After checking into the RV park, Dan took off in the Toad for an exploration of the town & surrounding area. He discovered a beautiful town plaza & railroad station. Guess what the railroad was called? – the Tucson, Cornelia, & Gila Bend RR! Two blocks off the plaza was an old hotel for sale. Guess what its name was? – the Hotel Cornelia! Dan felt this was a sign that we were to buy the hotel, renovate it, & become permanent residents of Ajo; Corrie didn’t see it that way.
There were two beautiful churches constructed in the Spanish style & majestic high school called the Curly School. The school was abandoned for years, but now has been renovated & provides subsidized housing for artists. While listening to the radio in the Toad, Dan discovered Native American Radio, KOHN, 91.9 FM, voice of the Tohono O’odham Nation. He found it interesting, especially the news which was entirely about Native American matters throughout the USA! Nothing about the budget mess, radiation in Japan, war in Libya, etc.
Ajo never really had a “mining boom” like Bisbee, Benson, & other AZ towns. There was no significant gold or silver in the surrounding area to cause the explosive growth (followed by rapid decline) so typical of other western mining towns in the USA. Starting with the Native Americans, Ajo was always known for copper deposits. Unfortunately it seems that every time someone started to actually make a profit from copper, the prices would drop. Right now there appears to be little or no activity at the giant pit right on the edge of town. Guess what the pit is called? - the New Cornelia mine!
For the last few decades Ajo was making some money as a way station for tourists from Tucson & Phoeniz heading to “Arizona’s beach” located in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, MX, on the Sea of Cortez (aka Gulf of California). Puerto Penasco means Rocky Port, but Anglos call it Rocky Point. Apparently the beaches are lovely & the deep sea fishing excellent. In the 1990s developers realized that this was an undeveloped area & was the closest beach to the citizens of Phoenix, Tucson & even New Mexico by car. So the building of beachfront condos & walled communities for the Anglos commenced. But even though Mexico’s recent drug war has not affected Puerto Penasco; tourism, & therefore the “traffic” through Ajo, is way down.
As a result of 9/11 & drug problems on the international border, the “big” business now in Ajo is the Border Patrol! Border Patrol vehicles are everywhere; cruising the roads, parked in the middle of nowhere, & appear to outnumber “civilian” cars two to one. In fact, about twenty miles south of town on the road to Mexico that cuts through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the Border Patrol is building a big facility for their increased presence in the surrounding area.
Wednesday morning it was off to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. First thing we noticed on the forty mile drive to the Visitor Center was more & more Border Patrol as we traveled south. Corrie figured there were so many of them, everyone visiting the park should get their own private escort? Dan had three thoughts – 1) we were extremely safe & protected, 2) we might not be that safe, 3) it was very sad that our “demand” for illegal substances had brought the USA (& the citizens of Mexico) to this point. This last point was driven home when we learned the Visitor Center was named after Kris Eggle, a Park Ranger killed by drug smugglers in 2002. After visiting the Visitor Center & being reassured that the Monument area was safe, we drove the Ajo Mountain Drive (21 miles of dirt & gravel) & hiked a little of the Estes Canyon Trail.
As you maybe able to determine from the name of the National Monument, it was created to protect the Organ Pipe Cactus. But as you explore the park you will see that the Organ Pipe Cactus is vastly outnumbered by Saguaro, Cholla, & other cacti. So why the park? Because this is the farthest “north” the Organ Pipe Cactus grows in North America. While it is very “common” as you travel south, this National Monument is pretty much it if you want to view Organ Pipe Cactus in the USA. In fact, the Monument has been recognized by the UN as an “International Biosphere Reserve” for its diversity, rare & endangered species, rich cultural history & ecosystem of international importance. Trivia – what is a Saguaro boot?
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