The mining business was so good for the Thompson Family’s Magma Mining Company in the early 1920s that there weren’t enough homes to go around in Superior, Arizona. So, the company took matters into its own hands.
“Due to the increased size of our operations and the construction of the smelter, it has been necessary for us to employ a considerably larger force of men,” noted the company’s 1923 annual report. “This increase in population has caused a very severe housing shortage in Superior.”
The company reported eight cottages in one year and 21 the next using brick from their yard. The homes, they reported to investors, have a “substantial, pleasing appearance. The town has used a large amount of brick from our yard in construction stores, garages, schools, theatre, hotels and dwellings.”
What’s impressive is that many of these sturdy brick homes still stand along North High School Avenue and West Copper Street near the entrance to the mine. One, dubbed “The Surprise House,” was recently opened during an annual Superior housing tour. According to a brochure for the event, the recently remodeled home had retained much of its original character. The kitchen included cabinets “from a bygone era. The home is one of several in the area that housed the mine supervisors from Magma Copper Mine and were company owned until the 1970s.”
Most of the homes along North High School have been renovated. One is selling for $250,000. Though most retain their original brick exterior, some have been stuccoed and painted. A local real estate agent, Pam Dalton, said most homes originally had two bedrooms and one bath with a sleeping porch in the back. “Most people closed in the sleeping porches to create additional bedrooms or a family room.
Typically, a living room and the primary bedroom faced the street. The lone bathroom was behind the primary, and the second bedroom was usually built out to the side, behind the bathroom. The kitchen was behind the living room. “It went living room, kitchen, and sleeping porch.”
The original homes had hardwood floors. Many had cloth on the walls that were eventually replaced by gypsum and drywall.
The company constructed several other buildings on the site of the mining operation. William Boyce Thompson bought the operation in 1910 and, by August of 1918, had built a blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, and a change room. A quarter mile from the shaft, the company built a powerhouse and machine shop, a general office building, two dwellings, a mess hall, an assay office, a warehouse, two coal bins, and a corral. By January 1913, the company employed 50 men at the mine.
Other improvements in 1917 included the construction of a mine foreman’s house, the construction of five three-room cottages for married employees, and a machine shop near the concentrator. In 1918, the company built a two-story warehouse of concrete and steel.
An original 1996 inventory of surface buildings and structures at Magma noted 165 properties that
appeared to meet age and condition criteria for historic designation. As a result of the 1998 survey, the consultants concluded that 65 properties could be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as part of two potential historic districts, and thirty-one properties appeared eligible for individual landmark designation.
“The large number of intact buildings and structures at the Magma mine make it unique in Arizona,” wrote Douglas E. Kupel in a 1999 issue of the Mining History Journal. “Most other copper properties have been severely altered during the conversion to open pit mining. The continuation of underground hard rock mining at Magma has resulted in an extraordinary level of preservation for its surface features.”