PIMA AND PAPAGO INDIANS HONOR THEIR DEAD ON ALL SOULS’ DAY

GHOST TRAIL TO LOCHIEL

Off-trail in literature, theater, and art means something different, unusual, stimulating. It excites the imagination, tantalizes the fancy, and refreshes minds gone tired of a steady diet of "formula."

Just so is the ghost trail to Lochiel, a back-bush Arizona town on the Mexican frontier. Reached from Nogales by way of a cut-off on State Highway 82, the gravel serpentine that is the Lochiel road is so "off-trail" that not even a sign-post marks its beginning.

However, the traveler, proceeding northeast on Highway 82, cannot miss the fountainhead of this trail, for it is picturesquely indicated by a "little red school house." Past the school, the road sweeps into the mountains of the Coronado National Forest, probing its way to a high pass. From this summit, the adventurer can see clearly the twin cities of Nogales and the deep green valleys and purple hills of southern Arizona and northern Mexico.

In dry weather, the Lochiel road, if narrow, is yet easily traversed by modern automobiles. Traffic is scarce. Now and then a pick-up truck from some neighboring ranch chugs by, or a semi-trailer jammed with cattle bound for market. From time to time, Mexicans, resident in the valley, grind up the grade in a vehicle of ancient vintage.

At the summit, which exceeds five thousand feet, the traveler starts with delight at the panorama of grass covered hills, rolling meadowland and distant peaks. At the foot of the grade, he finds the road more nearly straight, flanked by scrub oak, cottonwoods, sycamores and pink range grasses.

Red manzanitas thrust their round, green leaves skyward and an occasional small cactus studs the lush landscape. At intervals, a long-eared, lonesome jackrabbit or busy gray squirrel scurries across the road. Nearby, the arrow-tailed roadrunner breaks the prairie stillness with his harsh cry as he skims the ground hunting for lizards.

Many a side-trail knifes away from the main Lochiel road, probing the bush country where man has dotted the hills with mine shafts, blasted, in many cases, into solid outcrops of rock. Lead, silver, zinc, and copper once lured prospectors to the land of Lochiel. Now, however, the area is mostly deserted, the mines gone back to grass and tree-tangle.

Sixteen miles from the junction with Highway 82, tired, old Washington Camp, once the smelting center for the Westinghouse mines, sleeps out its last days in crumbling decay. But the traveler can still see the huge, up-thrusting concrete pylons that formerly supported the stations of an aerial tramway that carried ore to the smelters from Duquesne, a mile farther east.Years ago, Duquesne throbbed to the activity of a

thousand industrious people, producing ore that was life blood in the veins of Washington Camp. Around the camp and Duquesne, tall timbered hoist structures still reach for heaven, but their cro-cages are rusting, their tiny ore cars quietly resting on narrow-gauge tracks that await only the complete ravages of time. The hoist towers, however, are still sturdy, and the reader can climb them, set up his equipment on their broad tops and record the tremendous sweep of mountains and valleys that change color chameleon-like in the warm Arizona sun, Near Duquesne, an old school house, its tin roof curling In place of mining, the Lochiel Valley today boasts a ranching business that produces top-grade Herefords. Three miles from the tiny border town, travelers see the cut-off to the J-I ranch, home of champion Hereford balls. In fact, Herefords dot the roadway, lolling at ease; in their verdant pastures, apparently unaware of the blazing trail of cottonwoods, green leaves intermingled with yellow and the intruding red of frost-kissed creepers. Here, indeed, is an artist's paradise, quiet land of peace and natural pretty. Lochiel itself is no more than a cluster of small build ings a ranch hand's hut, a farm home, the United States Customs station. Y skyward like dried skin, hides among a tangle of trees, a monument to man's insistence that education must always accompany material progress. At Duquesne, too, the ruins of fine homes, once occupied by mining company officials, attest the prosperity that has vanished. Around the ore-dumps of Duquesne, rock collectors can pick up beautiful samples of copper matte, iron pyrites, slimy lead and sooty zinc, zinc. Mining Mining on a small, lease-holder basis continues sporadically, punctuated by an occasional dynamite blast or the pounding of sledges against hand drills. But activity that created the sprawling ore-dumps and slag-hills has long since gone, some say forever.

Lochiel today remains a charming ghost of a fiery past, when Mexicans and Indians fought each other, when kid nappings and killings were frequent, when Americanos often had to step in in restore order, To charm the venturesome, a road leads away from Lochiel, eastward through Parker Canyon, on to a junction with State Highway 92 and so to Bisbee. Seldom visited, scarcely known by native or tourist, Lochiel is truly an "off-trail" town. In a few short hours, the trip from Nogales gives the visitor a full fare of beauty, history, and adventure that best walk hand in hand only in the world's remote corners.