The import-export firm at first exported United States cotton from the Deep South to England and imported various metals to the US needed for industrialization.

[2] in 1821, Anson G. Phelps started a partnership in New York City with Elisha Peck, a merchant who had been in trade in Berlin, Connecticut.

Peck moved to Liverpool to run the British end of their business, an import-export company that shipped US-grown cotton from the Deep South to England, importing tin, iron, copper and other metals essential for industrial growth and development in the United States.

When Anson G. Phelps died, his sons-in-law purchased his portion of the company, but retained the name, and the import-export business.

[5] In 1930, Dr. William Henry Nichols died; Phelps Dodge purchased the Laurel Hill plant that same year.

Portraying those affiliated with the IWW as bent on war-related sabotage, the company ordered them expelled from the jurisdiction, deporting them to Hermanas, New Mexico.

[7][8] The Phelps Dodge copper mine at Morenci, Arizona was the site of a violent strike from 1983 to 1986, culminating in one of the largest union decertifications in American labor history.

On Sunday, November 19, 2006, Freeport-McMoRan announced that it planned to acquire Phelps Dodge for $25.9 billion in cash and stock to create the world's largest publicly traded copper mining company.

On Monday, March 19, 2007, Phelps Dodge Corporation was acquired by Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), creating the world's largest publicly traded copper company, with 25,000 employees at acquisition.

At the time of its acquisition in 2007, Phelps Dodge Corporation had large copper mining operations in Bagdad, Morenci, Sahuarita, Safford and Miami, Arizona.

[10] The Center for Public Integrity has reported that Phelps Dodge is named as a potentially responsible party in at least 13 Superfund toxic waste sites.

[11] By June 1998, Reynaldo Delgado had worked for the Phelps Dodge smelting plant in Hurley, New Mexico, for two years.

When the crew encountered an emergency situation known as a "runaway," Mr. Delgado's supervisors ordered him to enter – alone – a tunnel to remove a ladle that was overflowing with molten slag.