We continued moving southwest, and somehow ended up inside the property limits of a ranch known as the PO Ranch. The ranch owners came along and weren't upset at all. They welcomed us to the area and gave us some advice on the best way to get where we wanted to go (we were equipped with maps from the ranger station, but there were TONS of roads in the area). We moved along and started to spot tons of wildlife. My understanding is that turkey hunting season is in full swing in this area. We spotted a group of 16 wild turkeys that were quite lucky that we aren't hunters.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
After chasing the turkeys around and photographing them for awhile, we continued along our journey. We traveled west through the San Rafael State Natural Area, which is essentially a massive former private ranch that used to be known as the Greene Ranch. It was purchased by the Nature Conservancy in the 90s and converted into an open space preservation area. The land is beautiful, but it was kind of a bummer that everything was so "locked down." As you'd expect in an area managed this way, there weren't many roads or areas to explore. In fact, most areas were closed off to ALL use, including hiking.
We skirted west along the border, eventually coming into the former town of Lochiel. This townsite has some interesting history. It was originally founded in the mid-1800s by a group of Mexican ranchers. In the 1870s, the town was starting to grow. It served all of the ranches of the San Rafael Valley, as well as the nearby mining operations of Duquesne and Washington Camp, which were a few miles west in the Patagonia Mountains. A smelting operation was constructed for the mines in 1881, along with several stores, saloons, a brewery, a butcher shop, and a boarding house. The town was originally named Luttrell, after the businessman/doctor who ran many of the local businesses. About 400 people lived in the town around this time, and most of them worked in the nearby mines or at the smelter. In 1884, a wealthy cattle rancher established the San Rafael Ranch (which later became the Greene Ranch I referenced above, and then became the nature preserve) and convinced the postmaster to change the name of the town to Lochiel, which was the name of the Scottish homeland of the cattle rancher. A few years later, the area was surveyed by the USGS and it was discovered that half of the town was in the United States, and the other half was in Sonora, Mexico. The town was split in two (the Mexican side became known as La Noria), and an international border crossing was established. Throughout the 1900s, the border crossing consisted of a chain link fence gate with a padlock, and had minimal operating hours every day. There was a customs house on the US side and one on the Mexican side. The crossing remained active until the late 1980s, when it was shut down for good. The abandoned US customs building is still standing, but is not accessible without crossing private property, so I wasn't able to access it. However, there is a really awesome red adobe one-room schoolhouse in the town, which dates back to around 1904. Today, only a few people still live there, and as I mentioned, the border crossing is no longer operational. There's a few cool photos of the border operation in the 1970s and 1980s in this old article:
http://tucson.com/news/local/photos-lochiel-border-station-in-s--s/collection_c9cb079a-997d-5d7e-b69d-4a02c7da5a98.html#1Unfortunately, we were running low on time, so I didn't take many photos here, but the school house sure was awesome!
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
The town also features a monument to honor the first European explorer to ever enter what is now the state of Arizona (and the first European explorer to travel west of the Rocky Mountains), named Fray Marcos de Niza.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
From Lochiel, we continued west into the Patagonia Mountains, passing through the old operations of the Duquesne and Washington Camp. Again, because we were short on time, I wasn't able to explore the area much. I'll definitely be traveling back to this spot and exploring many of the old mining works around the area. According to the topo map I was using on my tablet, the area was littered with old buildings, mine shafts, and potentially mining equipment.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
We traveled through the Washington Gulch and well up into the Patagonia Mountains, where we spotted a bunch more deer. Much like the Huachuca Mountains before we entered the San Rafael Valley, this area was so beautiful.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
