{"id":3127,"slug":"lavender-pit-bisbee-arizona","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Lavender Pit is the hole Bisbee made — the 300-acre open pit that Harrison Lavender conceived in 1950, mined for 86 million tons of ore until 1974. It's 950 feet deep and the reason the town reinvented itself as an artists' colony.","The pit was the economics — the low-grade ore that was profitable only in bulk, the 1,200-pound charges that broke 75,000 tons a blast, the Bisbee Blue turquoise that came out as a byproduct. The price of copper killed it; the pit stayed.","The pit is still there — the rim viewing platforms, the hole that's the town's landmark, the turquoise that's still the finest. The file keeps the Lavender Pit: the 1950 opening, the 86 million tons, and the hole that's Bisbee's monument.","The Lavender Pit is the archive's pit file — the copper hole, the lavender manager, and the mine that's the town's view."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Lavender Pit is the archive's pit file — the open-pit mine, the Bisbee Blue turquoise, and the hole that's the town's landmark.","A pit that was the town's living keeps its rim — the file's suggestion being that the Lavender's hold is the hole: the 950 feet, the 86 million tons, and the pit that's still Bisbee's view."]}],"name":"Lavender Pit","aliases":[],"type":"SITE","type_label":"Site","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","INDUSTRIAL","MINING"],"groups":["legends"],"desc":"The open pit that ate the town—1974, the lavender hole.","full_desc":"A site in Bisbee, Arizona, Lavender Pit is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The open pit that ate the town—1974, the lavender hole. It sits in the archive under mining history, industry and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Bisbee","county":null,"state":"Arizona","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":31.398036,"lon":-109.931834,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"AZ66 batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":3081,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence at the pit. Lavender Pit in Bisbee, Arizona carries the report the way old places do — as part of its identity. The file holds testimony rather than proof; the claim remains anecdotal. 'Lavender Pit' carries the account. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Lavender Pit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Pit","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The 1950-74 pit is documented. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Lavender Pit'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on. It remains the site's standing claim.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1950","date_end":"1974","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Lavender Pit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Pit","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Lavender Pit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Pit","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Lavender Pit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Pit","desc":"Former copper mine in Cochise County, Arizona","extract":"The Lavender Pit is a former open pit copper mine near Bisbee in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. It is located near the famous Copper Queen Mine. The Lavender Pit was named in honor of\nHarrison M. Lavender (1890–1952), who as vice-president and General Manager of Phelps Dodge Corporation, conceived and carried out this plan for making the previously unprofitable low-grade copper bearing rock of the area into commercial copper ore.\nPhelps Dodge Corporation opened the Lavender Pit in 1950, at the site of the earlier, higher-grade Sacramento Hill mine. Production through 1974 totaled 86 million tons of ore averaging about 0.7% copper, or about 600,000 tons of copper produced, with gold ","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Lavender_Pit_Bisbee_AZ.jpg/960px-Lavender_Pit_Bisbee_AZ.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":31.43194444,"lon":-109.89916667},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}