets of my life that I enjoy just escaping from Main Street and looking at the horizon.

The sky's gorgeous.

It's beautiful.

(Stephen) It's such an incredible resource with wonderful people I don't have enough words.

[quirky music] (Jason) Funny story at the time that they built this library there was a column in the paper that it was too modern.

You know, Bisbee was changing too fast.

And now we're so happy they did that because, you know we've got this beautiful building that, you know, we can operate the library out of and it's, it's a local treasure.

One of the defining features of the interior of this library is our staircase.

And if when you look at that staircase, you see 115 years worth of people walking up and down, it.

[footsteps] To us, that's a snapshot right there of our history because, you know, today people are doing the same thing.

They're coming in.

They're running up to the third floor to grab a book or grab a DVD.

And so they're adding to that history.

(Stephen) Their old book section is things that were published in the mid 1800s.

And I'm a Western history freak, so I can go in there and read things that were published the day it happened.

It's not filtered through modern technology, or current thought, or any of that And it's right here.

(music) We are a small town, but we never let that inhibit us in terms of the way that we think as a library and the way that we approach offering services.

The Copper Queen Seed library, which we started in 2017, offers free seeds for our patrons, and it's proved super popular.

I would say we check out about 800 packs of seeds a year.

(Marcia) As you can see, I have so many seeds from so many places.

As soon as the library began to develop the seed program, I became involved in it right away.

[rustling flowers] I'm a lifetime gardener and I save seeds, donate seeds to the library, etc..

Libraries are more than books.

Not that books aren't the best, but to have a seed library is really just a genius thing and seeds are everything.

They are.

They're everything.

(Jason) Yeah, we're just looking at ways to really engage our community.

I like to say, instead of outside the box, outside of the book.

We just installed a bicycle repair station at our annex.

For neighborhood bicyclists to come in and pump their tire up.

We've got sports equipment to use in our city parks.

We've got bocce ball sets and pickleball sets.

We're trying to really think beyond the old paradigm of libraries.

[chatter] (Allison) This is the Copper Queen Library Annex, which is not a separate branch of the Copper Queen library.

It is what we call an offsite collection.

We have things like a lawnmower, a shop vac, a hundred-foot extension cord, because sometimes you just need that item once.

When I first started here, I think I was the one who was shushed by patrons, but we don't shush people anymore.

We foster conversation.

We foster interaction.

We foster groups using this space and really being more of a community center that's free and open to everyone.

[Mexican Music] (Sonia) I got involved with this program teaching the kids how to dance at the library annex just by some friends that were volunteering with the program and that knew I had a background in Folklorico and I really have a heart for working with the kids.

(Rose) I've been taking my children here to the library since my first born son was about a year old and I started going to the preschool story time.

(Rose) And they want involvement for the for all ages of people.

From the moment you're born, pretty much they set you up with books and there's classes all the way teaching older people about technology or whatever it whatever it is, there's classes or something for everybody.

(Rose) Make sure you bend your knees, it goes out to the side.

Being in our border community, Bisbee is a really artsy, loving community, and so it's really nice to share some of our local culture with the kids and how to move their body and yeah, it's it gives them a whole new perspective.

[cars passing] (Allison) Very important to reach this community of Bisbee.

This neighborhood, the San Jose neighborhood, is the farthest away geographically from the main library, and it doesn't have the same tourism aspects that old Bisbee has, but it's also the neighborhood with the most children and families.

The biggest resource in our community is our community.

Our people are diverse, come from many different backgrounds of education and training.

They volunteer for us, I should say, our volunteers are amazing.

So what's your top two or three?

(Cathy) Our job is to support them in every way we can.

You know, we are a small town and our city budget, as you can imagine, is not enormous.

So the city pays the employees and maintains the building, but outside of that, it's up to us to bring in the income.

So in the beginning of the year, we have a chocolate tasting in February, right around Valentine's Day, of course.

And that's our biggest fundraiser we've had as many as 700 people in this space that you're looking at right now.

So the altered books show the concept of altered books is that you take discarded or recycled books and turn them into a piece of art.

I'm a book fanatic.

I went to libraries when I was a little girl, and that was my escape.

There are 125 people in town who have who belong to the "Friends of the Library .

And if you talk to every single one of them, they would say something very similar.

Yeah, it's very dear to me.

It's my heart thing that I do in Bisbee.

(Jason) all of this, everything we do, we don't do it for ourselves.

We do it for the community of Bisbee.

In that sense, you know, this job is it's a privilege and it's an honor because, you know,we're not only caretakers of the building, but we're caretakers for the entire institution that's been going for 140 years.

It all gets tied together into this beautiful package that we call the American Library.

(Tom) This is Warren, a community a few miles south of old Bisbee and this is the Warren Ballpark built in 1909, which makes it almost five years older than Chicago's Wrigley Field.

This ballpark has been a community center for over a hundred years.

Here to tell us more about the ballpark is a member of the board of Friends of Warren Ballpark and a longtime Bisbee resident, Dan Frey.

Dan, thanks for joining us.

Good to see you.

(Dan) My pleasure.

(Tom) In this colorful mosaic that makes up Bisbee history, where does this ballpark fit in?

(Dan) Well, it was like the second part of the city that came into existence in 1909.

One of the mining companies, Calumet in Arizona, decided to build this ballpark for the use of people who worked in town and to build single family homes all around to try to civilize the miners.

(Tom) And fast forward to today, this is still a beloved piece of real estate.

(Dan) This is the ballpark in this country that's been continuously operating for the longest period of time.

(Tom) And this is no mere museum.

Baseball is still played here on several different levels.

(Dan) You bet.

The vintage tournament every year, the first weekend in April, which I invite you to next year, happens here as well, where vintage baseball teams plan by 1860s rules.

The high school plays all their baseball, all their football, all their soccer games in this ballpark.

(Tom) Recently, the town of Bisbee acquired another important historical landmark called Camp Naco.

It was once a home to a Buffalo soldier military base, and was recently awarded millions of dollars for a restoration project to honor its past and make plans for its future.

[Wind rustling, military drum cadence] (Lobo) When you walk in here, You're not walking into a parking lot.

You're not walking in to some side road freak show.

This is the real deal.

This is Camp Naco.

This is where the Buffalo Soldiers lived.

[Lone trumpet] They were separated from the rest of the folks because of their color, but they had a lot of guts.

(Brookes) Buffalo Soldiers are the name that was given to the African-American units of the US Army.

And they were stationed all around the United States, particularly after the Civil War.

But they were located in Fort Huachuca, which also was home for the Buffalo Soldiers here in Camp Naco and a number of other forts within Arizona.

(Brookes) We're located about 600 yards from the US-Mexico border.

Camp Naco was established as a result of the Mexican Revolution, which started in 1910.

And so US troops were gathered on the border.

And in 1919, Camp Naco, a permanent encampment, was established here as part of a whole chain of encampments along the US-Mexico border from Texas all the way to Nogales, Arizona.

There were 35 of these encampments along the border, and there were two that were made out of Adobe.

This being the last of the remaining of those.

(Lobo) I'm associated to this place here because if the military.

I'm a soldier once, a soldier forever.

20 plus years, military Intel, I retired out of Fort Huachuca, which is also the home of the Buffalo Soldiers, or one of.

This place here, is very dear and close to me.

It is hallowed ground, in my opinion.

This is where those young men because I don't believe that there was any women here at that time.

But this this is where they sweated, they bled, they cried, they fed, they slept, they suffered winters, summers.

It didn't make a difference.

But they were here.

They were here to protect the ranchers, the locals, the United States border from the possible overspill of the Mexican nationals that were going across the border over here, fighting each other for control.

(Brookes) There's 19 acres here, originally there were 30 plus buildings here.

The goal is to rehabilitate about 20 of those buildings.

And we are planning on creating a community center for the town of Naco, as well as allowing for artists and residents to be housed here and to create a community center and artist center for people to begin to explore different themes about borderlands, about African American heritage.

That's here, and a number of other themes.

We're hoping to really develop new kinds of histories, new stories and new knowledge that can be created from that.

(Lobo) I want to see this place become the Buffalo Soldier Queen of the Southwest, rejuvenate the history, hopefully get the place back on order so that the rest of the community and whoever else wants to come out here can enjoy it and see it for what it was and hopefully what it will be.

(Brookes) Because there's physical remains, there's tangible evidence of what was here.

And so that then allows us to tell the story of some of those intangible things about what, you know, what happened here, what were the stories that could be told to here?

And that's what we're hoping to do.

(Lobo) If this can become a center of for education of kids and grownups alike, that would be absolutely phenomenal.

[Sighs, emotionally] I have slept here.

I have been here at night [voice breaking] and, this place is absolutely peaceful.

We owe it to them.

It's our job.

We got to do this.

[Soft piano music, fades out] (Tom) Another area outside of Old Town Bisbee is the San Jose neighborhood, and it's there you'll find Electric Brewing.

Originally established in 1987, this microbrewery has been around since well before the craft beer craze swept the country.

[General hubbub, Southern electric guitar] My name is Joe Fredrickson and I am the owner, brewer, head sales person, distributor...everything.

"You're welcome.

"If he's having another one, than I am, too.

I do everything all the time, and oftentimes there is not enough.

[Southern rock music] (Joe) This is the first microbrewery in Arizona.

Electric Dave was an electrician is an old friend of mine.

I've known him since about the time he opened this place in 1988.

He got into brewing beer, decided he wanted to be a brewer, and then discovered that the laws in Arizona made it pretty much impossible for a brewery to open in the last year, where, you know, one of the big guys, you know, you can bleep out Miller, Coors, Budweiser people.

You had to make an unbelievable amount of beer by the end of your second year to to maintain that license.

No microbrewery makes as much beer is as they demanded that you make.

So he went to Phoenix and he lobbied the state houses to get them to change the laws.

And when the laws were changed, he was the first person to to get a license.

His original license was zero one.

So.

You know, you would think it was really easy.

My name is Natalie Frederickson, and I call myself the head beer wench.

(Natalie)I'm in charge of the taproom.

I enjoy scheduling the music and listening to the the live bands.

And we have karaoke.

♪ Baby lock the door and turn the lights down low ♪ (Joe) We're not in old Bisbee.

Old Bisbee, You know.

Hey, I love old Bisbee.

I go there all the time.

I've got a lot of customers there.

I got a lot of friends there.

But, you know, when we bought this brewery, it was out here in San Jose.

And yes, there are more neighborhoods in old Bisbee.

In Bisbee.

San Jose is one of the larger ones.

And we're about three miles from old Bisbee itself.

♪It still go on ♪When every other reason is gone♪ ♪In the 5 O'clock world (Natalie) This part was built when the town was still going strong, the mines were still open, and this shopping center was built in 1953.

They were building schools out here and there was a grocery store there and a bank.

And it was this was a real, you know, like a regular booming shopping center.

You know, back in those days, it seems a little different now.

We can see Mexico is a beautiful view all the way down there.

And we have the sunrise and the sunset.

We have long, long, sunny days, plenty of parking and no, no stairs.

(Joe) You know, the beers that we make here are primarily English ales, and they're traditional English ales.

You know, we don't make sour beers.

It's not because I can't do that.

It's because I don't want to.

I'm a traditionalist in so many ways.

And when it comes to beer, beer is malt hops, water and yeast.

Nothing else.

You want a chocolate flavored beer?

I will give you a stout that has chocolate flavors in it.

But, you know what?

I won't put chocolate in it.

[Funk music] (Natalie)We're trying to build up the business of selling kegs and bottles outside, but most of our business comes from people actually coming into the taproom at this point.

(Joe) You asked 15 minutes ago about how I got here.

Well, I was brewing beer as our home brewer.

I lived in the middle of nowhere and I had a four day weekend.

Found out about a beer contest here in Bisbee.

I came down, I met Electric Dave among a lot of other people.

And a couple of years later, I took a job with Dave.

as his assistant brewer.

Simple as that.

And yeah, that's.

That's where it all began.

♪She's my baby ♪I'm her honey, I'm never gonna let her go♪ [Applause] (Tom) Thank you for joining us from here in beautiful Bisbee, Arizona.

I'm Tom McNamara, we'll see you next week for another all new episode of Arizona Illustrated.

(upbeat music)