Rancho La Arizona

Mexico's Historic Rancho La Arizona Where Arizona Got Its Name

The Arizona Ranch, Sonora, Mex-ico-Don Arnulfo Pinuelas, 100-year-old cowboy, ex-Mexican revolutionary, and bearer of three bul-let wounds inflicted by a jealous hus-band, chuckles about his past over a cup of sugary black coffee.

Don Arnulfo loves that coffee, a lip-curling product of raven-black beans steeped all day long over a wood-burn-ing stove. He serves it to everyone who comes to see him, and they, in respectful gratitude, usually slip a couple of dol-lars under a plate before leaving. "It's a good investment," the don tells friends.

It's late afternoon and we're in north-ern Mexico on the Arizona Ranch, sip-ping the don's brew and swapping tales inside the ranch's equivalent of crew's quarters. It's a plastered adobe bunk-house, off-white outside and dingy gray within. On the wall of the kitchen is a sketch of a pretty young face with an entreating smile. There used to be more of the young thing, but her lower reaches were scribbled out by some desert decency league.

The don "don" is a title of respect given to old people waves a hand around this two-room abode and says sarcastically, "Muy bonita," very pretty.

Don Arnulfo, tough as the times that made him, is a full-fledged cowhand who plans to keep working as long as he can walk. For 17 years he's been a fixture in a very special place: this site, which natives call "Rancho la Arizona" or "La Arizonac," gave its name to America's 48th state.

Centuries ago the ranch area was inhabited by Papago Indians, who planted along the Altar River that flows through the rich countryside, and raised small crops of corn and beans.

About 250 years ago, Spaniards discovered great deposits of silver here and set about mining it with avaricious abandon. This went on until the silver became scarce, then farming dominated the valley once again.

Father Francisco Kino, the Spanish priest who explored and Christianized much of northern Mexico and Arizona, is believed to have passed through this area around 1700, and fortune seekers of all descriptions have followed in his footsteps.

Living amid all this history scarcely impresses Don Arnulfo, and it's little wonder when you've lived as long as he has, history is only yesterday.

"Both my parents were miners and lived in Ocampo, in Chihuahua," the don recalls in hoarse Spanish. "Even when I was a little boy I would take a pick and shovel and go into the mine. "I was a 'tunnel rat.' I was paid 25 cents a day, and I worked from sunrise to sunset. That was in the days of Porfirio Diaz" longtime strong man of Mexico whose rule inspired the Mexican revolution in the early 1900s.

"When the revolution started, I was 30 years old. I went with Pancho Villa and fought in the 11th Division. I fought for three years, and I was in two big battles."

Paradoxically, it was love and not war that gave him grief. For paying too much attention to a married woman in the Chihuahua town of Casas Grandes, he collected three bullet wounds in the jaw and shoulder.

The years since then have taken more tolls. He broke his hip in a fall down a mine shaft and hasn't been able to walk well since. He chopped off the toes of one foot with an ax and cauterized them on the spot with a hot iron. A finger was severed by a rope and a couple of horses have rolled over on him. His face is as deeply cut and sharply etched as the steep ravines that line the land he lives in. Nearly toothless and always laughing, he is as friendly as an old, dependable horse and unconcerned about the future. To Don Arnulfo, life will go on because it always has, and a few lost toes or a broken bone or two are hardly worth worrying about. "Until I fall until I can't do it no more that's when I'll retire," he says.

You can see why the Wise family has kept him on the ranch for so long and why Pepe Wise, head of the family-owned spread, treats him with reverence.

Not long ago, when the old man cut a leg artery, Pepe rushed him back to Nogales across 23 miles of incredibly rough road. "We could have lost him," Pepe says. "We were lucky."

At 33, Pepe is the young head of the Wise family, a much respected clan whose affiliation with the border country goes back more than a century. But even though they own the Arizona Ranch, the Wises are, in a sense, only its curators.

Pepe acknowledges this: "I'm always curious when I come out here, you know, the Papago Indians were out here. I look around and I say, 'I wonder what they did here? Where were they at, who was standing here?' And I read about Father Kino going through here. Somebody else was here, and I wonder what kind of life they had, if it's changed much from what I have."

The answer is that it hasn't changed much, except for the occasional rumble of a passing pickup truck or the rare buzz of a small plane. The ranch and the valley it lies in have been treated very gently by time.

For unknown centuries, settlements of Papagos lived comfortable lives in this five-mile-long valley, irrigating their small plots from the river and enjoying the lush meadows and huge cottonwoods.

In 1521, the persistent Cortez conquered southern Mexico, and subsequent conquistadores and priests began filtering northward. Some 20 years later the Coronado expedition passed nearby in search of the seven golden cities of Cibola.

It wasn't until Father Kino established missions at nearby Caborca, Tubutama, and Saric in the late 1600s, however, that the Indians of Altar Valley met the light-skinned newcomers.

When the Spaniards arrived in the valley, the Papagos were calling their home "Arizonac," meaning "the place of the little waters." The Spaniards, whose lilting language is more attuned to soft endings, changed the settlement's name to "Arizona," a title unaltered since.

One day around 1734, in the hills a short distance upstream from the valley of Arizonac, a Spanish prospector came to the end of his search. Strewn on the ground, he reported, were slabs of silver weighing up to a half-ton each, The Wise family ranch in the Altar Valley of Sonora, Mexico, left. Padre Kino was said to have passed this way in the 17th century, and fortune seekers of all descriptions have followed in his footsteps.

young family's affiliation with the border country goes back more than a century.... Three generations of ranch houses now occupy sites on the Arizona Ranch. The first, an ancient adobe, is in total collapse; the second, shown here, built by Knight Wise, father of Pepe Wise, head of the family, is in near ruin; the third, and newest, a 13room baronial manor, built by Pepe, now serves as the family seat.

along with balls of silver exceeding 500 pounds in weight. Word spread, and for more than a century afterward, silver was taken out of the valley as well as from other areas nearby.

When the silver played out, the land became quiet again. On the Arizona Ranch, the Spanish cattle grazed quietly, the streams ran year-round, and farming resumed on a lackadaisical basis.

With the arrival of Americans in the 1800s, events stirred again. Around 1870, frontier entrepreneur William Bartlett bought the Arizona Ranch from the Mexican government, and once in possession, he planted a large orchard, set up a canning factory, grist mill, and tannery, and turned thousands of cattle loose upon the range.

After Bartlett's death in 1907, the land came up for sale again, and here the Wise family made its entrance.

Joseph E. Wise, son of a congressman and grandfather of Pepe, acquired the ranch in 1919 and took as a partner his son, Knight-Pepe's father.

Pepe was born in Nogales and grew up in the ranch's rural isolation. The ranch household had an international flavor: while Knight Wise was bilingual, gual, his wife, Flodie, spoke only En glish, and little Pepe was limited to Spanish. "My mom and I had a lot of trouble communicating," Pepe recalls.

Pepe went to school in the city, served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, and returned to marry Rosaura Garcia. Together they have two daughters Jennifer, 6, and Janice, 3. When school is in session the family lives in a big rambling house on "Tungsten Hill" in Nogales, Sonora, but during the sum Farmers they retreat to their cattle and pastures.

Rosaura prefers life on the ranch and would stay there all the time if it weren't for the schooling needs of her small daughters. "It's tranquil," she says.

"There isn't so much noise or so many worries."

Between Nogales and the Arizona Built in 1971, of brick rather than the once-favored adobe, the present home of the Wise family on the Arizona Ranch, top, is this hacienda con structed in the traditional manner, with a central enclosed courtyard. Martin Ramirez, far left, is one of a small handful of cowboys still work ing cattle today on the 13,000 acre Sonoran ranch.... Pepe Wise, who manages the family-owned ranch, left, inspects his Brangus cows, 300 of which now graze on the old ranch. The cattle are a mix of Brahman and Angus breeds. J. Peter Mortimer Ranch is a road sort of. It's more like a high and low obstacle course with so many pits and potholes that Pepe is forced to buy a new truck every two years.

This road is not for the faint-hearted or easily troubled. It's an up-and-down, slip-and-slide affair, with parts that turn into seas of loose rock and clusters of bumps that will jar your bone mar row loose.

Don't drive it! If you get stuck on this tortuous course, as you undoubtedly will, you'll have a long, hard, and prob ably dangerous walk back to town.

After 23 miles of shake, rattle, and roll, the ranch is a beautifully welcome sight. It sprawls across 13,000 hilly acres where some 300 Brangus cows, a combination of Brahman and Angus breeds, graze in high grass bordered by barbed-wire fences. On one side is "La Plomosa," the leaden mountain, and on the other is "El Placerito," in former times the site of placer gold.

Pepe's ranch house is baronial, one of those self-enclosing Spanish manses with a courtyard in the center. It con Contains 13 rooms, few of which get used unless there's company, and a combina tion living room/dining area big enough to hold a dress ball.

"When my wife and I first got to the ranch, we were living in my Dad's old house" a short distance away, Pepe says. "But because of the old construc tion and that bamboo roofing, we had a lot of scorpions and stuff like that.

"So we decided to build a new one.

We built a more modern house, brick instead of adobe, in 1971."

Surrounding their residence is a sparse but pleasant lawn, enhanced by pastures in the background. Although the ranch has shrunken considerably from its former dimensions of 53,000acres and 2,000 cattle, it could still sup port the Wises handsomely year around if they chose to stay there.

"Self-sufficiency is a big thing for me," says Pepe. "We sometimes dry meat. We have fish, we have frog legs(Louisiana game frogs abound in the streams) and we have doves, quail, stuff like that. As far as food goes we're pretty well self-sufficient, if we really wanted to get away from the tradition of wanting homogenized milk, or do without some of the luxuries."We could live down here with what we have."

At times, Pepe has been forced to live that more primitive and isolated life.

"There's been a few times when the flood came in that I've had to still ride a horse from the ranch to get to town.

One time when the little one was just a baby, we ran out of milk because the flood was so bad. I invited a couple of cowboys and said, 'Let's go get provisions in town,' and we started off on horseback.

"We put some packs on the horses, and we came across and we hit the city (Nogales). We went around all the arroyos into the city to buy some milk to take back for the baby."

"It took 12 hours. It was a tough ride. But you know, that's when you start to feel like you're of the old times, that this is what they had to do. And then you start to think of what you're doing, and what you can tell your kids later on."

Pepe knows his children will probably never have to do the same thing. The Mexican government is building a highway that within three years will take motorists directly west from No gales to the Gulf of California beaches at Desemboque. The road will sweep past the ranch, and Pepe is getting ready for the changes it will bring.

"Our old way of life will die out. Every year when we sell our calves, the roads are so bad that we still drive our cattle into town. That's gonna be a dead art, like the Basques who used to drive their sheep and then all of a sudden, it's gone.

"As things get more modern, I'll have to be looking back at the times when we used to drive our cattle, because with the highway coming through, it wouldn't be economical to still drive our cattle into town. But I'm gonna miss it.

Realizing the road won't bring only bad things, Pepe has visions of turning the ranch and its surrounding historical sites into a tourist attraction.

"I would not give up the cattle busi ness," he vows. "I would have it inter twined.

"The business of ranching is the only thing I know. I don't know a thing about the tourist business. So if I do the tourist thing, it will be just a small portion, maybe a small restaurant.

It seems inevitable that the ranch will change forever once the road comes through. It will be altered for the better if Pepe can help it, and for the first time, thousands of Arizonans will be able to have a look at the place which lent its name to their homeland. They will be able to see and feel and run their fingers through this back-hill Eden, still free of pollution and litter and facing the future with ancient beauty.

And more, visitors will be able to see the stunning part of Mexico that lies beyond restaurants, hotels, and curio shops. As Pepe Wise observes, "People will actually be able to see that Sonora is a beautiful place, but you just have to get off the highway to see it."

assemble luggage. The goods, components of which came from the U.S., return to this country for final assembly. Tariffs on them apply only to the value added to them by partial assembly.

The plants-maquiladoras, as they're known in Mexico are the source of thousands of jobs, and while U.S. labor unions oppose the twin plants concept, it allows U.S. industry to compete with Japanese, Korean, and other manufacturers whose entire operations are based on low-paid workers.

For the Arizona side of Nogales, the plants are especially beneficial. An estimated 80 percent of those plants' paychecks are spent in stores this side of "the line." Those stores do business approaching $200 million a year on the Mexican trade alone and that's no bad deal for a city of 15,000.

The customers come from the Sonora side of the city, where twin plants, transportation, produce, and tourism have attracted a population now past the 125,000 mark and growing fast.

Between the two cities lies "the line," the border, the steel-grating and chainlink fence that funnels most traffic through three gates. But just as Robert Frost found something in nature that scorns fences, there is something about commerce that abhors borders.

By the thousands, Mexicans pour through the gates to take advantage of the low prices and high quality of U.S. merchandise. Along Morley Avenue, which bumps into the border just east of the railroad track, you can go all day without hearing a word of English; some store clerks, in fact, speak only Spanish.

Along Morley, looking as if they'd popped in from a time-warp, are an S.H. Kress and an F.W. Woolworth with the old-style display stands and shelves full of things things like needles and thread, pencils and erasers, eyeglasses, curtain rings, and other doodads, available in small quantities, not plasticsealed by the dozen. These stores, like the nearby J.C. Penney, are among the most successful in the entire U.S. Individual items are available, but customers are as likely to buy 'em by the gross as not. Some are buying for family members far to the south; others are peddlers, who pack the goods equally far south and sell them at a hundred percent markup or more.

For whatever reason they buy, their purchases add up to good business and to something of a market-day atmosphere on weekends in Nogales.

While mobs of Mexicans jam the stores north of the line, more modest, if equally noisy, throngs are strung along the sidewalks of the Sonoran side. They're from north of the border, drawn to Mexico by such things as serapes, sombreros, pottery, perfume, glassware, leather goods, and low-cost liquor. Only a quart a month is allowed across the line with each adult, none with children, but the bargain-basement rum, vodka, gin, tequila, and Kahlúa serve as partial motivation for a Sunday drive from Tucson or even Phoenix especially when the trip nets something nice to hang on the wall and dinner in Mexico as well.

And curio-buying can indeed work up an appetite.

First-time visitors to Nogales may be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the merchandise, its vast variety and nigh-unto-infinite amount.

At first it may look like a nightmarish redundance of junk. A few moments' conversation with the gregarious English-speaking salesclerks, however, can turn a down-the-nose view of the goods into fascination with workmanship (excellent on some items, intriguingly rustic on others and, yes, sometimes slipshod on some pieces look them over carefully) and and an itch to know more about where they came from.

Those onyx chess sets and backgammon games? They're from Puebla, the colonial city just east of Mexico City, where an army of Mexican patriots stalled a French invasion on May 5, 1862. That date, known as the Cinco de Mayo, is one of Mexico's biggest holidays. Nogales, Sonora, celebrates it with fireworks, fiestas, concerts, and carnival rides.

And the sombreros-especially those black velvet, silver-trimmed hats symbolic of the Mexican charro and all that's macho? They come from the central state of Michoacán, where some of Mexico's most spectacular scenery is found. The villages of Michoacán, especially those near photogenic Lake Pátzcuaro, are famed for their handicrafts: lacquered trays, woven straw, multicolored coarse-wool blankets, and florid dresses.

Some towns still specialize in a single craft, learned under the tutelage of 16th-century bishop Vasco de Quiroga, protector of Indians during the early days of the Spanish Conquest.

From all over the rugged midsection of Mexico, the curios find their way to market towns, railheads, trucking points and Nogales. Leatherwork from Mexico City. Peasant shirts and black pottery from Oaxaca. Serapes from Saltillo. Carved ironwood from central Sonora. Stoneware from the Guadalajara area. Pleated guayabera shirts from Yucatán. By the gross, these things wend their way to Nogales, and to other heavily touristed spots. It's a long way from most crafts centers to Nogales, but prices aren't much higher here than where they come from - in fact, volume buying often puts bordercity merchants in a position to sell for less than at the point of origin.

And what are the prices? Well, that's part of the fun. Some stores may stick with their price tags, but bargaining is alive and well among many merchants.

Your success at bargaining may depend more on courtesy than on haranguing ability.

In some parts of the world it may pay to denigrate the goods, then hard-nose their seller. In Mexico, that hurts feelings and firms up prices.

In Nogales, you'll get further in more ways than one by beginning with a hello and an appreciative look

"La Cocina de Mexico" The Cookery of Mexico

by Jane Baker Mexican food is basically a red, white, and green affair. Think about it for a minute. Enchiladas sport the colors of the Mexican flag with sour cream, red sauce, and a sprinkling of green onion. Salsa Mexicana, the hot Mexican dipping sauce, combines tomatoes, onions, and chilis; and a popular dessert called almendrado, or almond pudding, also carries out the national color theme. The Mexican people take a lot of pride in their cuisine.

The food of Sonora is unique because of the extensive use of flour tortillas. In the other states of Mexico, corn tortillasare preferred. Also Sonorans wrap their tamales in hojas, dried corn husks, instead of banana leaves, as is the custom in the southern states of the country. The state borders on the Sea of Cortez, so Nogales usually has a steady supply of fish and seafood, which local restaurants have used extensively to entice customers.

A Mexican kitchen, whether in a private home or a restaurant, always seems to give off the savory aroma of roasting chilis. That's because the Mexican kitchen in Sonora basically revolves around three chili sauces. There's the red chili sauce used for enchiladas,tamales, and gorditas. It's easily made with a blender, and this modern appliance is found in almost every home in Mexico.

Then there's the Mexican salsa that is so good for dipping tortilla chips. But this chunky sauce can also be used in recipes. It's good with eggs for a breakfast dish or with shrimp for a main course. A third sauce is mole, made with chilis, onions, garlic, and bitter chocolate. It's often served over poultry. Now, I admit the idea of chocolate and chicken does not sound very appetizing, but that's one of the things Mexican cooks do best they combine unusual ingredients to give delicious flavor treats.

My first stop in Nogales is usually the panaderia or bakery. There are several bakeries in the heart of the tourist district of Nogales, but don't ask directions. Let your nose be your guide.

Bolillos, soft and warm from the oven, are favorites from the panaderia. These are a kind of French roll, but they are softer and sweeter than Europeanstyle rolls. Heap your basket with an array of sweet rolls, crusty loaves of bread, savory cakes, and sugary cookies known as pan dulce.

At first, I thought Mexican food was a combination plate enchiladas, tacos, tamales, rice, and beans all piled on the same plate. But no one eats that way in Mexico. Tacos and tamales are snack foods. The main meal, served in the early afternoon, consists of several courses from soup through dessert, all served individually. But in a border town, the natives have made allowances for gringo misconceptions. Restaurant menus usually sport at least one Mexican combo plate.

The most interesting thing about Mexican food is that it is so individualized. Every home or restaurant starts out with the same raw ingredients, but there isn't a standard recipe for any of the specialties. Everyone has his own adaptation. That's part of the fun of eating in Nogales.

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"This is nice; how much is it, please?"

You get a price. You plead poverty.

"Gee, it is nice, and it may be worth that much, but it's a long way back home, and I've got to take it easy on the money ." or something like that.

The sales clerk probably will pick up on your cue and you're off on a bargaining session you may want to punctuate with questions about the city, the economy, the rest of Mexico, the weather, whatever.

In time, and with wiles and smiles, you'll arrive at a price somewhere between the first one quoted and the first one you offered. If it's too high, you may decide to compare it with that of a nearby store and on Nogales' main drag, there's always a nearby store.

That decision often will trigger an even lower quote. You may take 'em up on it, or you may repeat the whole process up and down Obregon Street, depending on how long your feet and patience hold out.

The stores' displays of goods often may be more reminiscent of a Moorish bazaar than of a chic boutique, but then you're in the land of Mexican streetmarkets; a fact worthy of delight, not disdain. At any rate, there are some attractive shops, should you tire of rummaging.

The piles of curios, and the low prices, can be deceptive. In a Nogales shop it may look like junk and some storekeepers call it by that name as they try corraling you as you walk by but once an item is home, sitting by itself on a table or decorating a wall, what may be one of hundreds, suddenly takes on the look of a one-of-a-kind.

For first-time visitors to Nogales, the big restaurant attraction is La Caverna, chiseled out of the side of a hill just a block from the border on Elias Street. It once served as a jail, but for as long as most Arizonans can remember, it's been the border's most enjoyable place for Mexican food or Guaymás shrimp. The music of mariachis fills the cave with trumpets and strings, adding to an atmosphere that seems festive at any time of the day or night.

Just a few steps farther south take you to La Roca, which also edges into the hill and which offers the elegance of a Spanish colonial mansion, with its chandeliered main dining room and private salons. The atmosphere is antique-elegant, the food Mexican or European exquisite.

"Older hands" at visiting Nogales may go for the restaurant of the Fray Marcos de Niza Hotel, a block south of the border on Obregon Street, where the main tourist drag begins. A block south of the hotel, on Obregon, El Cid offers comfortable dining and good food.

Some people fall victim to horror stories about banditos, brutal police, and other evil things. When they stack those fears alongside their failure to learn a little Spanish, the Sonoran side of Nogales can be formidable.

To the majority of Nogalences, however, the stay-at-homes don't know what they're missing. Such things as the "Latin-lover" hijinks at a Nogales bar, invariably are more innocent than a similar approach north of the line, and men and women alike may breathe easier in Nogales, Sonora, than they may in many parts of the gringo world.

Says Jim Afinowich, publisher of the Nogales International, "I feel lots safer walking through any part of Nogales at any time of day or night than I would in lots of U.S. cities."

That's something Nogalences do lots of, especially on the Sonora side: they walk. Cars abound in modern-day Mexico, but every night, hundreds of people who would be "dragging Main" if they were in the U.S., simply "hang out" on the sidewalks. It's a custom which seems to have withstood the advent of the automobile. Older folks will take their chairs out to the sidewalk, where they'll sit and talk with passersby or nod at neighbors. Teenagers, by the bunches of guys, gaggles of gals, will promenade along the sidewalks, stop now and then to talk, and maybe join forces for an assault on the drugstore for a Coke or an ice cream. Likely as not, one of them will be packing a guitar or a transistor radio; music in one form or another pervades the air of Mexico, from Nogales to Cozu-mel and there are corners of Nogales, just blocks from the border, where you're as much in Latin America as you'd be in Yucatán; corners where a sign says abarrotes, and shawled women with straw baskets totter in to buy groceries; corners where the drugstore is a botica or farmacia, and you can buy remedies for what ails you, a pill at a time; corners where the bar is a cantina, complete with swinging doors and cowboy-outfitted vaqueros tossing down tequila with lime wedges and a pinch of salt at the top of their fists.

Nothing touristy about these corners, although tourists are welcome; all they have to do is hang up some of their preconceived notions about Mexico and try out a few por favors and graciases. The Sonora side may have the eating places, but Arizona has the motels - plenty of 'em, clean, comfortable, and reasonable. For years they've been places where southbound motorists get a good night's sleep and take a few deep breaths before heading down the narrow highways to the beaches of Guaymas or Mazatlán, the markets of Guadalajara and Oaxaca, the monuments of Mexico City, and Puebla.

Mexico's Highway 15, from Nogales to Mexico City, has become an everbusier route as the republic's auto industry keeps turning out cars, trucks, and buses to keep up with a population growing at three percent a year; busy enough to warrant turning it into a superhighway. That project is going on, poco a poco, between the border and the Sonoran capital of Hermosillo, 172 miles south.

As for Nogales itself, the Mexican government has built a limited-access highway bypassing the city, to help lighten downtown's heavy truck traffic. That highway now meets I-19, and the two nations now are able to send motorists from one interior to the other without adding to traffic congestion in the downtowns of both Nogaleses.

That's good news to the produce people, who ship enormous quantities of tomatoes, peppers, squash, watermelons, and other truck crops from the irrigated subtropical coastal plains of Sinaloa, 600 miles north to Nogales,

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Harvesting a saffron field in Sonora, above, is field-hand work, as is most farming in Mexico. Parts of the saffron flower are used as spice and as an additive to feed for chickens.... “Watermelon King” Al Harrison, left, conducts part of his multi-million-dollar distribution operation in a Mexican field with one of his Sonoran farmers.... Packers and loaders, right, prepare Mexican produce for the long trip to U.S. and Canadian markets. (Above and left) Jeff Kida / (Right) J. Peter Mortimer

El Changarro, on Elias Street, left, specializes in one-of-akind items and antiques. Merchandise is selected chiefly from central and southern Mexico, providing shoppers with a wide selection of the arts and crafts of the country. ... La Roca Restaurant, right, just upstairs from El Changarro, captures the Old World atmosphere of New Spain in aged wood, high ceilings, and a relaxed ambience. Jeff Kida / (Bottom, center) J. Peter Mortimer

Manufacturing along the Sonoran side of the border runs the gamut from small independent craftsmen creating cabinetry, wrought iron work, jewelry, and piñatas, far left, to major corporations manufacturing assembly line electronic components, luggage and clothing. Irvine Industries, left, is in Nogales, Arizona.... A twin plants concept, in which companies operate factories on both sides of the border, has created a rich new source of income for the area in Sonora and has enabled U.S. manufacturers to better compete with overseas businesses...

Successful bootmaker Paul Bond, above, has shops on both sides of the border, where some of the better cowboy footwear in the U.S. is designed and handmade.(Opposite page) Jeff Kida / Peter J. Mortimer Thence to markets all over the U.S. and Canada.

It's big business, says George H. Uribe, secretary and manager of the West Mexico Vegetable Distributors Association and it keeps reasonably priced food on the tables of North America.

Last year, says Uribe, 1.4 billion pounds of produce moved north through Nogales - $180 million worth.

The fields of Sinaloa produce, and the pass of Nogales funnels, half the winter vegetables eaten in the U.S. and Canada. That food, by truckload and carload, keeps Nogales especially lively from November to May, as truckers and brokers from the U.S. and Mexico converge on Nogales.

By the time they've done their jobs, 43,000 carlot equivalents of fresh vegetables have made their way to market.

The flow of heavy freight is twoway traffic, to be sure. Much of Mexico's recent grain purchases, ordered to offset two bad years in the farmlands, made its way to the major cities along the single track that slides beneath the border fence just east of the main customs stations.

"You see an incredible variety of things in the railroad yards here," says Charlie Fowler, executive director of the Nogales-Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce. "Just a while back, some new locomotives came through on their way to the Mexican national railroads. All kinds of harvesting equipment will show up on flatcars, and there are other kinds of heavy equipment. "That's lots of money represented in those southbound shipments."

Fowler has spent most of his life in Nogales, and he's high on the present. He's especially delighted with the booming tourist trade.

"Things might not be so good in other places," says Fowler, "but this is one of our best years ever."

Some of that has to do with the chamber's efforts to attract conventions and visitors just to Nogales and to Santa Cruz County but lots of it seems to spring from the low price of gasoline in Mexico.

Regular, runs 50 cents a gallon; unleaded, 68 cents. That makes a trip to oil-rich Mexico a bargain even in financially tough times and Nogales, this prospering set of cities amid an historic pass, prides itself as "Gateway to Mexico."

Even after several decades of living along the border, Fowler finds the place fascinating.

"It's a blend of U.S., Mexican-American, and Mexican national cultures," he says of his city, "and there's this conContinual crossing-over not just of the border, but even things like language. "You'll go over to Zula's (cafe) for breakfast, you'll hear guys they might be gringos, they might be Mexicans-get out half a sentence in English, the other half in Spanish, and back again; they're completely at ease with either one."

Spanish surnames make up more than 90 percent of the two Nogaleses' population, so Fowler is part of a minority; yet it's a comfortable minority, one which for years has lived comfortably in this bilingual, bicultural community.

The two languages and two cultures also have a strong appeal for Afinowich of the International. He and his wife have learned a bunch of Spanish in their seven years in Nogales, and their children now are picking it up as they prepare for school. "We've really come to appreciate the beauty of Spanish and the need for our children to speak it," he says.

For the Afinowiches, the beauty of the Nogales area goes beyond Spanish, and beyond the many attractions of Mexico for Nogales may be a border town, but it's also part of the American West. Just moments from the hustle and bustle of the border crossings are country roads leading into the mountains, climbing their way past abandoned mines, ghost towns and ranches, and into cool, clear-skied open spaces.

When his newspaper schedule will allow him a free day, he and the family will pile into their four-wheel-drive wagon "and just drive. The countryside is just great. The scenery is super, and the hills are great fun just to explore."

Afinowich worries now and then whether prospective employees will be happy working in Nogales, especially if they come from big cities. So he sees what they say on their application forms about hobbies and leisure-time activities. "If they like hiking or hunting, I know they'll be happy here," says Afinowich.

The hills also have a hold on Terry Pinyard, a young man who came to Nogales from Florida as a produce broker. Today he's a teacher. He's crazy about the place; crazy enough to spend every spare moment building a log home high in the hills above Washington Camp northeast of Nogales.

Last summer Pinyard threw a barbecue at the cabin site. Among his guests were many of the young people who share his love for the area. His case was one of seeing what he liked and staying. Others were reared in Nogales. They left for college and careers, then decided that their hometown is something special.

But what is there to do in Nogales? In a word, plenty.

The historical society's Susan Clarke glances around at the folks enjoying Pinyard's mountain barbecue. Most are talking in animated tones about all manner of things art, music, politics.

"We're in really good company here," she says, "and get-togethers like this go on all the time, on both sides of the border."

"It's a fun place to be," says Rothstein. "It has all the advantages of a small Western town where everybody knows everybody else, yet there's plenty to do, lots of interesting people, very cosmopolitan."

And, as Afinowich points out, Tucson is only an hour away for those who feel the need of a first-run movie. Nogales, Arizona, has only a drive-in, but on the Sonora side there are several theaters where U.S. films eventually show up in English with Spanish subtitles; a great way to learn either language.

Daytime rambling and evening parties may be the province of the Arizona side, but the late-night scene belongs to Sonora, where bars and restaurants tend to stay open later. International pub-crawling is part of the Nogales social scene; such activities come off peaceably enough, and incidents pitting one Nogales against the other are rare and have been since the Mexican Revolution wound down in the 1930s.

"We have friends on both sides of the line," says Afinowich. "It's almost like living in the same city; the fence becomes almost nonexistent."

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