Ode to the Sonoran Desert: Part 3 - Culture and People contd.

The idea that the US/Mexico border has been and should be static; immovable and impermeable, with the exception of designated ports of entry, goes against the grain of American history.

Just very slightly less than 200 years ago, when Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the border was all the way up at, what was then, the Oregon Territory. In 1845, 174 years ago, it made its first move, when the US annexed Texas. Three years later, it moved again, this time southward to the Gila River in central Arizona, with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Its most recent move, to a straight diagonal line from El Paso to the Colorado River at Yuma, occurred just 164 years ago, during my great-grandmother lifetime, in 1854, when James Gadsden, as President Franklin Pierce’s Ambassador to Mexico purchased of 29,640 square miles of Mexico from President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna for $10 million. In the process it split another nation in two; the border bisected the Tohono O’odham and Hia’Ced O’odham lands in the first instance of government sanctioned “family separation” in the borderlands.

Not only has the border not been immovable, it has also not been impermeable. Long after the Gadsden Purchase, ranches, cattle, ore and, most importantly, people came and went across the border in the Sonoran Desert on a daily basis.

In the late 19th and early 20th century the cross-border economy sustained Mexican, US American and O’odham miners, ranchers and retailers.

One of the mine shaft at Ortega's La Americana mine

Cipriano Ortega (1832 to 1904) was all three. From his hacienda at Santo Domingo, (see Map in Part 2), Ortega managed a cross-border empire that included the La Americana mine, located in the Montezuma Mining District, now the Puerto Blanco Mountains in Organ Pipe National Monument; a well, corral and butcher’s shop a few miles northeast of Quitobaquito Springs and 25,000 hectares of land around Santo Domingo. In addition to his own enterprises, Ortega rented his arrastras to miners from Mexico and the US to crush their ore and separate their gold and silver. Between 1880 and 1899, Ortega mined $80 - $120K in gold and silver from La Americana. He was a savvy businessman so, intuiting that the US government was not going to continue to allow ore to be extracted on its territory and walked over to Mexico for much longer, in 1899 he sold the mine to another international Sonoran Desert entrepreneur, Manuel Levy.

Manuel Levy (1859 to 1942) was born on the US side of the border, like Ortega his business interests crossed the international line. Unlike Ortega, his talents did not lie in the areas of ranching and mining. Levy was a salesman. Like Walmart, Levy’s stores were everywhere, at Ajo, Quitobaquito and Dowling Well in the US, and at Santo Domingo, San Antonio and Sonoyta in Mexico. On purchasing La Americana from Ortega, he renamed the mine Victoria, after the wife of his store clerk at Quitobaquito, Victoria Leon. His goal was to drop the mine shaft an additional 500 feet. Sadly, for Levy, he hit water at 312 feet, where he aimed to hit gold. Today, that water would be almost more valuable than gold, but back then it represented a failed business venture for Levy. Thankfully, his retail ventures fared better, in part due to the courage, determination and business acumen of Dona Liberata Rodrigues.

Dona Liberata Rodrigues (1873 to 1925) was the daughter of a rich, highly respected Mexican family. Her life was all planned out for her; a suitable marriage arranged, and a healthy inheritance put by. She went through with the marriage, but only for a short time. Dona Liberata fled from her, presumably horrible and possibly abusive husband to the Gulf of Mexico, taking her inheritance with her. She purchased 8 wagons and horse teams to pull them and set herself up as long-distance freight service, buying, shipping and selling merchandise between Hermosillo and Ajo, with stops at Caborca, Santa Anna, Nogales and Sonoyta along the way. Dona Liberata bought in supplies for Levy’s stores, she also bought in Mexican home brew during prohibition to be enjoyed by miners, cowboys and, most likely, Jefferson Milton, the lone US Mounted Customs Inspector for the Tucson sector.

Jefferson (Jeff) Milton (1861 to 1947) began his law enforcement career as a Texas Ranger. He moved to Arizona around 1886 as a Deputy US Marshall under Sheriff John Slaughter in Cochise County. In 1897, Milton joined the US Customs Service, riding the line between Nogales and Yuma. After seven years, he moved from Customs to the Bureau of Immigration, becoming a Mounted Chinese Inspector, tasked with enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Act. Milton was a lifelong moonlighter. Early in his career, as a train guard for Wells Fargo, where he was badly wounded in the arm during a gunfight. Then as a miner, partnering with Manuel Levy to open the Monte Cristo mine, and prospecting his own, Milton mine. And as a guide for local expeditions, including that of zoologist William T. Hornaday in 1908. Milton did find time to open a small immigration station at Quitobaquito, where he almost certainly interacted with the then patriarch of its longest resident family, Jose Juan Orosco.

Jose Juan Orozco's Pozo Nuevo Well

Jose Juan Orozco (1890 to 1946) was Hia’Ced O’odham. The Orozco family came to Quitobaquito in 1887, Jose Juan’s father in-law, Juan Jose Garcia was a medicine man and was rumored to have lived to 115 years old. The Orozcos were not the first Hia’Ced O’odham family at Quitobaquito. The Spring was home to a Hia’Ced O’odham community, who had been supplying and assisting travelers along The Devil’s Highway long before Kino arrived in 1687. The Orozco’s 5-acre ranch extended on both sides of the US/Mexico border, where they grew corn, figs, dates, melons and pomegranates and grazed cattle. In addition to owning water access to half an acre of the Quitobaquito pond, Orozco dug Pozo Nuevo Well, the oldest hand-dug well in the area, in 1910.

Like his ranch, Jose Juan straddled the border, not a citizen of the US nor a citizen of Mexico, until in 1924 he was granted citizenship by the US government. His citizenship rights were short lived, almost immediately the government began harassing Jose Juan about his property rights, threatening to build a border fence right through his land. After Jose Juan died in 1946, the pressure continued on his son, Jim Orozco. In 1955, the government condemned the Orozco property, and in 1957, Jim conceded the fight, selling his family ranch to the National Park Service for $13,000.

Where are they now?

Possible site of Ortega's hacienda at Santo Domingo

Cipriano Ortega’s hacienda at Santo Domingo has returned to the desert. We attempt to locate the site in February 2019, but apart from a few areas of raised ground that could have been foundations not so much as an adobe wall was to be found. Cipriano Well remains, but all trace of the corral and buildings is gone. Ortega’s La Americana mine is preserved in Organ Pipe National Monument (OPNM) under the name Levy gave it, Victoria Mine. And there are the Cipriano Hills, from the high plateau at the top you can see all the way across the border from Mexico to Ajo.

Manuel Levy;s store at the La Americana/Victoria Mine

All but one of Manuel Levy’s stores are gone, some destroyed by fire and others by bulldozers. As noted above, the Victoria Mine still bears the name he gave it and is a popular site for visitors to OPNM. Levy also has a mountain named after him. It is part of the Twin Peaks, one peak is Gadsden Peak, the other Levy Peak. I cannot help but think that Levy would not be thrilled about sharing his legacy with Gadsden.

Dona Liberata has almost vanished into history. If it wasn’t for the wonderful books of Ajo History by Charles J. Gaetjens, I would have had no idea she existed. I would love to find out more about her as she was clearly a remarkable and interesting woman. It would be nice, perhaps to name Highway 85, between Sonoyta and Ajo, Liberata Way, in honor of her success in keeping “agua de vida” flowing in Ajo during prohibition.

Jeff Milton has been the subject of a few books, and likely the inspiration for a few characters in Westerns. His way of life and immersion into the communities of the desert is a thing of the past for Border Patrol. For certain no environmentalist is going to ask any of today’s agents to guide them along The Devil’s Highway. His Milton mine is preserved on OPNM.

All trace of the Orozco ranch was obliterated by OPNM when they took control of Quitobaquito. The buildings were razed, and the threatened fence was built through the property. The fruit trees are gone too. Only the spring and the pond remain. Further north, possibly because, when OPNM got it, it was part of the Gray family holdings, Jose Juan’s Pozo Nuevo Well is still there, like all the other wells in the Monument it is dry now, but parts of the corral still stand and the windmill still creaks eerily with the desert wind.

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Thank you for reading. I want to take a few additional lines to acknowledge my sources, firstly for reasons of copyright, and secondly so the reader knows I have not just made it all up.

The Ajo History Books by Charles J. Gaetjens were especially informative on the history of the people of Ajo. They are filled with personal anecdotes and witty asides. I am extremely grateful to Gail Weyers of the Ajo Samaritans for entrusting me with them for a couple of weeks.

All photos, illustrations and anything that seems like an opinion are my own.

Source List

Ajo History Books 1 to 10 - Charles J. Gaetjens, Ajo Historical Society (1997 to 2007)

Desert Heart: Chronicles of the Sonoran Desert - William K. Hartman

Historic Resource Study: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona - Jerome A. Green, Historic Preservation Division, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, Denver, CO (September 1977)

The History of Ranching in Organ Pipe National Monument: Thematic and Context Study - Preservation Studies Program, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Arizona (September 2009)

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument website

Pinacate Campmates - Bill Hoy and Bill Broyles, Journal of the Southwest, Vol 49. No. 3 (Autumn 2007) pp 323 – 355

Sonoyta and Santo Domingo: A story of two Sonoran towns and the river that ran by - Bill Hoy, The Journal of Arizona History, Vol 31. No. 2 (Summer 1990) pp 117 – 140