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Michael Herndon with his book, Bisbee Flash
Long time miner Michael Herndon has published his book, The Bisbee Flash, which has been nearly 30 years in the making.
Michael started writing stories of his mining experiences and adventures along the border for the Oracle (newspaper) in the 1980s. He said he wrote the book because “you never see stories or read about miners unless they are trapped in a cave in somewhere.” He wanted to show readers what it was like to be a miner.
“Not even our wives know about the life working underground,” he said. “It is an unseen world.”
Michael was born in Bisbee, Arizona in 1942. His father died in a V.A. hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah from complications of a disease he caught while in the Philippines where he had also been wounded during World War II. Michael was 11. His dad had been a miner at Bisbee before going off to fight the war. Michael’s mother moved the family to Kentucky to be with other family members. After graduating high school, one of Michael’s uncles who worked at the Copper Queen mine in Bisbee told him he could get him a job. Michael returned to Bisbee and was hired even though he was 17 years old which was against the law. You had to be 18 to work underground.
Michael’s uncle told him to work until he saved enough money to go to college. He said he never saved enough. He was too busy having fun in the bars and cat houses in the nearby border town of Naco, Sonora, Mexico. Michael said there were five cat houses in Naco that serviced the soldiers from Fort Huachuca and the miners.
“I saw some pretty good fights between the miners and soldiers,” he said. There are some funny stories in the book about his adventures there.
This was the beginning of a mining career that would last 30 years. He learned quickly from the older miners, many of them World War II and Korean War veterans. It is a testament to Michael’s love of mining and his courage that he continued to work underground even after being buried alive and witnessing his partner being killed in a cave in. There is a chapter in the book about this incident. Michael said that in the 1960s there were 1,200 people working at the Bisbee mine.
“There was at least one fatality a month at the mine,” he said.
Michael worked in Bisbee until 1969 when the mine shut down. He went to work at the Duval mine but it was surface work.
“I didn’t like it. I wanted to get underground,” he said. “I heard they were hiring miners in San Manuel so I went there.”
He started at the Magma mine in 1972 and worked until BHP closed the mine. He then went up to the Oracle Ridge Mine and was hired as a supervisor. While there he continued to drill and load powder. One day the Superintendent saw him drilling and pulled him aside and told him he was not supposed to be drilling, he was a supervisor. Michael told him, “I love doing this.” The Superintendent told him, “Well if you love it go ahead and keep doing it.” The job at Oracle Ridge lasted two years. Then they closed the mine.
He gave up mining and went to work for Pinal County for 10 years. He took care of the parks in Oracle and Dudleyville.
At the San Manuel mine, Michael continued to work as a miner and was a member of the Mine Rescue team. He talked about fighting a fire at the Magma mine in Superior, Arizona in the 1980s. He said that the Mine Rescue team was there for three weeks fighting the fire. The team stayed at a hotel in Superior.
“Our bar tab was out of this world!” he remembered with a smile.
A meeting was held with the supervisors who told them they needed to stay away from the bar, that the company had spent more for the bar tab than the costs of their rooms and meals.
Michael said that the difference between the mine in Bisbee and the mine in San Manuel was the size. He said in Bisbee the shafts and drifts were smaller. The “cage” which took the miners down the shaft to the different work levels only held 11 people. At San Manuel the cage could hold 50 men.
They used five-ton ore cars in Bisbee. The San Manuel mine used 20-ton ore cars underground.
“You could fit two or three of those ore cars in the ore cars used by Magma,” he said. “Everything was bigger except the jackleg (jackleg drill).”
The deepest level he worked in Bisbee was 2,500 feet below the surface. The deepest he worked in San Manuel was the 3,200 level.
Michael said he was a good miner. In Bisbee they held annual drilling contests in Brewery Gulch with cash prizes. He won every year he entered.
“I was good on a jackleg,” he said. “It was like it was part of my body.”
“I miss working underground. I miss working with the guys,” he told the Pinal Nugget.
Most of all he misses the camaraderie between the miners.
“I met some incredible people underground. I knew a man that built guns from scratch and would sell them. A man who could build beautiful cabinets and one that designed turquoise jewelry. Many miners have a love for something else and worked in the mine to pay the bills,” he said. “I didn’t have any talent, I just worked in the mine.”
Michaels wife, Carolee Sutton Herndon disagreed with him and indicated his paintings and the koi pond and wall he built in the backyard. And then there is his writing talent.
Michael goes back to Bisbee once in a while. He has taken the Queen Mine tour there. On the tour, he began telling stories to the tour guide and tourists about his days at the Bisbee mine. They told him they liked his stories so much he should become a tour guide.
Michael got the nick name Bisbee Flash in 1968. There was a popular song Jumping Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones at the time. He was known as a fast runner and quick on his feet. He had many a close call at work with rocks falling near him. Some miners took to calling him Flash.
“They said I could out run a boulder as it was falling on me,” he said.
His book, The Bisbee Flash, looks like it will be an entertaining book about the life of a hard rock miner and his experiences in Southern Arizona and Sonora Mexico. The stories include romance, close calls with the law, exotic means of travel and of course mining.
You can purchase The Bisbee Flash on Amazon. It is also available at Sue & Jerry’s in Oracle and at the Tri-Community Visitors Center. For books purchased at the Visitors Center, Michael is donating $5 of the purchase price of each book to the Visitors Center.
John Hernandez lives in Oracle. He is retired and enjoys writing and traveling. He is active in the Oracle Historical Society. He covers numerous public events, researches historical features and writes business/artist profiles.
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