COCHISE COUNTY OPENS ITS NEW BUILDING

Cochise county officials are now housed in the new, modernistic Court House that has risen during the past year on the hillside bordering the main thoroughfare through the city of Bisbee. Twenty-six miles to the north, in the town of Tombstone, once the rip-roaring mining center of the Southwest, stands the old Court House, deserted after 50 years' of service to the people of the county and state. About two years ago, after a spirited county contest, it was decided at the polls to move the county seat to Bisbee, at the same time $300,000 in bonds were voted for the building of a new county building to house the officers, courts and the county jail.

Built along modern lines, the building is an imposing structure in this picturesque mining city of southeastern Arizona. In the hills back of the new structure lie mountains of copper ore, waiting the call of the world's commerce to send it to the copper marts of the world.

Unique Mining 'Town

Bisbee is an unique mining town, located in a winding canyon. While the town itself is but a few blocks wide, its main street, off of which the Court House stands, is miles long, extending, as it does, through several communities which go to make up the Warren district. Along this way one passes Johnston's addition, Lowell, Warren, Tintown, Don Luis, Jiggerville and Bisbee itself.

Bisbee is situated on the "Broadway of America" highway about half way between Douglas, the smelter city, and Tombstone, the romantic, picturesque town of the eighties, when its silver mines were among the greatest producers in the world, and all the famous mine town characters of that period added excitement and color to its civic existence.

Gone are the days that featured the early life of the old Court House of Cochise county. It will be interesting for the historians of 50 years from now to compare the stirring and tragic events that have taken place in the old with those that will transpire in the new. It is doubtful if the present or future generations will be able to produce as interesting a record as the hardy pioneers of Arizona enacted within the red brick walls of the former court house. Today we hand it to the gleaming newness of the Bisbee Court House as being one of the finest public buildings in the state, but in 1881, when the now abandoned building first opened its doors to the service of the public it was viewed with equal pride.

Many prominent and near prominent people have held office therein-many criminals of note were confined in its jail, many noted people secured their marriage licenses there, many people secured both their marriage and divorce papers therein and some of the latter nearly collided running from the divorce court to the marriage bureau.

Scene of Notable Trials

John L. Sullivan visited the famous building and was there just before the legal hanging of four men occurred in its jail yard, many trials of note were held in its court room. Held there was the trial of W. C. Greene, charged with