Location and Name for David K

You are welcome Blanca! Maps are a look back in time and space!

SAN BRUNO 1683-1685 (the Jesuit colony before Loreto)

1701 MAP:



2003 MAP:




ZOOM IN (see San Bruno near the coast, north of Loreto):



[Edited on 8-23-2014 by David K]

Thanks for the excellent maps DK.

Even though I've been in Baja many years I often read posts about places I've heard of but I'm not sure exactly where it is. The maps help to bring a story to life, maps from different time periods make it even better. Thanks again DK, I appreciate your efforts.

Or some tire tracks

Quote: Originally posted by Marla Daily

I bet Skeet is talking about the VERY strange huge facility built on the water maybe 15 miles up the coast past El Bajo about 20 years ago. A very expensive gated high security road was blasted and paved to the "secret" site. Local rumor had it there was a child-smuggling operation going on, run by a foreigner with a Mexican wife. One day we heard there was a raid; the children (75+) were taken away in buses. The facility has remained abandoned ever since. It had multiple buildings in the complex, a common large dining hall, dormitory rooms, private house, etc. Very odd indeed.

interesting, i recently heard this rumor and thought my fishing captain was just pulling my leg!

he said its haunted now and occasionally you will see little kids running around in the hills above the ruined house

[Edited on 9-13-2020 by defrag4]

Quote: Originally posted by defrag4

i wonder if Skeet is still alive

I thought the same thing. I hope is is well if he is still with us!
We met Skeet at the very first Pyramid Resort Book event in 2003... Here is is with Jimmy Smith:



Jimmy Smith (wearing the hat) and Skeet act like old chums!

Quote: Originally posted by defrag4

i wonder if Skeet is still alive

Quote: Originally posted by honda tom

I cane across this place in 2002 - 2004... I saw it from the water and told my Mexican captain I wanted to take a look. We anchored my boat and swam ashore (3 of us gringos) . we walked around for about an hour. a lot of money was spent here on a 6-8000 foot main house and 2 large guest houses about 100 yards away.... none completed, and the main house had been destroyed before its completion... giant steel beams had been pushed over and many cut with torches and hauled away. there were 2 giant patios with palapa post overlooking the sea of cortez. cinder block foundations and a sewer systew were all in place....conduit for electrical had been run everywhere under huge slabs of cement.... it was very strange that so much work had been done and nothing was there. when we returned to the boat my captain told me a story that made it even more weird..... he said the home was bein built by an Italian doctor. The doctor was in prison on the mainland for harvesting organs from kidinapped children and selling them worldwide. the captain said that after the doctors arrest the mexican military were the ones that pushed over the structure and hauled off the steel. How true? Ya got me. But my captain is a pretty straight guy and has lived in Loreto for 40+years. you can see the circle patios... and the guest houses to the south on google earth.

Quote: Originally posted by David K

Quote: Originally posted by defrag4   i wonder if Skeet is still alive I thought the same thing. I hope is is well if he is still with us! We met Skeet at the very first Pyramid Resort Book event in 2003... Here is is with Jimmy Smith: Jimmy Smith (wearing the hat) and Skeet act like old chums!

Quote: Originally posted by kylet

Quote: Originally posted by David K   Quote: Originally posted by defrag4   i wonder if Skeet is still alive I thought the same thing. I hope is is well if he is still with us! We met Skeet at the very first Pyramid Resort Book event in 2003... Here is is with Jimmy Smith: Jimmy Smith (wearing the hat) and Skeet act like old chums! Is that Jimmy “the grinning gargoyle”? He looks so much like someone called that who I remember from my childhood. He was friends with Dick Maugg and we met at Dick’s house in Playa Colorada.

Yes, Jimmy Smith was The Grinning Gargoyle of San Ignacio in the 1960s (a moniker bestowed upon him by Desert Magazine editor, Choral Pepper during one of Erle Stanley Gardner's campfire gatherings). Jimmy adopted it with glee! Jimmy relocated to Los Barriles some years late, towing his love Lupe along with him.



[Edited on 10-3-2020 by David K]

David, thank you for the history lesson! I remember him fondly, though I was in elementary through high school when I got to hang out with him. I wasn’t aware he was so well known. Did you know Dick Maugg as well? I was very sad I didn’t get to say goodbye when he passed a few years back. I wish I had been older and more interested in these crusty characters when I was in the East cape a bunch as a kid. The world is a good deal less crusty, and therefore far less interesting these days.

I found a picture of Jimmy I took in La Ribera in probably ‘88 or 90. Attached here.

Sorry for the thread jack everyone.