Spectre of the Spanish Flu haunts old US mining town
by Javier Tovar
“Gone but Not Forgotten.” So reads the tombstone of Carl Axel Carlson, an Army private who died of the Spanish Flu in 1918. The train that carried his body home to Bisbee brought the deadly flu with it.
More than a century later this once flourishing Arizona mining town, now visited by tourists and home to hippies and retirees, is struggling to survive a new deadly pandemic.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gold, silver and copper were mined in Bisbee, making it one of the most prosperous towns in the American West.
Located in Arizona’s Mule Mountains near the border with Mexico, it had more than 25,000 residents in 1910, according to the city’s official website.
The Spanish Flu “traveled west by train from the east coast,” said local historian Mike Anderson.
Carlson died in September 1918 at a military base in New Jersey, on the US east coast. His body was sent home by rail for burial with full military honors.
Anderson points out other graves in the cemetery — J. E. Henderson (1893-1918), Clara L. Coffman (1884-1918), and others who were among the 180 people killed when the pandemic swept through Bisbee.
The Spanish Flu “reached Bisbee in the first week of October, and within two or three days, it was killing people,” he said.
“This disease took about 72 hours from the time of the presentation of first symptoms until the victims would die — and it was a horrible death,” he said.
In 2020, COVID-19 reached Bisbee by car, and brought back memories of that earlier, nearly forgotten crisis.
The mines have since closed, and Bisbee’s population has dropped to 5,200.
The canteens and brothels from the town’s heyday have been replaced by art galleries and boutiques. Restaurants now occupy old brick and wood Victorian-era buildings.
Bisbee’s economy, however, is at a standstill, with 57 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including one death.
Arizona, one of the hardest hit states in the country, has recorded some 164,000 COVID-19 cases. State hospitals are nearly maxed out.
Bisbee is divided over how to handle this new pandemic: close down and quarantine, especially since so many of its people are elderly? Or welcome back tourists to avoid bankruptcy, but risk exposure to the virus?
Mayor David Smith said the first coronavirus cases appeared after tourists descended on Bisbee over the Memorial Day weekend in late May.
“The bars were packed,” Smith said. “There are people that just don’t care.” (AFP)
