Miami Mine, Arizona

The Miami Mine has an open pit, a smelter, and a rod mill, which produces the final product: copper rod. The facilities are operated by Freeport-McMoRan, the largest publicly traded copper mining company in the world. The Miami/Globe area is an old mining district, and a heavily industrialized remote area in Arizona. There are several active and inactive mines, slag piles, and tailings piles in the area, some of which are mined by BHP and other copper companies. Operations start and stop according to fluctuations in the market for copper. Miami is one of the more dramatic contemporary and historic mining areas in the nation. In 2015, Freeport-McMoRan announced their intention to close the Miami mine due to the plummeting price of copper.