The Mine You Can See From Space — a stop on the Coronado Trail Scenic Byway.
And here it is. Whatever you were expecting, it will be bigger.
This is Morenci, one of the largest copper mines on the planet and the biggest in North America — a complex of open pits, terraced benches, and waste dumps that has consumed entire mountains and the original town along with them. The benches you can see stepping down the walls are each tall enough to drive a haul truck along, which gives you a sense of scale when the trucks look like ants.
Look for the colours. Turquoise and jade-green ponds are copper in solution. Rusty orange and ochre streaks are iron oxidising. The greys and purples are different rock types laid bare. It is, whatever you think about it, a genuinely otherworldly landscape and unlike anything else you will see on an American road.
I'd encourage you to look at it without reaching immediately for either the outrage or the pride, because both are true. This mine has fed families here for a century and a quarter and produced the metal that electrified the country. It has also swallowed a town, moved a river, and permanently rearranged forty square miles.
There is a public overlook. Take the time — and note that the whole operation runs twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year.