A ROUND TRIP TO SANTA CRUZ

The basin-shaped Valley of San Rafael, more properly known as the Valley of San Rafael de la Žanja, is one of several gateways through which travelers from Mexico have entered Arizona for centuries. Today this richly grassed valley, lying partly in Sonora, south of the border, and more expansively in Arizona, is a green, peaceful and secluded countryisolated and little known because today's main highways of the state by-pass it. The Valley of San Rafael, in fact, is even somewhat hard to find. It is reached most easily from Patagonia (20 miles east of Nogales on State Route 82). Patagonia lies at the northern foot of a mineral-laden range of mountains of the same name. They extend south in a crescent-shaped formation, with the southern tip reaching into Mexico. The open face of the crescent forms the western rim of the Valley of San Rafael. The rolling Canelo hills hem it in on the north and east, with the lordly Huachucas towering up in the southeast.

The valley converges at the ancient Mexican village of Santa Cruz, seven miles south of the border station of Lochiel, or La Noria, as the Mexicans call it.

A delightful round trip from Patagonia to Santa Cruz and back can easily be made in one day. Near the town the "valley" road forks to the right through the Patagonia Mountains, emerging above the customs station at Lochiel, and to the left, more directly through the mountains and into the heart of the great valley. This branch, too, sweeps down to Lochiel, over the rolling plains, splicing through the rangelands of several large cattle ranches. A morning drive over the mountain road and a return trip up the center of the valley, with a side jaunt of fourteen miles to Santa Cruz and back, makes for an interesting, leisurely and scenic day. From Lochiel to Santa Cruz the road is rutted from the countless wagons, burro trains and horses which are the most common forms of transportation, but it isn't too difficult to drive in a car. About 160 cars pass through the customs station each month. One-day visitors to Mexico may travel up to ten kilometers from the border without a pass or visa. The border gates, however, close at 6 p.m. The glimpse of Mexico that one is offered in the sevenmile trip from Lochiel to Santa Cruz is a pleasing one. Small irrigated farms along the river, some of them of recent origin, grow lush corn crops. On the older farms many of the fields have been planted to corn for over 30 continuous years. The water is rich in minerals and silt. The sunburned adobe houses, the primitive transportation, and the leisurely tempo of the people one meets in the rural areas are carried over into the town of Santa Cruz. In the center is the inevitable plaza, with a bandstand and community well. The courthouse, church and several cantinas flank the plaza, interspersed with thick-walled residences and small stores. There are no special shops for tourists, no motels and only one cafe, which serves Mexican food. The Santa Cruz river, which has much to do in regulating the prosperity of this area, begins in Arizona. It is one of the most remarkable rivers on the continent. This lively stream originates near the center of the Valley of San Rafael, twelve miles south and twelve miles east of Patagonia. It flows south for 26 miles, some fourteen of which are below the border, and then it turns west in Sonora for twelve more miles. It doubles back on its course to reenter the U.S. about five miles east of Nogales, flowing north. Its later course through southern Arizona is underground, the river bed being dry except during the rainy season-if any. The Santa Cruz flows as a sunken stream up through and underneath Tucson and joins the Gila river bed at the town of Maricopa, 160 miles from where it reentered the state. On a topographical map the course of the river's outline resembles a huge hook. At one time an estimated 10,000 people lived along the road that twists through the Patagonia Mountains, and those were hectic days, indeed. In 1913, there were over 100 mining claims being worked and the considerable town of Harshaw had 28 saloons and six general stores to take care of the population. Mescal, monte and mining formed the domestic pattern that was salty, uproarious at times, and even further enlivened by constant rumors of new strikes or the latest mountain gossip, such as the awesome furor when the word got around that George Westinghouse, later an electrician of note, was installing sumptuous bathrooms, with running water, in his new Duquesne

CORNER STORE. GENERAL MERCHANDISE. SWEET SHOPPE TELEPHONE WESTERN UNION

Patagonia is the starting place for a round trip to Santa Cruz. This is the main corner of the village.

residence from which he directed the activities in extracting four million dollars' worth of ore from his nearby claims. An ethereal shudder went through the Patagonia populace around 1914 when the driver of the stagecoach was fatally pinged with an arrow that came flying out of the rocks and thick undergrowth. The murderer was never apprehended but he was thought to be an Indian passing through the country, indulging in a little vengeance. At any rate, the poor stagecoach driver earned the doubtful distinction of being the last American to be slain in such an outdated frontier fashion. The first mining operations by other than natives in this area were conducted by the Jesuit fathers in the 17th century. They had a considerable force of men, mostly The plaza in Santa Cruz, Sonora, has witnessed long years of history. The town is a quiet village today.

Impressed Indians, extracting metals from extensive work-country between the border and Calabasas was reported to ings, the size being indicated by the slag dumps that werebe "full of prospectors from California." Some of the mines once found near mission ruins. San Xavier, south ofthat were established about that time are still being worked Tucson, at one time had $40,000 worth of silver from thetoday, such as the Trench and the Flux, thereby squelching Santa Rita mines as altar adornments.the slanderous slur that uninformed visitors sometimes After the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, Americans en-make, that "it's a ghost town area." Four busloads of tered the picture with characteristic zeal, and by 1857 theminers a day come out from Nogales and still other miners Native grasses of valley grow luxuriantly when properly grazed. Shown here is meadow on the Heady and Ashburn ranch.

And their families live in the mountains. It is no ghost area -though ghosts abound there. Near Washington Camp there's an old adobe house, said to be still inhabited, and very late at night a muted, tapping noise can sometimes be heard, like water dripping. It isn't water. It is blood dripping from the corpse of a wealthy man who was murdered there. During the rainy season, when out in the woods near Patagonia, nocturnal wayfarers often hear sounds of a woman weeping. A few people have seen her. Dressed in white, with long, black, flowing hair, she is searching for her baby, a baby she did not want and threw into the flood waters raging down a nearby ravine. Remorseful these past years, she still seeks her lost child during every rain storm. Like other mineralized areas the Patagonia region nurtured a number of free-wheeling entrepreneurs. One of the most colorful was Lt. Sylvester Mowry, a West Pointer who was stationed at nearby Fort Crittenden, the melting adobe walls of which are still standing. In 1859 he paid $25,000 for a claim that had been developed as a result of a deal that had taken place two years before that. A Mexican herder traded a solid nugget of silver for a pony. The rush was on. Samuel Colt, later of firearm fame, then got hold of the site and he redeveloped it to some extent. There were indications that it had been worked by the Mexicans before that and perhaps by the Spanish padres as well. After Mowry got it, he promoted $200,000 for its development and for new equipment. At one time Mowry employed 120 men, and in four years he shipped a million and a half dollars' worth of ore to San Francisco and London, via Guaymas, the overland trip to the coast being made with mule-driven wagons. Then Mowry was arrested by the U.S. government in 1862. He went to the territorial prison at Yuma, charged with having trafficked in lead with the Confederate forces.

In the early '70s, the Mowry was worked by jumpers, but cave-ins and gophering ruined it. Fish and Silverberg of Tucson acquired it and they took out $75,000, and in the early '80s they sold it to Steinfeld and Swain, Tucson, for another $75,000. After putting in $100,000 worth of repairs to the smelter and other improvements, Steinfeld and Swain took out $80,000 and then they too sold out at a profit. The Mowry was resold several more times but today it lies idle, and only a few buildings remain of what was once a good sized workings. The tremendous slag piles and a few buildings are all that remain, those and the big holes from which so much silver, lead and zinc have been taken. On a hill in back of the old workings is a foot-wide fissure which was caused by underground cave-ins. The whole Patagonia range is pock-marked with dangerous holes which once were the diggings of hopeful prospectors. In one place below Washington Camp there is a four-foot hole that yawns openly only a foot off the roadbed. During the mining heyday Lochiel was a thriving and lusty little town-wide open, riotous and noisy. Besides having a smelter, it served as a shipping point for the burro trains and wagons as they began their trek to Guaymas or to Mexico City. Today most of the ore, about $70,000 worth a week, is shipped by rail from the town of Patagonia, and Lochiel is a quiet settlement, basking in one of the most salubrious year-round climates to be found anywhere. Most of the adobe stores, saloons and residences have melted away, after the fashion of deserted adobe buildings. Nothing much happens there. It was once the favorite spot of Pancho Villa for acquiring the many horses he needed. Cattle ranches around there raised the kind Villa liked, in particular the Greene Cattle Co. Villa's men often raided their herds and on one occasion 200 head were "delivered" in one lot-on an "or else" basis. Besides ranches in Mexico, the Greene operations included, and still do, the famous land grant of San Rafael de la Zanja which starts close to the present border and extends up the valley for six miles. The return trip from Lochiel takes the motorist right through the center of the grant and within yards of the two-story ranch house. In 1821 Don Manuel Bustillo petitioned the Governor Intendente, Don Antonio Cordera, for four sitios of land for the "use of large cows." It wasn't until Mexico had obtained her independence that the grant was issued. After some spirited bidding the grant went to Don Ramon Romero and the citizens of Santa Cruz. They got it for $1,200, plus $97 in taxes.

More cattle were brought in and the grant prospered for awhile, but then a series of misfortunes beset the people. The Apaches stepped up the tempo of their raids, making life on an isolated ranch precarious; civil wars in Sonora kept the country in added turmoil; and an exodus to the gold fields depleted the labor supply. In the 1870's the grant was acquired by the Pennsylvania Land and Cattle Co. with a redoubtable Scotchman at its head, Colin Cameron. He imported some of the first Herefords to Arizona, and also a bunch of Shetland ponies. Later he built the big headquarters house which is still there, located only a few yards off the road. In 1902 Cameron sold out to Col. W. C. Greene, a famous Westerner whose financial and mining exploits were something to behold. Cloistered professors and sedentary "scholars" have written up Greene's exploits with annoying deprecation. Actually he was a man of great vision and free-wheeling enterprise-just what the raw frontier needed. After he acquired the San Rafael it became the purebred bull breeding ranch for his various other range properties, including the fabulous Cananea outfit in Sonora which included mines, whole villages and countless "cowcamps." Besides his cattle, which were branded RO and OR, Greene ran a huge herd of horses. He had to in order to keep his own outfit mounted. Over a thousand colts a year were raised. He took as much pride in the quality of the horses his men rode as he did of the cattle they rode herd on. The stallions were often imported from Kentucky. To this day RO horses are some of the best in the business and the company still maintains fifteen stallions in Mexico. Their scattered U.S. operations are more mechanized.

Farther on, Brahman cattle graze on the ranges of the Vaca Ranch, another old-time spread that has changed hands often and is now owned by the Janss interests of California. Other ranches spread out all over the valley, even up into the highlands which are a part of the Coronado National Forest. At the forest boundary an incomparable view, south to Mexico, is highlighted by the westering sun. The bluish haze over the far-off mountains seems to fade away in the afternoon and they stand out in bold relief, almost purple.Patagonia is only five miles away, through the lower end of Harshaw Canyon. Back in town the motorist might take a look at the loading platforms alongside the railroad tracks. They are inconspicuous and might have been missed on the way through. The piles of gray or reddish rocks on these platforms are the concentrates going to the smelters at El Paso. From the adjacent stock pens the cattle go to market by rail, too. It is still a lively area, prosperous and interesting to visit. And for someone who likes to poke around and discover things for himself, it is fascinating.