lindsay
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Registered: 9-9-2003
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Why Visit Mulege's Museum??
During my time training a group of Mulege's high school students to be bilingual guides at the town's museum (1998-2000), the former territorial
prison for B.C.S. pre-Highway 1, I often met locals and longtime foreign residents who had never visited the building or not since it was a prison.
For my students, this fact became a rewarding challenge because we experienced how a building, even one with a painful past, could be a place for
people to find connections to their community's history and open eyes to the rich natural and cultural environment around them.
Many of you know the building's history as the "Prison without Doors" as the inmates could leave their cells during the day to work or visit family in
town and a conch shell blown at sunset would signal them to return to their cells for the night. The street leading up to museum is called La Cananea
which is a reference to the building's design, a white washed fortress-like structure, modeled after a prison, now museum also, in the mainland
Mexican town of Cananea.
After the completion of the transpeninsular highway, the prison's policy of open doors was less practical and the current prison south of Santa
Rosalia replaced Mulege's as a regional facility but the local police department still used it on occasion. Eventually, the building sat abandoned on
its prominate place overlooking the town. Pidgeons became the permanent residents until a group of Mexican locals and foreign residents came together
to create a community museum after some in the group had been inspired by a historical building in Todos Santos that had been converted into a museum.
A true community effort followed as the abandoned building was given permission by the state of BCS to become a museum in the early 1990s. Already
listed on Mexico's National Historic Registry, the museum would preserve the prison's unique past and highlight Mulege/BCS natural and cultural
history. Today, when you walk through the building, almost every artifact has come from a local resident...a 200 year old dugout canoe from a local
fisherman's family, the cheese molds from a local rancho, petroglyhs from another rancho and recreations of cell cots woven with palm by an elderly
man who once made them for the prison. Watching locals and tourists explore the museum was a great honor as I saw the locals swap stories about the
pieces of their world displayed around them and tourists explored thousands of years of Mulege's story.
My work with the students is over now and I'm back in San Diego at an English school but I go back twice a year for visits with my daughter's Mexican
relatives. We always visit the museum too and I hope you will as well. Yes, it's true you need to go in the mornings before the afternoon break at
1:00 and not on Sundays....many people often lament to me, "I've tried to go but it's always closed". So, be sure it's a morning visit. Remember
funding is slim so the hours are too...your 10 peso entrance helps with keeping the caretaker's salary and other expenses covered. Yes, the outer
cells still have pidgeons "a plenty" as well as their guano but during the building's renovations one of the main goals was to chicken wire and cover
enough entrance points in the main exhibit areas so the flying guests could no longer drop on the artifacts. That goal was accomplished and when you
see the number of courtyard cells involved in the "bird eviction", you will see how large the remaining task is!! However, do explore the cells and
you will find glimpses of its human story, the inmates' poems and their counting of days gone by marked in faded black images.
So, I hope you spend a morning exploring someday. Not only can you take in the museum's offering but its site overlooking the town affords a dramatic
view of the Gulf, the river cutting through the town then disappearing into the palm oasis below the mission as the view extends out to the Sierra
Guadalupe. Lastly, if you're in the mood for a little exercise climb the 100+ stone step stairway that snakes up the hillside to the museum. Disfruta
y Bienvenidos!! 
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Neal Johns
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Thanks for the info! I will be sure to visit the next time I pass through.
My motto:
Never let a Dragon pass by without pulling its tail!
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Mike Humfreville
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Registered: 8-26-2003
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It's very nice and having once been a prison adds to the sensation. We first visited there before Route 1 was paved and it was an awesome experience.
Even without the museum back then, the location provided a great view of the village and the estuary. But the museum has done a great job of adding
the culture while letting the remains of the prisons past remain intact. The marks Lindsay mentions, on the walls, are quite real and you can feel for
the suffering of those incarcerated, even though they assumedly had caused their own problems. It all adds to the ambience (is that the right word?)
of the museum in Mulege.
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David K
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Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Thank you so much Lindsay... great work and a great post!
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The squarecircle
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Registered: 11-28-2004
Location: El Cajon
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Greetings Lindsay, >>>> I also appreciate your excellent report on the prison that trusted its inmates to return to their cells at the end
of the day after working for small wages in town. Its the only place I've seen pigdeons so trusting that some will nest on the ground of the now
abondoned cells. >>>>Thanx, >>>> sq.
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bajajudy
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6886
Registered: 10-4-2004
Location: San Jose del Cabo,BCS
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It is an amazing place. Many interesting artifacts. We spent hours there wandering around being thankful we werent prisoners there when it was a
jail..
Thanks, Lindsay
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