Carson City, the formative years

The Comstock Lode silver rush of 1859 still ranks as one of the biggest mining booms in history. It brought economic prosperity to the year-old town of Carson City at least as far as business goes, because the population only grew ever so slightly. In the 1860 Census, Carson City had 714 people. It was small, but had alot of clout, both politically and economically. When Carson City became the capital of the new Territory of Nevada one year later, the population was about 750. However, in the decade of the 1860s, the population grew by a whopping 326%! When the 1870 Census was undertaken, it was recorded that Carson City had grown from 714 people to 3,042! Becoming the capital had alot to do with the dramatic increase, but the early to mid 1860s were also the peak years of the mining boom. During this time, nearby Virginia City had grown to a staggering 30,000 people! I have never understood why Virginia City did not become the capital because it was by far the biggest town in Nevada at the time and it is also the only town at the time that had more wealth and power than Carson City did. That is not a complaint because Carson City is a great town to have as a capital city!
While this part of Nevada was booming, the Civil War was raging in the east. The President, Abraham Lincoln, needed another Union State and he had alot of supporters in Nevada. This led to full statehood for Nevada on October 31, 1864. Nevada became a state even though it did not even come close to the required minimum population for statehood. In fact the population of Nevada was only about 1/3 of the necessary minimum. Despite this, Nevada was now a state with the same rights and privileges as other states, even powerful California next door.
Carson City was a wild and woolly frontier town, despite the fact that it was the seat of government for a territory and, eventually, a state. The Carson City of the 1860s has one of the most lawless reputations of the Wild West Era even to this day. Carson's City's reputation is comparable to places such as Tombstone, Arizona; Bodie, California; Dodge City, Kansas; Abilene, Kansas and both Virginia Citys--Nevada and Montana!

Carson City, In The Beginning

1858 is the pivotal year that started the state of Nevada on its present course. That is the year that Abraham Curry arrived in the Eagle Valley. Soon thereafter he surveyed and platted a townsite. When Curry arrived, there was already talk about this area being separated from Utah Territory and becoming its own territory. Curry was so sure that his new town would become the capital that, when he drew up the town plat, he left a large, vacant space in the heart of town so the future territory would have a place to build a capitol building.
Curry's new town was indirectly named after the famed western explorer Kit Carson. The town was named for the Carson River and the river was named for Kit Carson.
Shortly after Carson City was settled, Abraham Curry built the Warm Springs Hotel and immediately began renting out rooms.
At first, Carson City was a sleepy little village. However, one year later, the Comstock Lode Mining Boom began and brought people from all over the country to this corner of Nevada Territory. This time, it was not gold that attracted people to pull up stakes and leave, it was silver. There was silver everywhere! The biggest lodes of silver ever discovered! Silver is still the principal mineral that is mined in Nevada. The silver rush of 1859 brought economic prosperity to Curry's new town, which was only a year old. Not only did Carson City become a "mining camp," but so did most of the other towns in the immediate area. Most of the mining was done in and around Dayton, Virginia City and Silver City. There was also gold found just to the south of Virginia City and this led to the creation of the town of Gold Hill.
This boom of 1859 brought about 20 years of economic prosperity to this area.
On March 2, 1861, the United States Congress did the inevitable and separated Nevada from Utah and declared it a new territory. The booming town of Carson City was declared the temporary capital by the newly created Territorial Legislature, much to the delight of Abraham Curry. Curry began leasing space in his hotel as meeting rooms for the fledgling government, since his open plaza in the middle of town was being used to graze cows.

Carson City, a refresher

I talked about Carson City, Nevada at length on my other travel blog, "In My Travels," but since I have not talked about it since June, I will start with a refresher.
In September, 2008, I visited Nevada's capital city for the first time. I spent two nights there and fell in love with the city! It is one of the oldest cities in Nevada. In fact, all of Nevada's oldest settlements are in this western part of the state near Lake Tahoe and the California border. Until the early 1900s, this area contained over 95% of Nevada's population. Las Vegas didn't exist until 1905!
Carson City is located in the beautiful Eagle Valley, in the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Ranchers began moving into the Eagle Valley in 1849, the year of the famous California gold rush. Many of them spent the winter here instead of trying to cross the formidable mountain range in the coldest part of the year. Alot of them stayed. However, no town was established at first. Instead, the lush, grassy valley was occupied by widely scattered farms and ranches. In the spring of 1851, the Eagle Station Trading Post opened for business. It served as a local grocery store and also as a stage station. This was the nebulous beginning of Carson City, which later grew on the same spot. For seven years, this trading post served as the focal point of life in the valley, serving farmers and ranchers as well as the occasional traveler that ventured through this area, usually on their way to the California gold fields.
The Eagle Valley was, and still is, a lush grassy area that is well-watered by the Sierra Nevadas. This mountain range lies mostly in California and is home to some of the coldest and snowiest winters in the United States. It is an area that was ripe for settlement and is the primary reason that was the first part of Nevada to be settled. Today, this area is still home to about 30% of Nevada's population, with roughly 65% living in the Las Vegas area at the south end of the state. That leaves only 5% of the population scattered over the rest of the state!
The trading post served as the focal point of the immediate area of what is now Carson City, but there were two towns in the vicinity that got the start even before the trading post opened. I have already talked about one of them on "In My Travels," but I will talk about it again, plus the place at the south end of the Eagle Valley, later in this blog because there is a dispute as to which town is the oldest town in Nevada. One town has the "official" title, but I think it should be bestowed on the other town based on research I have done.

Carson City, Nevada, September, 2008

Beginning on August 30, 2008, I embarked on a memorable, two-and-a-half week vacation that ranks among my best vacations ever. It ranks as the vacation where I put the most mileage on my car, about 6,400 miles! While nearly the entire vacation stands out in my mind, some places in particular stand out, such as Golden Spike National Historic Site in northern Utah; the rugged water and lava-carved desert of southwestern Idaho; the Virgin River Gorge of northwestern Arizona; the secretive Area 51 military base in Nevada, which is actually the world's worst kept secret because everyone knows of its existence despite all the government denials; the abandoned Wendover Air Force Base in western Utah; Virginia City, Nevada, which is one of the most famous mining boom towns from the "Wild West" era; and particularly Carson City, Nevada's capital.
On my other travel blog, "In My Travels," I talked in depth about this vacation for 9 months and I could have talked alot more, but I was trying to limit my writings so it didn't get too long and my readers lost interest as a result. Finally, in early June of 2009, I decided to stop writing about this vacation so I could pursue other projects, but this epic vacation is still fresh in my mind, like it just happened yesterday, so I am going to resume talking about it on this blog because there is so much more that I want to say. I will start with my favorite part of the vacation, Carson City. I spent 2 days and nights in this beautiful and historic city and there is so much more that I can say about Nevada's capital city and its immediate area.
Until this vacation, all I had seen of Nevada was Clark County, where Las Vegas is. My travels in Nevada had been mostly confined to Las Vegas and points south, such as the towns of Boulder City, Searchlight and Laughlin, with 2 recent visits to Mesquite, Overton and Logandale, in the eastern part of Clark County. I have now seen a sizable chunk of Nevada and the memories will stay wit5h me for the rest of my life. I will attempt to capture some of that magic in this blog.

A Sad Legacy, finale

Chicosa Lake State Park, on the high plains of northeastern New Mexico, is the only abandoned state park I have ever seen. In every other case that I know of, when a state gave up one of its parks for whatever reason, the park simply changes ownership. It becomes a privately-owned park, a county park, a city park or, in some cases, becomes a unit of the national park system or the Bureau of Land Management. It was really sad to see this abandoned park and what makes it even sadder is the fact that it is located in a county that has seen a massive population loss since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
Yet, I can still see some potential for this abandoned recreation area if the state ever wants to take it back, which is unlikely, or if anyone else wanted to take over operations of this park and reopen it. The fact that the lake dried up does not seem like a very good reason to close the park because there are other state parks in New Mexico and in other states that do not have a body of water to attact people, and those parks are doing quite well. Even though Chicosa Lake is now a dry mudflat, I think this place still has the potential to attract visitors and outdoor enthusiasts. First of all, since it is located in a very lightly populated area, it has extremely dark skies at night. This would be great for skywatchers and stargazers(like me). I can also envision a park that is dedicatd to the beauty that the Great Plains has to offer, with nature trails that interpret the different types of vegetation in the area. The western history of the area can also be exploited, such as the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail that once went through the park. Charles Loving and Oliver Goodnight are two of the most famous cattle drovers from the pioneer era. When the park was open, its museum dealt with the cattle drive history of the park, but I think that can be started up again, even if it is on a smaller scale. If I had the money to buy the park, fix it up and reopen it, I would. In the future, I would like to camp at the abandoned campground so I can sit under the big prairie sky and watch the stars. There is very little light pollution in this area because there are very few residences or businesses. Most of the lights visible are in the diminutive town of Roy, eight miles away and Roy only has 211 people. There are no big industries such as feedlots, mines or quarries that would give off light pollution, just the occasional, forlorn farmhouse or ranchhouse and these are widely separated
In summation, I still see potential for this abandoned state park and I think that either the state of New Mexico should look into reopening it.

A Sad Legacy, part 3

This is what Chicosa Lake looks like today. It dried up due to excessive drawdown of the water table. The drying of the lake caused the closure of the state park

While I was walking around the abandoned campground, I noticed alot of dried up cowpies all over the place. I even saw them on the front porch of the bathroom/shower building! Which means cows have grazed this former state park, at least periodically, since the park's closure. One of the most famous cattle trails, the Goodnight-Loving Trail (this name has drawn alot of snickers and innuendos for over a 100 years, but it was named after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, two of the most famous cattlemen of the 19th century), came right through this area. When the park was open, there was a museum dedicated to the history of cattle ranching and cattle drives that made the American West famous. It had displays of different cattle brands, barbed-wire fencing displays, displays of various items, such as cooking utensils, that were used on cattle drives and alot of historical photographs. It also had historical displays that pertained to the nearby Santa Fe Trail.
While I was standing at one of the dilapidated picnic ramadas, I saw a small grove of trees to the south and a barely discernible building behind them. Behind this building is an abandoned house, undoubtedly a ranger residence from the days when this was a state park. The larger building was once the museum, now sitting forlornly on the windswept prairie. I am assuming the artifacts that were once contained in this museum have been sent to either the state history museum in Santa Fe, or have been distributed among various museums around the state.
I don't know if there was another campground in the park, I didn't see any evidence of one. I am under the impression that this was the only campground. If so, that means there were only 20 campsites in the park, which isn't very many. However, this is not a heavily visited area by tourists, so 20 campsites may have been adequate.
What is left of Chicosa Lake is an analogy for streams and lakes all over the country. It used to be a reliable source of water on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, but now has been reduced to nothing more than a dried up, cracked mud, depression in the ground. This has been brought about by excessive drawdown of the water table over the decades. Lakes, creeks and rivers have been rendered dry, or at the very least, intermittent, because of human manipulation of the natural process. This is not confined to the United States, but it is happening all over the world.

A Sad Legacy, part 2

This is the former bathroom/shower building at the abandoned state park

When I was in Harding County's largest town, Roy, I decided to drive north out of town on State Highway 120 to see if I could find what happened to the former Chicosa Lake State Park. After the highway leaves town, it travels 4 miles north and then it makes a hard, 90 degree turn and heads in an easterly direction. Finally, when I was 6 miles outside of Roy, I saw a dirt road coming in from the left. The street sign said "Chicosa Lake Road." So I turned onto this road. After about a third of mile, I started seeing covered picnic shelters, the kind that would typically be found in campsites. I made a left turn onto another dirt road and, after crossing a cattle guard, I entered the boundary of the former state park. However, I did not see any type of sign announcing that the park is now a county park or privately owned. I soon realized that I had just entered an abandoned state park! Chicosa Lake State Park is completely and utterly abandoned! This is the first time that I ever saw an abandoned state park!
I counted 20 picnic shelters. Most of them are still in good shape, but I noticed that that roof, or canopy, on 3 of them are beginning to cave in. All of these picnic shelters are lined up in a straight line next to the fence that once marked the east boundary of the state park. All road access to these former campsites is overgrown with tall prairie grasses and other types of plants, even a few thorny shrubs and prickly pear cactuses. In front of these picnic shelters is the bathroom/shower building, which looks like it is still in good condition, at least on the outside. I could not check out the inside because the bathrooms were locked. There is a big front patio on this building and towards the front center of that area I saw alot of debris piled up, such as old, rotted wood, nails and other assorted debris. The front edge of this patio is lined with wooden railing, which must have been rather attractive looking when it was maintained regularly. The parking lot next to this building is also overgrown with vegetation. I saw the entrance and exit to this parking lot. There is a wood-rail fence that runs alongside the main park road and there are 2 gaps in it, one on each end of the parking lot, where vehicles were once able to enter the parking lot. When I walked through the tall grass growing in the former parking lot, I kicked up alot of grasshoppers at every step. There was no place to park my car except in the road, although I pulled over as far to the edge of the road as I could.
Directly across the dirt road from the former bathroom building is the dried up bed of Chicosa Lake. Now it is just a dried up, cracked-mud depression in the ground, baked hard by the relentless prairie sun. The lake was de-watered by excessive pumping of the underlying water table, the western edge of the Ogallala Aquifer. This underground reservoir serves the water needs of a large area of the Midwest. The aquifer lies underneath parts of 7 states--New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. These other parts of the aquifer have also been severely depleted by groundwater pumping to irrigate the innumerable farms in this part of the United States, resulting in the drying up of many streams and lakes.
The parking lot next to the former bathroom/shower building, plus the access roads to all of the adjacent campsites, were dirt, just like the park's main road is dirt. This is typical of many New Mexico state parks that I have seen. I don't know why they keeps the roads unpaved, maybe they want it to look more natural.
When I got back to my car after checking out the bathroom/shower building and several of the picnic shelters and campsites, my shoes and socks were full of stickerburs, so I had to pick them all out.
Chicosa Lake State Park was closed in April of 1996, shortly after the lake dried up. The first time I was ever in Roy, in 1994, I remember seeing brown and white highway signs pointing the way to Chicosa Lake State Park.

A Sad Legacy

On a recent vacation in New Mexico, I went into Harding County, which I spoke of on my other blog "Ramblings From The Rim." This is the county in the northeastern part of that state that was severely depopulated by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and to this day has never recovered from that traumatic period of American History. I will have more to say on Harding County in the near future, but for now, I want to concentrate on a specific part of that beautiful, but mostly deserted county. I have about 10 pictures that I took of this place and I will post them on this blog as soon as someone shows me how(The photo on this blog was put there originally by the person who set up two of my three blogs. This specific blog I set up on my own, and the photo transferred from the other two blogs when I set it up).
For about the past dozen years, I had noticed that a state park on the high plains of northeastern New Mexico had suddenly disappeared from the map. I know of several other former state parks in other states that are no longer state parks for variuos reasons, usually budget cuts. Because of budget cuts the state either gave the state park to a county and it now serves as a county park, sold the park to a private individual or company and it is now a privately owned campground or, in some cases, the state park is now part of a national park or national forest. Examples of a state park that is now a county park are Tips Park near Three Rivers, Texas; Wolf Creek Lake Park near Perryton, Texas and Painted Rocks County Park near Gila Bend, Arizona. An example of a former state park that is now a privately owned campground is Harry McAdams Park in Hobbs, New Mexico. A former state park that is now a city-owned park is Red Rock Park in Gallup, New Mexico. Examples of 2 state parks that are now Bureau of Land Management Campgrounds are Valley of Fires Park near Carrizozo, New Mexico and Newspaper Rock Campground near Monticello, Utah. An example of another former state park that is now federally-owned is Optima National Wildlife Refuge near Hardesty, Oklahoma. This wildlife refuge was once Optima Lake State Park. One last example is the Kaibab Lake Campground in Kaibab National Forest near Williams, Arizona. This was once a state park.
Well, on my recent trip to Harding County, New Mexico, I found another former state park and was shocked by what I saw! I still have a vivid picture of this place in my mind because it had such a profound effect on me.

The Bisbee Deportation, finale

Meanwhile, the mine companies set up armed guards on all roads leading into Bisbee, Warren and the other towns in the area to make sure that none of the "troublemakers" returned.
Also, in the next few weeks, the mine companies, along with the various town governments, set up "kangaroo" courts to try anyone that was accused of supporting the IWW or any other union and thereby threatened the interest of the mine companies. Many of these people were also shipped out of town.
Several months after the initial deportation on July 12, United States President Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Mediation Commission to investigate the deportation and all of the related events. The commission ruled against the mine companies and in favor of the IWW and all of the workers and innocent bystanders. They then handed the case over to the state of Arizona for prosecution and the state did absolutely nothing! They took no action whatsoever against the mine company managers!
In the next few months, approximately 300 lawsiuts were filed by the deportees, but only one ever went to trial. The mine companies were found "not guilty!" Many other cases were settled out of court and the rest of them were dismissed! The mine company managers were found to be at fault by the federal government, but no action was ever taken. They got away with it!
There is a quote by IWW member Fred Watson that sums up everything perfectly. He said "How it could have happened in a civilized country I'll never know. This is the only country it could have happened in. As far as we're concerned, we're still on strike."
224 of the vigilante members were prosecuted for their crimes, however.
These seminal events are rarely talked about in the Bisbee area today because there are still alot of bad feelings involved. Even today, 92 years later, it is still a volatile situation mainly because the mine company managers were never punished for their crimes. As far as I can tell, none of the members of the various town governments were ever prosecuted for setting up the "kangaroo" courts to weed out other people who disagreed with the mine company manager's tactics.

The Bisbee Deportation, part 2

On July 12, 1917; at 6:30 a.m., approximately 2,000 vigilantes, who had been assembled by the mining companies and organized by the Cochise County Sheriff, Harry Wheeler, began rounding up union workers that had waged a labor strike against the mines in the area. Men were rousted out of bed, taken from their houses and kidnapped off the streets. Most of these men were beaten and robbed. Later, it has been confirmed, the wives and daughters of many of these men were raped by vigilante members. Many of the men that were rounded up were not strikers or even union members! Two men were killed during this roundup. The men that were kidnapped by the vigilantes were marched, at gunpoint, for distances up to 4 miles. They were held at Warren Ballpark, the local baseball stadium that is now used by both the Bisbee High School football and baseball teams. The high, stockade-like, wooden fence that surrounds the stadium served as an effective barrier against escape. At 11:00 a.m.
1,186 men were loaded onto railroad boxcars that were filled with deep manure, and shipped out of Warren. They did not have any food or water, nor were they given any.
The train was sent to Columbus, New Mexico, approximately 220 miles away. However, when the train arrived in Columbus, it was turned away because the town did not have the accommodations for that many people. As the train headed back west, it stopped 20 miles west of Columbus in the tiny town of Hermanas, which is now a ghost town. Once the train stopped in Hermanas, everyone was ordered off the train by the armed guards. After they all got off the train, everyone was told that if they ever returned to the Bisbee area they would be killed. Then the train left them behind and headed back to Warren. The next day, a train arrived with food rations and water, but everyone was left without shelter for 3 days until U.S. Army troops arrived from Camp Furlong in Columbus(the site of the famous raid by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa one year earlier. The troops took everyone to Camp Furlong where some of them were detained without being charged with a crime for several months.

Bisbee, part 8/ The Bisbee Deportation

The summer of 1917 was a tense one in the Bisbee area, particularly in Warren. The tension started as a labor dispute between the various mining companies and their employees. These events led to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) becoming a powerful organization. The labor dispute escalated into armed vigilante action. The culmination of these events is one of the darkest episodes in American and Arizona history.
On June 24, 1917, the IWW sent a list of demands to the various mining companies on behalf of the employees of the mines. These demands included the following:
1) improved working conditions with increased safety, 2) An end to discrimination against foreign workers, 3) an end to discrimination against union laborers and 4) a flat wage instead of the sliding pay scale that was tied to market prices in which workers were paid more when prices were high and paid less when prices were low. As far as improved safety conditions went, the IWW wanted 2 men on each machine and a cassation of blasting while men were working in the area.
The managers of all of the mining companies in the Bisbee area rejected all of these demands, setting the stage for the Bisbee Deportation that began on July 12, 1917.

Bisbee, part 7

A short distance south of the Bakerville section of Bisbee is the former town of Warren. This is where the Bisbee City Hall and Bisbee High School are located. Warren has a very old, historic downtown business district that has seen better days. This section of Bisbee has about 1,100 people, which makes it the third most populous section of the sprawling town of Bisbee.
This is the only one of the 8 towns that merged to create modern Bisbee that actually existed on blueprint before it existed in reality. All the other sections of town have streets that were built without any apparent pattern to them because they follow the lay of the land. However, Warren was a planned town. Most of the east-west streets are in an "arc" pattern. That is they run in a northeast direction and then they bend and run in a southeast direction. At the apex of the curve, the streets are intersected by twin streets that run due north-south. These streets, called East Vista Boulevard and West Vista Boulevard, are separated by a long, linear park. Two blocks farther east is Arizona Street, the "main drag" of Warren. Most of the streets in Warren are named after mining company managers, such as Congdon, Hovland, Cole, Briggs, Ruppe and D'Autremont.
Warren does not have steep hills or mountains surrounding it. There are hills, however, but they are not as perpendicular as they are in other parts of town.
Warren was laid out in 1907. Most of the north-south streets end in front of a fabulous mansion that was once occupied by a mining company manager.
On the south edge of Warren, at the intersection of Arizona Street and
Ruppe Avenue, is one of the most legendary sports stadiums in the country--Warren Ballpark. It is a combination football field and baseball field and is used by the Bisbee Pumas high school football and baseball teams. It was originally built as a baseball stadium in 1907 for a semi-pro baseball team, the Bisbee/Douglas Copper Kings. The northeast corner has a very old fashioned baseball grandstand, built out of wood, that looks like something from the early 1900s, which is indeed when the structure was built. On the west side of this stadium are some more modern football grandstands and out in the middle, in the baseball outfield, some temporary grandstands are put up every summer to accommodate visiting teams' fans for football games. These stands are taken down sometime before baseball season starts. This entire structure is enclosed by a high, wooden fence.
This is one of very few sports stadiums in the country that have a state historical marker on it and the only high school-owned stadium I know of with a historical marker.
This venerable, old stadium has played a pivotal role in the history of the Bisbee area and Cochise County and I will go into more detail in future editions of this blog.

Bisbee, part 6

2 miles south of Tintown, the poorest part of Bisbee, is "New" Bisbee. This is the most populated part of Bisbee today, with about 4,500 people. This part of town was not one of the eight towns that merged to form modern Bisbee. Instead, this area was settled in the mid 1960s and now has nearly half of the town's population. This part of town does not have a downtown business district. The heart of "New" Bisbee is the intersection of Highway 92 and Naco Highway, which is the busiest intersection in town. Clustered around this intersection are several fast food restaurants and a big shopping center, or strip mall.
Also, a little farther south, is the Cochise County Government Complex. It is an 8-building complex that houses most functions of the county government. Everything except the county court system is located here. Court functions are still carried out at the old county courthouse in "Old" Bisbee. The old courthouse use to house the entire county government, back in the days when government was much smaller.
The county complex is located on a street with a pleasant name--Melody Lane. The administration building has a very large picture window with a great view! The window looks out across a big, grassy valley towards the towns of Naco, Arizona and
Naco, Sonora, Mexico. These towns are 5 miles away. The view is downhill and several mountain ranges in Mexico are visible. I love this view!
This part of Bisbee is the only section of town that does not have steep hills or mountains completely surrounding it. This part of town is not exactly flat, though. Instead it is on a downhill slope for nearly its entire area. This area is mostly a grassland.
This part of town has the middle school and an elementary school. It also has a post office, one of three post offices for a town with slightly less than 10,000 people.
I have one more part of Bisbee to talk about. This final section of town has a legendary history, quite possibly more legendary than "Old" Bisbee. It is also the location of a rather unique sports stadium.

Bisbee, part 5

Next door to Galena, heading southwest on highway 92, are the former towns of Briggs and Tintown. The Briggs section of Bisbee lies mostly west of the highway and the Tintown section is mostly on the east side. Briggs was founded in 1901 and had 285 people at its peak. Today it has about 200. Like Galena, it was mostly residential with very few businesses.
Tintown was the poorest of the eight towns that merged to form modern Bisbee and it is still the poorest part of town. With the exception of Highway 92, every street in the Tintown section is dirt. The former City Hall is located on one of those dirt streets with windows missing and part of its roof missing. This area has about 75 people. At its peak it had nearly 1,000,so it has alot of empty buildings and ruins. It was first settled in 1898 by Mexican laborers.
Between the Galena and Briggs sections of Bisbee is one of only 2 intersections in town that have traffic lights, the intersection of State Highway 92 and School Terrace Road.
The next section of town I will talk about is called Bakerville. It is adjacent to the Lowell section of town, on the southeast, on Bisbee Road and due east of the Galena section. Today, the Bakerville section has about 500 people, but at its peak, the town of Bakerville had about 3,400 people. As might be expected, this section of town has alot of abandoned, dilapidated buildings. The downtown business district has a few businesses still open, but most of them are abandoned. The main feature of Bakerville is Copper Queen Hospital, which has only 13 beds, making it the smallest hospital in Arizona. Bakerville was settled in 1905.
I have 2 more sections of Bisbee to talk about. One of them has the majority of the town's population today, even more people than "Old" Bisbee. It is also the newest part of town, not part of the original merger. The other section has the most legendary history of all the town's sections, possibly more legendary than "Old" Bisbee.

Bisbee, part 4

The next part of Bisbee that I want to talk about was once the town of Saginaw, named after the city in Michigan. It sits about 1/4 mile east of Lowell. When Lowell and Bisbee were separate towns, their boundaries touched. The "main drag" of Saginaw is Old Douglas Road, which is the old alignment of U.S. Highway 80, forerunner to today's State Highway 80. This highway once was called "The Broadway of America," and it ran from Tybee Island, Georgia to San Diego, California. Now the highway ends in Dallas, Texas. Everything west of Dallas has been downgraded to either a state highway, county road, city street, federally-owned business loop through certain cities, or it has even been abandoned in some places.
There isn't much left to Saginaw's downtown business district. There are a few abandoned buildings, one occupied business, and several empty spaces where buildings once stood. Either they were the victim of a fire or they were demolished because they had fallen into really poor condition. All of the streets in the former town of Saginaw, with the exception of Old Douglas Road, have letter designations, such as "A" Street. The letters stop at "M" Street. The streets in both directions have letter designations, which is unusual. Lettered streets are usually parallel to each other.
Saginaw had about 400 people at its peak, but now this area is home to about 100 people. The main feature of this part of Bisbee is an elementary school, one of three elementary schools in Bisbee. The entire area that once comprised Saginaw lies north of State Highway 80's current alignment. When the highway was rerouted, it was built along the southern edge of Saginaw.
A short distance southwest of the former town of Lowell, on State Highway 92, is Galena, another one of the eight towns that merged to create modern Bisbee. Again, the boundaries of the towns of Lowell and Galena touched, just like the boundary between Lowell and Saginaw. Galena never really had a discernible downtown area and not much in the way of businesses, it was mostly residential. The population of Galena at its peak was about 350, and it is still about the same today. What was once the Galena City Hall is now a pool hall and bar.

Bisbee, part 3

When State Highway 80 goes east from the oldest part of Bisbee, it runs along the edge of a deep, open pit, a relic from the town's mining days. It is called the Lavender Pit. It is nearly half a mile deep and one mile wide. When the pit was active, it expanded so much that highway 80 had to be re-routed because the pit was threatening to destroy the highway. Now there is an overlook on the edge of the highway so people can look down into the dark recesses of the pit.
One mile east of "Old" Bisbee is the first of the former towns that amalgated into the larger town of Bisbee. It is called Lowell and the vast majority of this former town has been swallowed up by the pit.
The main feature of the Lowell section of Bisbee is a traffic circle, or roundabout, where State Highway 80, State Highway 92, Bisbee Road, Erie Street and Old Douglas Road all come together. Old Douglas Road is an earlier routing of highway 80, predating the traffic circle.
Erie Street was once the principal downtown business street of Lowell. Now it goes west a short distance, about the equivalent of one city block, and then dead-ends at a high fence on the edge of the pit. The Lowell downtown area has a few businesses still open, but most of them are abandoned. The most notable of the abandoned businesses is a former Sprouse-Reitz store. Sprouse-Reitz was a "five and dime" store much like the more famous Woolworth's. The chain was headquartered in Portland, Oregon. The chain was in business from 1909 until 1993, when the entire chain liquidated. In 1991, the dying company changed its name to Sprouse! in the hopes they would stay in business for awhile longer, but it didn't work. When the name change was made, there were only 84 Sprouse-Reitz stores still in business, down from a peak of nearly 400 stores.
Along Erie Street, the "Sprouse-Reitz" letters on the front facade of the building are still very visible, looking almost as though the store is still open for business. I wonder how long Erie Street used to be before most of it disappeared into the pit? I wonder how many buildings also went into the pit? Presently, there is a small parking area next to the fence that lines the edge of the pit. Just one foot from the fence, there is a curb that is seemingly out of place. It is an ordinary street curb except that it runs next to the fence for quite a distance on each side of Erie Street. This curb is all that remains of a street. It runs along the east edge of the former street. About 1 foot beyond the curb is the fence and about 1 foot beyond that is the rim of the pit. This is where a street intersection used to be. On the east side of this curb, I saw 5 concrete slabs, all that remain of businesses that used to line the east side of this street. I saw 4 concrete slabs north of Erie Street and 1 slab south of Erie Street. The sidewalks that run in front of the commercial buildings nearby now run off into the pit, the western part of both sidewalks suffered the same fate as the western part of Erie Street.
Today the population of the Lowell section of Bisbee is about 25. The town once had 2,700 people. Lowell was founded in 1905.

Bisbee, part 2

The original part of Bisbee is home to an annual event, held each October, called
the "1000 Stair Climb." It is a 5 kilometer endurance run that involves climbing up 1,034 stairs on its route. The old part of Bisbee is definitely the place to hold such an event. Runners are serenaded by musicians that are stationed at various points along the route.
The old part of Bisbee only has 2 continuous streets--Highway 80 and Main Street/Tombstone Canyon Road. They both run east and west. All of the other streets are short and narrow. Most of them climb up a steep hill and then abruptly dead-end. A few of them connect with other streets and many of them are loops. There are 2 streets, OK Street(named after the OK Corral in Tombstone) and Youngblood Hill Street that are "staircase streets." They are so steep that modern day vehicles, with the possible exception of 4-wheel drive vehicles, cannot negotiate the streets. The grade on OK Street is 62% and on Youngblood Hill Street, it is 77%. A percent grade means that, for example, for every 100 feet of distance, Youngblood Hill Street climbs 77 feet. That is extremely steep. Interstate highways never have grades steeper than 6% and 2-lane highways rarely go beyond 10%, even in the mountains.
Both streets are lined with businesses, since they are in the downtown business district, but people have to walk, or should I say "climb," to patronize these businesses. Some of these buildings are abandoned, but most are still in operation.
The steepest street that I know of in Arizona that is open to vehicular traffic is a portion of North 4th Street in Globe that has a 34% grade. Whenever I am in Globe and I drive that street, when I am at a stop sign and then proceed, the car rolls backward in the few seconds after I take my foot of the brake and apply it to the gas pedal. There are many streets in Bisbee like this, but I think North 4th Street in Globe is the steepest. The steepest Bisbee street that is open to vehicles is Brewery Avenue, a short distance west of the "staircase streets."
The old part of Bisbee is full of architecture from the 1800s and early 1900s. It is an absolute paradise for aficionados of old architecture, like me. Alot of movies have been filmed in Bisbee. Some portions of Young Guns II were filmed there. Also, the western, "3:10 to Yuma", both the original in 1957 and the 2007 remake, were filmed in Bisbee."Old Bisbee" also stood in for Roswell, New Mexico in the
Martin Sheen movie "Roswell" about the famous 1947 UFO incident. This was surprising because the landscapes of the two towns bear no resemblance to each other. Roswell is on the flat plains of eastern New Mexico. The downtown post office in Bisbee served as the Chaves County Courthouse in that movie.
"Old " Bisbee has also stood in for European cities in alot of movies because of the architecture.
The old high school just to the west of the downtown area on Clawson Avenue,
demonstrates the steepness of the old part of town very well. It is three stories tall, but each floor has a ground-level entrance because it is on the side of a
mountain. The gymnasium is on the second floor. Part of the old high school is now the county historical museum.
The streets in this part of town have absolutely no pattern to them. They basically follow the lay of the land. There are also several terraces or shelves on the mountainsides that are the location of former streets.
The mining boom ended in 1950. After that, Bisbee started to die off. At its peak, the town had about 21,000 people. In the late 1950s, the population had dwindled to about 6,200. However, in the late 1970s, the town experienced a rebirth as a tourist destination and art colony mainly because of the beauty of the town's location and its historic architecture. The population has bounced back and is now approaching 10,000 people. Considering the fact that the population is only about half of what it once was, there aren't that many abandoned buildings in the old part of town. There are alot of abandoned buildings in other portions of the town, however. In the old part of town, many of the formerly abandoned buildings have been lovingly restored and are now showpieces of late 19th and early 20th century architecture. There are alot of antique shops and gift shops in the old part of town that cater to the thousands of tourists that visit every year from all over the world.
In the next installmet of this blog, I will go into detail about the different sections of Bisbee. There were once 8 nearby towns, basically suburbs, that merged in the early 1900s to form the enlarged city of Bisbee. The town also has a newer portion that was settled in the late 1960s.
Today,"Old" Bisbee has about 3,200 people.

Bisbee, an introduction

Twenty-four miles southeast of Tombstone, on highway 80, is the beautiful little town of Bisbee. This is the town that took the county seat away from a dying Tombstone in 1929. The Cochise County government remains in Bisbee to this day, even though the burgeoning town of Sierra Vista wants to take the county seat away from them.
Bisbee is situated in the Mule Mountains in southeastern Arizona. In fact, State Highway 80 tunnels through the mountains just west of town. At the east exit from the tunnel is the city limit sign for Bisbee. The entire town, except for the newest portion, is located in the mountains and, as a result, there are alot of extremely steep, narrow streets.
The modern-day town of Bisbee is the result of a merger of 8 separate towns that were in close proximity to each other, plus a new area that was developed in the
1960s and now contains the bulk of the population. This area is sometimes referred to as "New Bisbee." Bisbee has 9,787 people.
The oldest and most scenic part of Bisbee, sometimes called "Old Bisbee," or
"Downtown Bisbee," is the most visited by tourists and the most photographed part of town. The majority of this area lies in the bottom of Tombstone Canyon and, in many places, Main Street, whose name changes to Tombstone Canyon Road west of the downtown area, lies directly above Tombstone Creek.
This original part of Bisbee was founded in 1880 when copper was discovered in the surrounding mountains. The town was named for Judge DeWitt Bisbee. He was a major financial backer for the Copper Queen Mine. After several decades of copper mining, turquoise was also discovered, expanding the growth that had already occurred in the area. "Old" Bisbee has steep, narrow and crooked streets. Many of them are so narrow that cars parallel park on one side while traffic goes down the other side of the street. There are also streets that are only wide enough for one car to fit so, as a result, they have one-way traffic. There is one street that is only 5 feet wide! It is still open to traffic, but it is barely wide enough for even one car to fit. Main Street/Tombstone Canyon Road is the original routing of highway 80 through Bisbee. The current highway is south of this area and sits on a shelf that was blasted out of the side of a mountain. Where the old highway and new highway meet,on both ends of "Old" Bisbee, there is an interchange, like a freeway interchange, that involves an overpass, exit ramps and entrance ramps.
On both sides of the canyon, commercial buildings and houses climb up the slopes of the mountains and also snake their way into narrow ravines and defiles between mountains. There are alot of houses that are not accessible by any of the town's streets. Instead, the occupants of the house park their cars in a small parking lot on the side of the street and then climb a bunch of steps up to their house, in some cases, as many as 100 steps have to be climbed! There are many cases where a person in one house can literally look down the chimney into the house below because the slope is so steep! The county courthouse, on Ledge Avenue, is in this situation. A person can stand in the parking lot or at the window on the top floor, and look down the chimney into the house below. Consequently, people that live in the house above the courthouse can look down onto the roof of the courthouse. Ledge Avenue, which runs in front of the courthouse, has a steep dropoff on the opposite side of the street. The dropoff is at least 50 feet. Quality Hill Street, behind the courthouse, has a steep climb up to the houses on the other side of the street. Today, the county courthouse, which dates from 1930, only houses the court functions of the county. The county government now presides on the south end of town,in "New Bisbee,"
in a 8 building complex.

Tombstone

Aside from the Wild West atmosphere of East Allen Street, Tombstone's most popular tourist attraction is the old county courthouse. Tombstone was the county seat of Cochise County until 1929. In that year, when Tombstone's population had dwindled to only 86 people, the county government moved to Bisbee, and remains in Bisbee to this day. Today, Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park is the smallest state park in Arizona, but one of the most visited. The park only covers 1/3 of an acre. It consists of the courthouse, the grounds around it, a small building across the street that once contained lawyers' offices and a small picnic area next to the former lawyers' offices, between the south wall of the building and the edge of
East Toughnut Street, which is named after a mine.
The old courthouse is a handsome 12,000 square-foot Victorian building built out of red brick. It is 2 stories tall. This building, with its tall clock tower, still dominates the town. The old courthouse is now a museum dedicated to the history of Tombstone and the immediate area. The courtroom has been restored to the way it looked in 1882. Other rooms in the old courthouse house themed exhibits. For example, one room is dedicated to the mining history of the area, another room is
dedicated to cattle ranching, one room is dedicated to the military, one room has a recreated gambling hall from the 1880s, another room is devoted to the Apache Wars, still another room has a recreated saloon. There is also a room that features exhibits about the world famous Gunfight at the OK Corral.
Other items of interest inside the old courthouse include fine antiques that were brought to the town by horse-drawn wagons or steam locomotives, glass cases that display dolls and other toys that were popular in the 1800s, musical instruments from the pioneer era, a recreated attorney's office of the time, a recreated
post office and assay office of the Wild West era, and alot of historic photos, which was my favorite part of the visit.
Outside the building, in the back, is a gallows that was used to hang people with the noose still in place. It is rather macabre, but it is also an integral part of Wild West history, so I guess it belongs.
The railroad tracks near the courthouse have been pulled up, but the raised railroad grade is still in place.
Stagecoach rides are given daily on East Allen Street and there are frequent reenactments of the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
Tombstone's world wide fame is the economic lifeblood of the town. For such a small town, Tombstone caters to alot of visitors. About 2 million visitors per year visit Tombstone, making it Arizona's third most popular tourist attraction, after the Grand Canyon and Sedona.

The Town Too Tough To Die

This is the motto for Tombstone, Arizona. This slogan was adopted after the town dwindled to near ghost town status, but then bounced back after tourists began to seek out the town because of its well publicized and fascinating history.
In 1877, Tombstone was founded by Ed Schiefflin. He was camped out in the area when he spotted an outcropping of silver ore. He realized the rich potential of this find but also realized he would need money to develop a mine, so he went to his brother and told him about the discovery. Together they contacted an assayer and
the assayer valued the ore at $2,000 a ton. The three of them staked several claims in the area, the first two being called the "Tombstone" and the "Graveyard."
Soon, word got out about the find and within two years, the population exploded to 15,000 people. In its heyday, there were 5 newspapers in town, the most famous being called the "Tombstone Epitaph." This newspaper is still in business on a somewhat limited basis, now it is mostly a tourist newspaper. Today the town's principal newspaper is called "The Tombstone Tumbleweed."
Soon the town was "invaded" by such famous gunfighters as Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, Doc Holliday, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton and Johnny Ringo.
Gunfights were a way of life in Tombstone, it was one of the most lawless towns in the Wild West of the 1800s. The daily gunfights culminated with the infamous
"Gunfight at the OK Corral" in 1881 between members of the Earp faction against members of the McLaury/Clanton faction. It is generally believed by historians that the gunfight lasted no more than 30 seconds, but it was the most famous 30 seconds in history. Wyatt Earp's brother, Virgil, who was the sheriff of Tombstone, was crippled by gunshot wounds in this volley of gunfire.
In its heyday, Tombstone had more than 100 saloons that operated around the clock, catering to a population of gunfighters, gamblers, miners, cowboys, shopkeepers and prostitutes.
In 1882, Cochise County was created by the territorial legislature of Arizona and Tombstone was named as its seat of government, a distinction it held until 1929.
By the early 1900s, Tombstone started to fall on hard times as mine productivity began to dwindle year by year. By 1929, the population had shrunk until there were only 86 people still living in Tombstone. That is when the county government moved to the burgeoning town of Bisbee, 24 miles to the southeast, where it remains to the present day.
Today the population of Tombstone has rebounded to 1,604. For the past 40 years, the town has maintained a population in the 1,500 range. The town is devoted 100% to reliving its wild and woolly past that made it famous. It is one of the best known "Wild West" towns in the world. The citizens of Tombstone make every effort to glamorize its past by maintaining historic buildings, staging gunfights in the streets and giving stagecoach rides to visitors from all over the world. Boothill Cemetery on the edge of town is one of the most famous cemeteries in the world, alot of famous names from Wild West lore can be seen on the headstones. The cemetery got its name because of all of the people who "died with their boots on" after being killed in gunfights. The citizens of Tombstone have even gone so far as to close three blocks of East Allen Street and restore it to how it looked in 1881, as much as possible. The only motorized vehicles allowed on this portion of the street are delivery vehicles to supply the stores and emergency vehicles. Now the street is full of stagecoaches and foot traffic. However, instead of tearing up the pavement, dirt was dumped on top of the street and evened out to give it the appearance of a street in the 1800s. This is the street the OK Corral is located on and the corral is open for tours, of course. The street is lined with boardwalks, just like in the old days. On the east end of the historic district is the Bird Cage Theater. It was built in 1881 and despite its name, it was once known as "the wildest saloon between New Orleans and San Francisco."
In September 1880, George Parsons made a diary entry that stated " A man will go to the devil pretty fast in Tombstone...Faro, whiskey and bad women will beat anyone."

Nogales

I have been to quite a few towns on the Mexican border, but Nogales, Arizona is one of my favorite border towns. It's not as dirty as many border cities are and it's not as desperately poor as other border cities. The downtown business district, as might be expected, is located right next to the border fence. The downtown area has alot of signs in Spanish and alot of outdoor vendors. The outdoor vendors are most prevalent along Grand Avenue (the main street of Nogales) and Morley Avenue, one block farther east.
The border between the United States and Mexico is a big, ugly, black, steel fence about 20 feet high. The bottom part of the fence is opaque, which prevents people from looking through the fence into the country on the other side. To get a good view, one has to look higher up. This is best done by driving on sone of the residential streets in Nogales that climb up hills.
Dos Ambos Nogales is the Spanish name for the two cities of Nogales--Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, that face each other across the border fence. Nogales, Arizona has
26,267 people. Nogales, Mexico has about 175,000 people. I did not cross into Mexico for two reasons. First of all, I did not have a passport, which is a new requirement that took effect on January 1,2008 and also because Nogales, Sonora is one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico. It is one of the principal battlegrounds in Mexico's ongoing war with the ruthless drug cartels. While I was driving along
International Street, next to the border fence, I heard gunshots on the Mexican side. It sounded like it was only 2 or 3 blocks away. In December, in Nogales, Mexico, the chief of police was recently murdered by members of a Mexican drug cartel and his head was delivered to the police department.
Yet, the main border crossing at the south end of Grand Avenue is still one of the
busiest border crossings between the two countries. There is another crossing about 2 miles farther west, but it is mainly for trucks.
Nogales, Arizona has alot of trucking companies. The streets are literally congested with big trucks, most of which are involved in cross-border trade and shipments.
Both cities are very hilly with alot of steep streets. Nogales, Mexico is hillier than its American counterpart.
On the Arizona side, the old Santa Cruz County Courthouse sits on top of a steep hill just 3 blocks from the international border. It is a magnificent building with a silver dome and four splendid marble columns gracing the front entrance. It is now used as a museum, which is a good thing because it is a beautiful building that strikes a commanding presence from its hilltop location on Morley Avenue.
The front doors of the old courthouse are reached by climbing up 67 stairs! In addition to the 67 steps from the front lawn to the front entrance, there are also 19 steps leading from Morley Avenue to the beginning of the sidewalk in front of the building. That is a total of 86 steps to climb from the sidewalk that runs alongside the street! It would be a shame to see this building sitting vacant or, worse yet, to see it demolished. Many counties these days are using the old courthouse for court functions and have a newer, modern structure for the county administration. It would be nice to see the old courthouse still serving as a government building, but at least it is used as a museum and is still open to the public. The current county courthouse, which opened in 1988, is also on top a hill. For a modern building, it's not bad looking. Normally I am not a fan of modern architecture, but I think the new Santa Cruz County Courthouse has a pleasant design to it. The new courthouse sits a short distance east of Interstate 19 two miles from the border.
It sits virtually alone on its hilltop lair with a view of Nogales' commercial district on West Mariposa Road. This is where the majority of the city's fast food restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets and other chain businesses are located.
"Nogales" is Spanish for "walnuts." it was named for the abundance of walnut trees that grow in the area.

The Mission Trail, part 8

After looking at the lime kiln, I continued down the trail to the next signpost. Just to the north of the lime kiln is the fiesta grounds, which is still used on occasion by area residents. I then headed backs toward the mission where I saw the rectangular foundation of a former Jesuit church that was next door to the Catholic mission, on the east side. Construction was started in 1753, but the completion date is unknown. What is known is that this smaller church was in use by the summer of 1757. This church was used for 10 years until the Jesuits were expelled from the area.
Near the Jesuit church foundation are the ruins of the convento, or priests' quarters. What is left of it is a good example of adobe brick construction techniques. The remaining walls very in height from a few inches to three feet. After it was no longer used as a residence for priests, it was used as a schoolhouse.
Farther south from the convento ruins is a muuro-ki. It is a traditional Tohono O'odham dwelling. it is not original but a reconstruction. It is built out of mesquite timbers, ocotillo branches and mud.It has a grass, or thatch, roof. This type of dwelling is still used extensively on the Tohono O'odham Reservation west of Tucson. It was built by O'odham people using traditional hand tools in 1997. It has a detached cooking area like the ones that are still in use on the reservation. The traditional Tohono O'odham cooking area is circular and is enclosed with branches from ocotillo plants. These cooking areas do not have roofs.
The last stop on the park trail is at the remnant of an acequia, or irrigation ditch. There is only about 15 feet of the ditch still visible. It once led from the nearby Santa Cruz River and diverted water to the mission community. There is also a "compuerta" or diversion box, which is where water was turned out of the ditch to water the nearby orchard to the east. This orchard is still in use today, all of the trees are still alive and still producing fruit!
Between the fiesta grounds and the acequia, I found a side trail that leads to a gate. This is the other end of the 4 1/2 mile that leads from Tubac Presidio.
I found my visit to Tubac and Tumacacori to be very interesting. Both places offer a great glimpse of life in the 17th and 18th centuries.
After leaving Tumacacori, I headed south toward Nogales, which is on the border with Mexico. That will be the topic of the next edition of this blog.

The Mission Trail, part 7

As I stepped out of the back of Tumacacori mission, the first thing I saw was the mortuary chapel. This building was never completed and it is thought that it was intended to have a dome, to complement the dome on the mission. Instead, the chapel remains roofless. There is evidence that this unfinished chapel saw extensive use, but there are no improvements inside of it, just a dirt floor where everyone in attendance most likely stood or knelt. It is a round, roofless, adobe structure. Naturally, the mortuary chapel sits on the edge of the cemetery. The mission-era graves are either unmarked, lost or destroyed because the burials that are currently in place date from the early 1900s, with the most recent being 1916. However, it has been recorded that 593 burials took place from 1755 to 1825. Records of burials from 1825 to 1848, when the mission was abandoned, have never been found. There are references to an "old" cemetery, but the location of it is unknown. Around the present cemetery are 14 niches in the walls. These were once "stations of the cross."
The wall on the east side of the cemetery is higher than the other walls because it is the back wall of the granary that served the mission compound. Inside this former granary are some stairs that lead to nowhere in particular. They once led to a loft that has rotted away with the passage of time.
Just outside the doorway to the granary is the courtyard. This was the center of life for the mission compound. When I stood at the granary door, I saw a ruined portion of the former east wall of the courtyard. The courtyard, or plaza, was once surrounded by a carpenter's shop, ironworker's shop, weaving room, leather shop and grain grinding mill.
About 100 yards behind the mission compound, in a grassy area surrounded by trees, is an old lime kiln. It is basically a rock-lined hole in the ground. Raw material was brought from the Santa Rita Mountains to the east by ox carts and processed here. Lime plaster was applied to the walls of the buildings, usually two inches thick, to provide protection from moisture. About halfway down inside the rock-lined hole is a shelf were a metal grate once rested. Limestone was loaded onto the grate after a fire was built underneath and the rocks were "cooked" until they began to break open. After they broke open, they were hammered into a powder. Then the powder was put into water for a couple of days. After that, it was made into a paste by adding sand to it. This lime kiln is still in excellent condition and could be used today if that type of product was needed.

The Mission Trail, part 6

Just outside the Visitors Center is a lovely garden. It is not the original garden, but a carefully recreated replica of a typical mission garden from that time.
Aside from the section that has native Sonoran Desert plants, it contains vegetation that was found in mission gardens everywhere in the 1600s.
As I walked out the back of the Visitors Center and stood at the trailhead, I saw a mound just to the left of the trail that runs from the Visitors Center to the front of the church. Beneath this mound are the foundations of several houses that were once occupied by Tohono O'odham Indians who lived at the mission compound.
As I continued down the trail, I arrived at the front of the church. It was once painted in bright colors, and faint traces of the paint are still visible under the window cornice. The columns were painted red, the capitals were painted yellow with black markings. The building's capitals have strong Egyptian influences.
The statue niches were once painted blue, and these niches are an example of Roman architecture. The are two other statue niches. These niches are Moorish in design because of the pointed arches.
The bell tower to the right of the front entrance appears to be in ruins, but in reality, it was never finished. It looks almost exactly the way it did in 1848, when the church was abandoned. The bell that hangs inside is not the original bell, but a replica.
After entering the church, it becomes apparent that the church was built in the form of a long hall. Many of the churches from that time were built in the form of a cross, but Tumacacori deviated from that design. There is no evidence that there were ever any pews, most likely parishioners stood or knelt during services. Next to each side wall are four indentations where lit candles were placed. Above the candle placements are statue niches.
Immediately inside the front entrance, to the right, is the baptistry. The adobe walls here are nine feet thick in order to support the massive bell tower directly above. There is a stairway that leads up to the tower and the entrance to the choir left, but it is closed to visitors. Evidently it is unsafe to use.
Back at the front entrance of the church, I saw where the choir loft used to be by the ruined support pillars, one on each side of the nave. Also, up above, the entrance to the choir loft is still in place. The entrance is at the top of the inaccessible stairs. Some pictures that are on display in the church show what the choir loft may have looked like in its day. It shows the two support pillars, now in ruins, rising up on each side and forming an arch above the nave. It shows the lower half of the pillars being brightly painted. The picture also shows a wooden rail running along the edge of a concrete platform where the choir once stood. The window that let sunlight into the choir loft is still there. It is directly above the church's front entrance.
As I ascended the steps that lead from the nave to the sanctuary, it became obvious that many of the original colors still adorn the walls. There are also picture frames and stenciling still visible. the paint is faded here too, but it is more visible than anywhere else in the church. Tha altar at the back of the sanctuary still bears evidence of the magnificence it once possessed. There is an outline of the artwork that was once behind the altar that looked sort of like a fireplace in its upper portion and the lower portion looked like something out of ancient Israel with a painting of an arched entryway flanked by columns on both sides. The upper portion is still plainly visible has has deteriorated very little over the years. It looks like all sorts of colors were used to paint the sanctuary; blues, yellows, reds, golds and several other colors, too. This must have been a magnificent place at one time!
Off to the side of the sanctuary, on the right, is the sacristy, where priests kept clothing and articles used in their ceremonies. They also documented and stored records of important events in this room.
In the next edition of this blog, I will take you on a tour of the outside of Tumacacori Mission. I will tell you what I saw in the mission compound, which is still quite extensive.

The Mission Trail, part 5

A few miles south of Tubac Presidio State Historic Park is another remnant of Spanish exploration of southern Arizona. It is called Tumacacori National Historical Park. It is pronounced "tomb-a-cock-a-ree." The mission was established in 1691 by Eusebio Francisco Kino, a Spanish missionary. To this day, he is still very well respected on both sides of the border. Many homes in Mexico have a painting of Kino hanging on the wall. He is also greatly admired by members of the Tohono O'odham tribe.
The establishment of Tumacacori later led to the establishment of Tubac Presidio
four and a half miles farther north. The presidio was built to protect the mission after several raids by Pima Indians. Initially, Tumacacori was managed by Jesuits, but, in 1767, King Charles III of Spain banished the Jesuits from areas under his control. After that, Franciscans took control of Spanish missionary efforts in the New World. In the early 1800s, Narciso Gutierrez began building the present structure to replace the modest structure that was built in 1757. Although Tumacacori was established as a mission in 1691, it did not have a dedicated church building until 1757. Various factors delayed construction of the present building, such as Mexico's war for independence from Spain that ended in 1821. After all
Spanish-born residents were forced to leave Mexico and then series of Apache raids
and the American war with Mexico in 1848, the continuous residency of Tumacacori that was established by Kino was severed.
Although Kino established the Tumacacori Mission, he was never a resident priest there, though he visited the place on many occasions. He established his headquarters 55 miles south, in what is now northern Mexico, at a mission called Nuestra Senora de los Dolores. Kino was 42 years old when he and three other Jesuit "black robes" were assigned to the Pimeria Alta in 1687. It was four years later that Tumacacori was established at Kino's direction. Its full name was
San Cayetano de Tumacacori, but when the first dedicated church building was completed in 1757, the name was changed to San Jose de Tumacacori.
Today, the Tumacacori Mission is still impressive, even though it is in a ruined state. Its gleaming white dome can be seen for miles and can easily be seen by travelers on Interstate 19 nearby. Most of the interior deterioration was caused by the fact that the building sat roofless for approximately sixty years. New roofs have been built several times over the years to protect it from further deterioration. The front of the church is absolutely amazing in the fact that is displays examples of Spanish, Moorish, Roman and Egyptian architectural influences. Even today, experts come from all over the country to admire the church's amazing architecture.
It is with this introduction that I will begin my tour of San Jose de Tumacacori Mission in the next edition of this blog.

The Mission Trail, part 4

Just outside the boundary of Tubac Presidio State Historic Park is a parking lot that serves as parking for the newest type of national park, a national historic trail.
In this case, Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. When completed, it will be an international endeavor, stretching from Culiacan, Mexico to San Francisco, California, a distance of 1,217 miles. It commemorates the epic journey in 1775 and 1776 of settlers and soldiers from Central Mexico to northern California. About 300 people made the trip, the purpose of which was to establish a presidio, or fort, in San Francisco. It is the famous presidio that still exists today. At the time, San Francisco was at the northern edge of the Spanish empire. It will probably be years before the trail is completed, but currently there is a 4.5 mile stretch of the trail that is open to the public that leads from Tubac Presidio State Historic Park to Tumacacori National Historical Park farther south. I will talk about my visit to Tumacacori in the next edition of this blog. "Tubac" is pronounced "too-bach."
"Tumacacori" is pronounced "tomb-a-cock-a-ree."
I walked a short distance down the Anza Trail and read some informational signs that I was able to see while I was touring the state park. There are 3 signs underneath a covered ramada. They talk about the national trails system, Spanish exploration of southern Arizona and northern Mexico and who Juan Bautista de Anza was. He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Spanish military. He was the one who would be in charge of the presidio at San Francisco. After reading the signs, I walked a ways down the trail, I think it was about half a mile, until I came to the Santa Cruz River. The walk from Tubac to Tumacacori requires fording the river twice.
Needless to say, a National historic trail is a very long and skinny national park.
Other examples of National Historic trails include:
Old Spanish, from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Los Angeles, California; Santa Fe, from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Independence, Missouri; Pony Express, from St. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco, California; Oregon, from Kansas City, Missouri to Portland, Oregon; Lewis and Clark, from St. Louis, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon; Continental Divide from the Mexican border to the Canadian border; Appalachian from northern Georgia to northern Maine; Ice Age in Wisconsin; Mormon Pioneer from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah; Iditarod from Seward to Nome in Alaska;Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, which is a route that Martin Luther King and alot of followers took in the 1960s and Ala Kahakai in Hawai'i, which deals with Polynesian culture. It commemorates the historic landing of Captain Cook on the big island of Hawai'i and the rise of Kamehameha I. There are other trails that I have not mentioned.
Sometime I want to walk the entire 4 1/2 miles from Tubac to Tumacacori. Tumacacori is a fascinating place and I could spend the whole day there. When i drove from Tubac to Tumacacori, I drove down old U.S. Highway 89, the forerunner of Interstate 19. The old highway is now a county maintained road and still in excellent condition. While I was en route, I noticed an ever earlier alignment of old highway 89. It is in a crescent configuration. The north end angles off from the later alignment and is currently blocked off at a bridge over a small creek. It is still in decent condition because it provides access to three houses. South of the bridge, the old road is overgrown with weeds the entire distance. There are small sections of asphalt still visible. I walked this portion of the road, about 150 yards, and walked across the old bridge. It is one of those old style bridges that have silver trestle work above the roadway. I like those old bridges, they have alot of character.

The Mission Trail, part 3

Part of the Tubac Presidio still stands--underground!! The 13 acre state park is dominated by a large mound in the center of the park. This mound is the melted adobe walls of the presidio. However, there are some stairs that lead down into the mound to an underground exhibit. The lower parts of the presidio's walls, plus the foundation and floor are on display. The ruined walls are protected behind glass partitions. There are some interesting items inside the walls, such as pieces of pottery and even some chicken bones. It has been speculated that the chicken bones are the remains of a construction worker's lunch. The lower parts of the presidio's walls were uncovered in an archaeological dig in 1976. Above ground, there are some ruined adobe walls surrounding the edge of the mound and some wall outlines barely protruding above the ground.
Next to the Visitors Center is a one room schoolhouse that dates from 1885, after the presidio was abandoned. Some of the wooden desks inside are originals, some are recreated. The chalkboards on the walls are originals. There are six of them, one for each grade. Behind the teacher's desk is a stage where school productions were put on.
On the east side of the state park, across the mound from the school, is a long, narrow house that I believe was the presidio commandant's house. Now it is a fascinating museum that has a wide variety of displays ranging from women's dresses from the 1700s and 1800s, Spanish military uniforms and weapons from the same era, antique household appliances and knickknacks, antique mining equipment and exhibits about Spanish missionary and civilian life plus American civilian life from the same time frame. There are also displays about Pima, Apache and Tohono O'odham
Indians. The museum also has a room that is furnished like a newspaper office from the 1800s and it has all kinds of newspaper equipment from that era, including the printing press from 1859 that Charles Poston used to start Arizona's first newspaper. Outside the house is an arrastra, which is a horizontal, wheel-like device that was used in mining operations to crush rock. A mule would be tied to the arrastra and walk around in a circle repeatedly. This process would crush the rock underneath the arrastra.
On the south side of the park is Otero Hall, which is a Depression-era school that replaced the one room school nearby. It has wooden plank floors on the inside like the older school and consists of three rooms plus bathrooms. Today, these bathrooms serve as visitor bathrooms for the park. Otero Hall is rented out by the state park for things such as family reunions and barbecues.
Just to the east is an adobe house that was bequeathed to the park upon the death of its owners in 2003. It is furnished with household items ranging in date from the early 1900s to modern times. In front of the adobe house is a picnic area. This area was the 3 acre expansion that the park underwent in 2003 when it took possession of the adobe house. The picnic area has alot of trees that look like they have been planted recently.
Burruel Street used to make a 90 degree turn next to the school (Otero Hall) and
dead end in front of the house. Now it is barricaded in front of Otero Hall and, beyond the barricade, I saw the asphalt still in place, but now it is becoming overgrown with grass and weeds. The curbs are still there, too.
Tubac Presidio State Historic Park is a great place for history buffs and it is one of the jewels of Arizona's state park system.

The Mission Trail, part 2

Shortly before I entered Santa Cruz County, in the town of Arivaca Junction, is a store where customers enter the store through a giant cow skull, fake of course.
Five miles south of Arivaca Junction is the town of Tubac (pronounced too-bach).
In the past few years the population has jumped from 925 to 2,428 with the opening of a new housing development on the south side of town. All of the houses are finished in stucco, which resembles adobe. So now the majority of the town's residences consist of Pueblo-style architecture lining streets with Spanish names. Sounds like New Mexico, particularly Santa or Taos. Tubac has alot of artists, writers and retirees living in town, but it is becoming more and more of a bedroom community for Tucson. Tubac is the oldest Eurupean-settled town in Arizona. That is, it is the oldest town in Arizona that is not located on an Indian Reservation. It was settled by the Spanish in 1691. Tubac was established as a mission farm and ranch after the Tumacacori Mission was established 4 1/2 miles to the south. This area was part of Spain at the time. After a Pueblo Indian revolt in 1751, the Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac was established a year later. It was a fifty-soldier military post and it was meant to protect the residents of Tubac and also the nearby Tumacacori Mission.
The presidio was abandoned and recommissioned several times over the years. In the late 1850s, after this area became part of the United States, Charles Poston moved into the abandoned house of the presidio commandant and established the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company. He also purchased a printing press and, in 1859, started Arizona's first newspaper. In 1860, Tubac was the largest town in Arizona, but due to Apache raids, that distinction did not last. In 1863, a visitor wrote
"Tubac is now a city of ruins and desolation." Today Tubac is a charming, historic town that is on the verge of exploding in population. In the heart of town is a small 13 acre state park, Tubac Presidio State Historic Park, on the site of the
Spanish presidio that was built in 1752. It is the oldest state park in Arizona, having been established in 1957. In fact, Arizona's first three state parks were historic parks--Tubac, Tombstone Courthouse and Yuma Territorial Prison.
This is where I will start the next installment of this blog.

The Mission Trail

In most states counties are of a manageable size. However, in the west, counties are bigger than they are in the east due to the sparser population. In Arizona and Nevada, most counties are extremely large, larger than in the other western states. Arizona is the 6th largest state in the nation at 113,635 square miles. It trails only Alaska, Texas, California, Montana and New Mexico in size. Pima County (county seat Tucson) is no exception. It covers covers 9,186 square miles. It is roughly 160 miles long from east to west and 70 miles wide from north to south. It is the 14th biggest county in size in the United States. However, the population is highly concentrated in the eastern part of the county in the Tucson metropolitan area. The county has slightly more than one million people, but once you get out of Tucson and its surrounding area, it is very sparsely populated. The west end of the county, west of Ajo, has a population of 0. That area has absolutely no population in an area about 35 miles long and 20 miles wide.There is no evidence that this part of the county ever had any year round residents, not even Indians. Highly concentrated populations like this are typical of the western states and that is the reason for the larger size of the counties in the west. In Arizona there a 2 "normal-sized" counties, Santa Cruz and Greenlee. About 25 miles south of Tucson, I crossed into Santa Cruz County, which is the smallest county in Arizona. It is about 30 miles wide from north to south and 50 miles long from east to west. At 1,238 square miles, it is about the size of many Texas counties and it is apporoximately 300 square miles smaller than my home county in Texas. The county's capital, a.k.a the county seat, is Nogales on the southern edge of the county on the border with Mexico. It is the only county in Arizona that does not have any desert anywhere within its boundaries. The vegetation is mostly walnut trees (Nogales is Spanish for walnuts), oak trees, cottonwood trees and other types of deciduous trees along with alot of thorny plants such as catclaw, prickly pear cactus, tasajillo cactus and acacia trees. There is also a lush grass cover in the county which makes for prime grazing land. The higher elevations have lusher forests of pine, spruce and other high elevation trees. Approximately 70% of the county is part of Coronado National Forest. Santa Cruz County and part of Cochise and Pima Counties are called "Arizona's Brush Country," and remind me alot of South Texas where I grew up, with the exception of the high mountains. The highest point in Santa Cruz County is Mount Wrightson in the Santa Rita Mountains. It is 9,453 feet above sea level. Santa Cruz County, along with neighboring Cochise County, are my 2 favorite counties in Arizona because of their beauty, 4 season climate where the summers are hot, but not too hot and the winters are cold, but not too cold and the fascinating history of these two counties--a wild west and mining history in Cochise County and a Spanish exploration and missionary history in Santa Cruz County. Santa Cruz means "holy cross" in Spanish and the county was named for the Santa Cruz River, its principal stream. This river starts in eastern Santa Cruz County, flows south into Mexico and then turns north and flows back into the United States a short distance east of Nogales. It then flows north and "empties" into the Gila River southwest of Phoenix. The river is about 200 miles long, but shortly after entering Pima County, it dries up and flows only after big thunderstorms, so it doesn't actually empty in to the Gila River anymore, but the dry channels of those 2 rivers do intersect. The river is dry as it goes through Tucson. However, in Santa Cruz County, it is a perennial river that is the lifeblood of its namesake county.
It is with this introduction that I am about to embark on "The Mission Trail," which will describe my travels south of Tucson, a land once called "Pimeria Alta" by Spanish explorers more than 400 years ago.

Tucson

It is 130 miles from Ajo to Tucson with most of the distance being on the
Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation. I have read that if the Tohono o'odham Reservation was its own county, it would be the poorest county in the nation. However, of all the Indian or Native American cultures that I have studied, I find the Tohono O'odham culture to be the fascinating. I like the design of the tribal administration building in Sells.
I spent the next 4 nights in Tucson in a Studio 6 extended stay motel. Studio 6 has studio apartments instead of regular motel rooms. I have been inside one in San Antonio, Texas and that place looks like a condominium complex. This one in Tucson used to be a regular Motel 6 until about 10 years ago, so the apartments aren't as big as the other one I have been in. It still has studio apartments though and it helped me to save alot of money on food by eating at least 1 meal a day in my room.
While I was in Tucson, I did some hiking in the cactus-studded desert of Saguaro National Park. This park has 2 separate sections, one of each side of Tucson, which is a city with 554,496 people. It is Arizona's second largest city. The eastern section of Saguaro National Park, east of the city, is called the Rincon Mountain District. It is the original section of the park. This area was set aside as Saguaro National Monument in 1933. Strangely though, the majority of the Rincon Mountain District is not desert. It climbs up into the Rincon Mountains and the flora changes from cactus desert to high desert grassland to pinon/juniper woodland to a thick forest of ponderosa pine, pinon pine and Douglas fir.The mountain range tops out at 8,666 feet on top of Mica Mountain. The western part of the Rincon Mountain District has a series of interconnecting trails which means a person's hike can be as long or short as they want. One trailhead starts from East Broadway Boulevard which is a lightly traveled road here but, as it works its way west, it keeps growing until it becomes the busiest street in Tucson. The street dead ends about a quarter mile east of the trailhead.
The west unit, or Tucson Mountain District, of Saguaro National Park was set aside in 1964. It is smaller than the east unit. The highest point in the Tucson Mountains is Wasson Peak; 4,687 feet above sea level. The east unit of the park gets more rain than the west unit--it varies from 11 inches per year up to 19 inches inches per year in the east unit as opposed to 7 inches in the west unit. In the east unit, there are fewer saguaro cactuses, but they are bigger and more massive than the ones in the west unit. In the west unit and also in neighboring Tucson Mountain County Park, lies the thickest concentration of saguaros anywhere. There are so many giant cactuses that it actually looks like a forest! I don't know how many cactuses per acre there are, but there are alot of them. It is amazing how many cactuses there are.
I also did some hiking in the west unit and saw petroglyphs (rock carvings) near the Signal Hill picnic area. The most photographed petroglyph is spiral glyph. Maybe it is supposed to represent a sun? With recent additions to enlarge both units of the park, the boundary of the west unit is now only 2 miles from Interstate 10, which is a very busy freeway.
The weather was delightful for hiking and sightseeing. The daytime high tempertatures hovered around 80 degrees with a light breeze while the overnight lows were in the low to mid 40s.

the journey continues

I spent the night on the north end of Ajo at the La Siesta Motel. From the highway, the motel doesn't look very impressive. It is a long, narrow building with about a dozen rooms fronting a dirt parking lot. However, I got a room behind the motel. The motel also rents out some log cabins at the back of the property. There are about 20 cabins. To get to my cabin, I had to drive behind the motel on a dirt road. Then the dirt road dips down between a small grove of trees and widens into a parking lot. My cabin was on the end. I parked next to a dry wash (a dry streambed) and crossed a wooden footbridge over the wash to get to my cabin. About 30 yards to the south of my cabin, an artificial waterfall has been created in the wash with flat river rocks stacked on top of each other. The water that falls over the rocks is recirculated. There is a canopy over the waterfall and a picnic area on either side of the wash.
Ajo is located in a small area of land that is bordered by the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge on the west, the Barry Goldwater Air Force Gunnery Range on the north, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the south and the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation on the east. This area is about 20 miles long and varies in width from 8 to 20 miles.
To the south of Ajo is Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The boundaries of this 516 square mile park where drawn to include most of the organ pipes that grow in Arizona, but they do grow as far north as Ajo. They grow on the hillsides on the outer edges of town. The organ pipe, also called sweet pitahaya, is related to the more famous saguaro cactus, but instead of branching out high up on a central trunk, the organ pipe branches out at the base of the cactus and the branches rise up gracefully to heights that sometimes reach 20 feet. This cactus mostly grows in Mexico, where it is plentiful. The ones that grow in Arizona are at the northern limit of their range, but they are expanding their range because specimens have been been found recently in other places such as the Tortolita Mountains north of Tucson and the Picacho Mountains between Tucson and Phoenix.
The next morning I ate breakfast at a small cafe where I has eaten in the past. It only has seating space for about 20 people, but the food is really good. The small parking lot was full, so I parked across the street behind an abandoned building, one of the scars left over from the turbulent days of the 1980s.
After I left Ajo, I headed east across the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation. The first word in this name is phonetic, it is pronounced the way it looks. The second is pronounced "au-autumn." It is the second biggest Indian Reservation in Arizona. It covers about 3 million acres. The capital of the reservation and biggest town is Sells, which has 5,106 people. No other town on the reservation has more than 400 people. With the exception of Sells, the towns are of roughly equal size, which seems kind of strange. Many of the towns names on the reservation are unpronounceable to most people. Here is a sampling of the town names on the reservation: Hotason Vo, Chukut Kuk, Tatkum Vo, Ali Ak Chin, Gu Chuapo, Hoi Oidak,
Wahak Hotrontk, Tatk Kam Vo, Pia Oik, Sikul Himatke, Gurli Put Vo, Chutum Vaya,
Kui Tatk, Chuwut Murk, Kupk, Siovi Shuatak, Totopitk, Vaiva Vo, Kots Kug and
Ali Chukson, to name a few. Ali Chukson means "Little Tucson" in the Tohono O'odham language. The reservation consists of 4 parts. There is the huge main section of it. There are also 3 small, widely separated sections. They are the Gila Bend District near Gila Bend, the Florence District near Florence and the San Xavier District just outside of Tucson. The San Xavier District is where most of the economy is, such as 2 casinos. It is also where the main tourist attraction on the reservation is--Mission San Xavier del Bac, which is an old Spanish mission.
The Tohono O'odham are a very traditional tribe. Most of the houses have a cooking area that is separated from the main house. They are known for making wine and jam from the fruits of the saguaro cactus. The word "O'odham" means both 'people' and 'cactus' in their language. They believe that the saguaro cactuses are their ancestors.
Another big source of income for the tribe is lease money for Kitt Peak National Observatory on the east side of the main reservation. The astronomical observatory is on top of a 6,875 foot mountain.
Marking the eastern border of the main reservation is Baboquivari Peak, 7,734 feet above sea level. It is half on the reservation, half off, much to the chagrin of the tribe because that is supposed to be where their god, I'itoi, lives. Baboquivari Peak has a very distinctive shape and can be seen for miles. It can even be seen from
Tucson over 30 miles away. The name is pronounced "bah-bow-key-va-ree." The tribe also has land in Mexico. The reservation on the American side extends to the border.

to the hinterlands

On my recent vacation, which started January 14th after I got off of work at 2:30 in the afternoon, I went to Phoenix and spent 2 nights there. The next stop on my itinerary was Ajo. Ajo is Spanish for "garlic" and it is located in western Pima County 40 miles from the border with Mexico. Ajo is a very isolated town that currently has 5,213 people. There is only one highway through town, State Highway 85. There is one other paved road that leads out of town, Ajo Well Road, but it is 5 miles long and meets up with highway 85 on both ends, The only other road out of town, Darby Well Road, is a rough, dirt road that leads to the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and then dead-ends a few miles after it enters the refuge.
Ajo was once a company town. It was owned by Phelps-Dodge until 1988. That is when the huge pit closed and all the mining operations shut down. As a result, the population plummeted from about 8,000 to about 2,500. Since then, the population has rebounded partially to 5,213. The mine has partially reopened, but it is nowhere near the size that it once was. Ajo still shows the scars from its depopulation of the late 80s, The most visible scar is the big, abandoned hospital on top of a hill on the south side of town near the pit. It looks rather haunting. I got some pretty good looks at the hospital, but I wish I could have gotten a closer look. The street that leads up the hill on both sides of the old hospital is closed to traffic. There is a gate across the street and it is posted against trespassing. I did drive up to the gate on both sides and saw a forlorn scene. This old hospital is 2 stories tall and now it looks pretty sad, and it is a nice looking building. What makes look even more forlorn is the shin-high to knee-high grass growing up through the cracks in the pavement in the parking lot. There are some windows broken out, adding to the scene of desolation.
Ajo's downtown plaza is very attractive. It has Spanish colonial architecture with alot of arches. There is a big, grassy park in the center with alot of palm trees. After Ajo's depopulation, most of the businesses on the plaza were abandoned, but the plaza has recovered. The town library occupies what was once 2 separate stores on the south side of the plaza. The wall between the stores has doorways cut into it to connect the 2 sections. The library has an entry door and an exit door. These doors used to provide access to separate stores.
Alot of the streets in Ajo have Spanish names. For example: Cunada Street, Tecolote Street, Taladro Street, Pizal Street, Perro de Nieve Street, Telera Street, Malacate Street, Montecito Street, La Mina Avenue, Rocalla Avenue, Morondo Avenue, Fundicion Street, to name a few. What is strange about the downtown area is its location. It is not in the middle of town. It is in the southeast corner, barely inside the city limits. The town spreads mostly north and west from the plaza. La Mina Avenue (The Mine Avenue), runs diagonally from the south side of the plaza to the the former mine entrance. There are several other streets that converge on the plaza, like the spokes of a wheel, but only from 3 sides. On the east side, beyond the little-used railroad tracks, is the high school/middle school combination. Across Ajo Well Road from the school is a fence paralleling the street and that fenct marks the city limits of Ajo. The city limits is also just south of the school, a short distance south of the intersection of Ajo Well Road and East Elota Street (highway 85).
I spent the night in a charming motel on the north side of town. I will go into details in the next edition of this blog.

intro

This is my newest blog, my third blog. I had discovered that I was beginning to rush through my other travel blog, "In My Travels," because I wanted to write about my most recent vacation where I spent time in Arizona and New Mexico and I had been putting a half-hearted effort into my vacation journal that I have been working on since September. I still enjoyed writing about it, but the interest was starting to wane and that is not a good sign for someone who wants to be a writer. The name of this blog, "Free As The Wind," signifies two things. First of all, it signifies the way I feel when I am out on the open road, traveling the highways and byways of this great land, exploring ghost towns, taking the road less traveled and trying to get a firm grasp on what makes this country so great. It also signifies the fact that I can now concentrate on everything that I want to write about and not have to rush through my current projects and, in the process,forget some of the details that I want to talk about now. People often say "Americans have no culture," but I stongly disagree. The best way to see America is to get off the interstates and away from the big cities. Shortly after the interstate highway system opened in the 1950s, someone said (I don't remember his name), "it is now possible to drive from coast to coast without seeing anything." That is so true.
So, in closing, I hope anyone that reads this blog or my other 2 blogs, feels entertained, moved,or just plain happy when they read my words. But don't just read my words, contemplate them, analyze them, think about them. That way you will get a better feel for what I am trying to parlay in my blogs.