Short Story from 15 years ago

Story

Quote: Originally posted by pacocacho

With time, I found out that there was no old truck sale every once and then as to explain such a great number of disguised U-Hauls. Turns out the real reason as to their presence was a lot creepier. Behind every old camouflaged U-Haul, there is a story of a fleeing gringo. The motives varies as much as life itself, some were running away from the IRS, others from a lousy divorce, or a bankruptcy, and some were running from the law… small crimes or big ones, you would never know…

Quote: Originally posted by Sjsam

Think the General your talking about had a place in San Miguel Comondu. Down by the school.

Hello Steve! Yes indeed it is good to see you online again. Please drop me an email with the latest scoop on things.

Sjsam, welcome to Baja Nomad! We appreciate hearing from those who are there, on the local seen and have an interest in their local history.

Here is a recap from my memory of the basic story on Comondu and the general...

The largest California mission church constructed was the 1737+ location of Mision San Jose de Comondu. The stone church was constructed from 1754 to 1760. Services were performed to at least 1828 when the site was abandoned and in the following years, neglect took its toll.

Photos of the ruined church were taken by North in 1906 and Davis in 1926 and it was indeed impressive but dangerous in its condition. The church was demolished in 1936 (said to make room for a school), with only the side chapel left intact, and that is what remains today identified as the mission for tourists. The school has since also been demolished.




The rumor we hear is that a Mexican general needed building material for his villa in nearby San Miguel Comondu, and the 1750's mission blolcks were harvested for it.

The late Jimmy Smith told me a story about that... I am searching for it.

In the meantime, another gem from Jimmy...

Here is a post from 2003 by Jimmy Smith, The Grinning Gargoyle:
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O.K. Guys
It's a little long and windy. Maybe Doug will tolerate it:

VICTIMS OF PARADISE

GIA FAMILIAR DE BAJA CALIFORNIA (Family Guide of Baja California) by the peninsula's foremost savant, Pablo L. Martinez is a record of about 12,000 births, baptisms, marriages and deaths that ocurred here between 1700 and 1900. This rare old book, while deficient in certain areas, is remarkably well done considering the communication and transportation facilities available at the time it was written. To the casual reader, it is about as fascinating as a telephone directory, however, for those of a historical bent it becomes an essential tool. Browsing reveals that there were 187 Anglo-saxton surnames registered, seventeen in the hamlet of Comondu.

Whatinhell were seventeen gringos doing a highland village of 800 people?
Wouldn't you know it started with a dude named Smith!

Prof. Martinez tells it like this: "SMITH, - Founder James Wilcox Smith. He was not a whaler but an English gentleman to all appearances, who brought with him some economic resources. He arrived in Loreto by 1817 or 1818. He made great efforts to marry Concepcion Arguello, the governor's daughter, (Jose Dario Arguello was governor of California from from 1814 to 1822) but being a very disillusioned young lady because of an earlier romance with the Russian, Rezanoff, she turned him down. He married a Miss Verdugo , whose complete name I have not found. This man was the trunk of those who use his surname at Comondu and outskirts."

Richard F. Pourade in his TIME OF THE BELLS smears egg on Prof. Martinez's face with the following passage: "One of the most curious and for a time suspicious visitors to the (Pacific) coast was Capt. James Smith Wilcox, on the American Ship TRAVELER, identified in Spanish reports as THE CAMINANTE.

When his ship was sighted off Monterey (presently in the state of California) , all guns were manned, soldiers marched to battle stations, and Gov. Sola himself donned his uniform and prepared for action.

Ordered ashore, Capt Wilcox said he merely wanted to engage in trade. He was dressed in black with a swallowtail coat and tall fur hat. Thus there was every indication he was some kind of a spy. However, he managed to establish friendly relations and eventually, September of 1817, picked up a cargo of grain at San Diego and carried it to Loreto, the first such shipment from this port. At Loreto his ship was seized by a Mexican treasury officer and stripped of Valuables. It was finally released.' It would appear that Prof. Pablo got some surnames transposed here.

The mystery of Comondu begins in San Jose del Cabo on the last day of 1808. Thomas Smith, a crewman on the Yankee trading ship DROMO, stayed on the beach and watched the China bound vessel depart. He elected to live among the palm shaded villages and brown skinned maidens rather than face the harsh life on the winter seas. Harry W. Crosby relates in THE LAST OF THE CALIFORNIOS: "Thomas Smith's decision made him the first citizen of the United States to settle permanently in greater California.

The sergeant in charge of local Spanish troops reported to the governor that on August 20, 1809 at the mining center of San Antonio south of La Paz " the American, Thomas, was baptized, having shown a great desire to enter our company and submit to our laws. His godfather, a local hero, Ensign Javier Aguilar, was a sixty-six-year-old veteran soldier and a native of the peninsula. Smith took the baptismal name of Javier Aguilar and used it for the rest of his life.

Subsequent Baja California documents show that Smith/Aguilar was paid as a sailor serving the Presidio of Loreto, married Maria Meza, (Maria Meza was the daughter of Miguel Meza and Luz Arce. Meza was mayor of Loreto and temporally governor of California. He appropriated a vast ranch in Comondu while in office), volunteered as a soldier and finally settled down to raise a large family in the peninsular hamlet of Comondu, where his children eventually resumed the Smith name." (Evidence located in Doyce Nunis's MEXICAN WAR IN BAJA CALIFORNIA indicates that Thomas Smith found it convenient to use his original name during the war. JPS)

Apart from Thomas Smith, 17 other English surnames appear in the vital statistics of Comondu between 1859 and 1896:

Horace Sherman confessed before marrying Soledad Real Dec. 8. 1859 .

John Cooper confessed before marrying Juana Osuna Aug. 21, 1859

Jose O. Belismelis (obviously spelling error) was born to Francisco Belismelis and Leonides Vidaurrazaga Apr. 4, 1877

Andrew Olsen married Susanna Aleja Robinson Dec 20, 1875
Andrez Filiberto Olson was born to Andrew Olson and Susanna Mesa Apr 19, 1877 (It is probable that the bride/mother's complete name was Susanna Aleja Robinson Meza)

Guillermo Pedro Robinson was baptized in Comondu 21 Jan 1883 born 9 Jan 1829
This was probably the father of Susana Aleja Robinson Meza.

William Robbins married Guadalupe Lieras Mar. 5 1867

David Chonce (Shawnesy mispelled?) married Petra Baltierra Aug 7, 1867.

Maria Carmen Davis born to Lucas Davis and Beniga Cleiton Nov 2, 1879

Fredrico Taylor married Adela Garayzar Sep 26, 1896

William Osborns married Maria Meza Nov 5, 1862.

William Robinson baptized in Comondu at age of 54 years Jan 9, 1829

Ysabel Filcher was born to Robert Filcher and Salvadora Aguilar (Smith definitely daughter of Tom) Sep 27, 1860

Antonio Osben was born to Andrew Osben and Nieves Aguilar (Smith) Sep. 18. 1860 .

William Cunningham born to Stuart Cunningham and Emigdia Verdugo Jan 19, 1896 .

Seth Morton confessed before marrying Rosalia Romero 4 June 1860

Henry Luther and Elena Cunningham baptized a number of children the oldest being born in 1867

Margret Culleton and her husband Jacinto Rondero baptised a son 27 December 1883.

In his pamphlet entitled: BAJA CALIFORNIA ILUSTRADA, J. R. Southworth related that the population of Comondu in 1899 was 809 souls.
The people of the district devote themselves principally to agricultural pursuits and cattle grazing. Large crops of dates, figs and grapes are also raised and a fine grade of grape wine is made. The following is a correct estimate of the crops raised in the district last year; 45,000 pounds of grapes, value $1,600 ($.0355 per pound?), 112,500 pounds of figs, value $2,000 ($.0177 per pound?), 27,000 pounds of dates, value $960 ($.0355 per pound?) and the wine manufactured was worth $3,750. As a rule the crops are much heavier than this, but the season of 1898, because of rains, was not a good one."

Assuming that all 809 residents of Comondu were dependant on agriculture, excluding cattle ranching, the per capita income would be only $10.27 per annum. The 18 English Surnamed families would have certainly represented a considerable percentage of the population. There was no mining nor fishing. It must be assumed that the bread winners had other sources of income.How did these people sustain themselves?

MEN AND WHALES; Henderson PP 126
"Local Mescal, which sometimes found its way aboard ship, must have been welcomed by the thirsty and boisterous crews of the whaling vessels. Among the inhabitants of the villages and ranchos inland from Estero Santo Domingo the distillation of mescal from the juices of agave or maguey plants of the desert appears to been an important occupation.(Southworth reports 45,000 pounds of grapes harvested in 1898, He also states that 3,750 dollars of wine was made that year, another report in 1751 reports a harvest of 7,000 pounds of sugar.)

After the Jesuit expulsion in 1767, the inoming Franciscian priests inventoried the property found at the San Jose de Comondu mission. This inventory included: two wine presses, one large and one small and an assortment of large containers used in the preperation, fermentation and storage of wine. These included tubs and vats as well as seventeen barrels and 140 tinajas (casks of about 11 gallons capacity to facilitate transport on pack burros). In addition, San Jose had two stills for producing brandy.
It seems reasonable to believe that some of this equipment yet existed when the Gringo whalers arrived there 100 years later.

Mike Werner, winemaker, informs us that 1,000 pounds of grapes will yield about 90 gallons of wine. When distilled, this wine will produce about 18 gallons of brandy per each 1,000 pounds of grapes, based on Southworth's figure of an annual yield of 45,000 pounds of grapes Comondu produced about 810 gallons or 72 tinajas of brandy anualy. This would amount to 36 burro loads of brandy for the thirsty whalers at Boca de Santa Dominga.
It seems reasonable that the still was used to produce rum from the sugar cane crop as well as mescal from the maguey which grows in profusion on the mesas above the village.

Some Mexicans came to Magdalena Bay to be employed as hands on the whaling vessels. Others some times working with their entire families, rendered the remains of whales which the whalers had finished flensing and had cast away. The rendering of the abandoned whales, called "stinkers," was termed "carcassing". A few days after being cast aside the bloated carcasses towered out of the water like giant bladders which were covered with gulls and attacked by sharks. From the "stinkers" , which were driven ashore by the sea breeze, the Mexicans and RESIDENT FOREIGNERS extracted three or four barrels of oil by trying-out the fat about the intestines, lungs and hearts. The whalers furnished casks for the oil rendered by the local folk who sold the oil to the whalers for high priced trade items. Pots for trying-out the oil were apparently sometimes also supplied by the whalers, for Prentice Mulford wrote that when the San Francisco Schooner HENRY departed Estero Santo Domingo in 1857, the natives were left a dozen iron vessels the richer.

Mulford commented that some of the Mexicans also profited from the whalers visits by coming aboard at mealtime and eating everything in sight, including all of the butter and sugar placed on the table.

At Comondu, inland from the northern reaches of Estero Santo Domingo, lived a group of Englishmen and Americans who carried out "carcassing" in the winter gray-whaling season. Comondu supplied hands for the whaling vessels. Most of the whalers at Comondu must have deserted whale-ships at Magdalena Bay, as did the boat crew of the CONGRESS of New Bedford in 1862.

Desertion by crew members of whaleships was not uncommon, even along peninsular shores where success was much more likely than at Magdalena Bay, where nearby ranches and towns of the Cape District of southern Baja California offered refuge for the deserters."

It would seem that our Victims of Paradise were ex-whalers who found the best of two worlds. They lived with brown skinned maidens in the lush tropical valley of Comondu.They Made and sold grog to the whalers and carcarssed when not employed as whalers. Not a bad way to go!

Quote: Originally posted by Sjsam

Right lots of Generals back then. That's why a lot of these places got power and phone services early on

Quote: Originally posted by David K

Esteban Cantú ?

Yeah, that guy . Thanks!

Obviously, I've been away from the subject matter too long, so this is a good refresher for me.

Quote: Originally posted by Sjsam

Nice story ,But the road 15 years ago Was paved from Insurgentes north to La Pursima. Around 1980 after Saragosa going north it was still dirt.

Quote: Originally posted by Marc

Can't find the whale on Google. Can you give coordinates?

Quote: Originally posted by pacocacho

Quote: Originally posted by Marc   Can't find the whale on Google. Can you give coordinates? try 26°49'58.8"N 113°08'26.2"W

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

This view is backed by the writings of Homer Aschmann, a geographer who spent much time in the peninsula in the '40s-'50s and who later wrote an excellent article about Baja's road history (it can be found in a book compiling some of his writings titled The Evolving Landscape: Homer Aschmann's Geography by Martin J. Pasqualetti). do you have that book, David?

Indeed!



Thanks to you, I discovered it had not yet been added to my Viva Baja Library... it is now! https://vivabaja.com/baja-books/

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

can you thumb through it and see whether he covers Boleo road building?

Sorry Harald, Homer's book only was about the Native population and how the missions affected them. Here is the contents pages, there is no index.



I am aware of his map showing the history of the Baja highway, but it was not in the 1959 book, as that finally happened in 1973. Source of map: https://math.ucr.edu/~ftm/bajapages/BajaRoadPages/RoadHistor...




If you click the link (above the map) you can read about his road building research... Here that is, but maybe not as well to read as the original:

European settlement of Baja California began in 1697 with the founding of a Jesuit mission in Loreto. Until their expulsion in 1768 the Jesuits extended a chain of missions over the southern two-thirds of the peninsula to Santa Maria, their last one, founded in 1766. Their Franciscan successors, with far greater governmental support, given for geopolitical reasons, founded a mission at San Fernando Velicatá and pushed on overland to San Diego whence the California mission system was extended. Baja California thus served as a strategic corridor to the frontier province up which personnel, livestock, plant propagating materials, tools, and church furniture were carried. It was regarded as a more secure route than the one by sea against strong northwest winds and a south-setting current. Briefly, from 1775 to 1781, another overland route from Sonora was used, but that was cut by the successful Yuma Indian revolt.

In 1773 Baja California was transferred to the Dominican order which missionized the gentile Indians of the Frontier between San Fernando Velicatá and San Diego and tended the declining older Jesuit establishments through the end of Spanish colonial times and into the period of Mexican independence. Records are less abundant in the first half of the 19th century than in earlier mission times, but until after the middle of the latter century there is no report of wheeled vehicles or roads for them anywhere in the peninsula. Note 1 Transport was exclusively along mule trails, a network of which came to connect widely spaced missions and other oasis settlements and ranches. Less affected by accidental topography than roads, these trails run fairly directly between points of interest. In rugged, subsequently abandoned regions, as around Mission Santa Maria, they can still be followed.

A backwash from the California gold rush brought a wave of prospectors into Baja California, and by 1870 a number of successful gold, silver, and copper mining properties had been located as well as a myriad of unsuccessful ones. For a time even high grade copper ores were hauled as much as 50 kilometers to coastal landings on muleback, as from Mina de San Fernando near San Fernando Velicatá, to the coast at San Carlos. Note 2 The need for heavy equipment such as boilers and stamp mills, however, was an inducement to construct wagon roads to coastal points, and once they had been established other mines would tie into them. By 1910 the peninsula had a broken net of mine roads, especially in the Northern Territory. Note 3

The development of irrigated agriculture in the Mexicali Valley, the accession of the powerfully independent and locally interested Governor Esteban Cantú (1915-20), and the advent of Prohibition in the United States combined to accelerate economic development in the northern part of Baja California. Cantú constructed engineered roads across difficult terrain from Mexicali to Tijuana and from Tijuana to Ensenada. Trucks and cars were available duty-free from across the border. Ranchers and farmers in the valleys and uplands north of San Quintin found or constructed tracks that were passable, at least in dry weather, in a widespread net.

In 1920 the geologist, Carl H. Beal, made an extensive reconnaissance of the peninsula for Marland Oil Company of Mexico seeking promising sites for petroleum drilling. The results of his work were not published until 1946, Note 4 with a map which includes his amazingly extensive itinerary, most of it followed by pack train. In January, 1922, apparently at the request of the U.S. military district in San Diego, still interested in Baja California as a hangover from World War I, he prepared a 27-page single-spaced typescript entitled "Baja California-Route Studies." Note 5 In it he identifies all the sections a wheeled vehicle might traverse, noting some wagon roads that an automobile should not attempt. He concludes that an automobile might be able to travel from Tijuana to the onyx mine at El Marmol, though evidently wagons were used to transport the onyx at that time. The road from Tijuana to Mexicali was established, and from it a number of passable tracks connected many of the ranches and mines on the relatively level plateau of the Sierra Juarez. The track south from Mexicali to San Felipe was passable at some times but carried so little traffic that someone stuck in the sand might die of thirst.

Farther south some disconnected roads from mine to coastal embarcation were noted. The most extensive set had been built by the El Boleo copper mine radiating out of Santa Rosalia. Only the one connecting that town with Mulegé, however, was passable, others having been washed out and not repaired. Finally, two passable roads led south from La Paz to Todos Santos on the Pacific Coast and to San José del Cabo at the tip of the peninsula. For both roads and trails he is meticulous in noting where water can always be or only sometimes be obtained, commenting further on its quality. The uncertainty, even danger, involved in traversing the peninusla is implicit.

General and ex-President Abelardo Rodriguez, who became governor of the Northern Territory in 1923, constructed the first paved road, from Tijuana to Ensenada. Even earlier road construction began in the Southern Territory of Baja California with a road pushed to Magdalena Bay in 1921 and others southward to Todos Santos and San José del Cabo. With its widely scattered intensively cultivated oases, the Southern Territory's road building followed the classic pattern. If the terrain obstacles were not too severe, roads would be built to tie together the settlements, following the topographically easiest course, but accepting detours if minor settlements could be brought into the system. Though his economic resources were far smaller, the governor of the Southern Territory was able to tie Comondú to Mulegé in 1927, connecting with the system of the Boleo copper Company which had independently laid roads south from Santa Rosalia to Mulegé and westward over the divide to San Ignacio.

The Automobile Club of Southern California and Governor Rodriguez, cooperating almost like sovereign powers, undertook to drive wheeled vehicles south from San Quintin to connect with the road system of the southern Territory. In late 1926 an Auto Club group make it to Rosario, Note 6 and in 1927 a combined expedition of the Mexican military, including the Governor, and the Auto Club drove to San Ignacio, then over the Boleo Company's roads to Santa Rosalia and Mulegé. Mining roads were followed where they existed, routing the track back and forth across the peninsula. Note 7 In 1928 the Auto Club installed its distinctive signs as far as Mulegé, noting mileages obtained in the previous years. Note 8 Random roadside vandalism, intensified by Mexican nationalism that resents the foreign signs, has obliterated or removed all the signs where the road is still followed. A few survive in spots infrequently visited.

For trucks or well equipped field vehicles the road was negotiable from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas, but few tourists attempted it until after World War II. Onyx was hauled north from El Marmol and Cerro Blanco, Note 9 and in the decade of the 1940's shark liver buyers sought all coves where fishermen might put in. In the late 1940's out of season tomatoes were trucked from the Cape Region to the U.S. border; on a weekly schedule during the 1940's a 1932 Cadillac limousine carried mail and an amazing number of passengers from Tijuana to Santa Rosalia; some used passenger cars were driven from the duty free border zone for sale in La Paz, and modest but growing numbers of adventurous American tourists pushed southward, many to write books about their experiences. Note 10

In 1943 Ulises Irigoyen published in Mexico City a massive two-volume work on Baja California. Note 11 While it discussed the geography and history of the region in not too accurate detail, as its title suggests the book was primarily a strong appeal to the Mexican national government to build a paved highway the length of the peninsula. Such an enterprise would lead to economic development and strengthen the region's ties to Mexico. The effects of the work were slow in emerging, but when in 1972 the national government did build the highway the expenditures were justified on the same grounds.

During World War II the road had been paved south from Ensenada to Santo Tomas. In 1947 and 1948 a major project undertook to extend the paving to San Quintin. Grading was accomplished that far, but funds for asphalt pavement were exhausted at San Telmo, some 75 kilometers short. For twenty years the graded surface, becoming ever more washboarded and rutted, carried heavy truck traffic from the irrigation developments at Colonia Guerrero and San Quintin.

In 1956 a remarkable individual road-making achievement was carried out. Arturo Gross, a part time miner, prospector, and mine promoter, and long a resident of the Laguna Chapala and Calamajué district was offered 10,000 pesos ($800) by the State government if he could drive his truck up the East Coast from Calamajué to San Felipe. Carrying a pick, shovel, and some blasting material he did it. Within weeks tourists followed with four-wheel-drive vehicles. The northern part of the road has been improved, and now there are tourist fishing camps on the formerly completely uninhabited coast.

Curiously, it was the Southern Territory, with far smaller economic resources than the Northern State, that sustained the impetus of road building and improvement, both north and south of La Paz. Soon after 1950 a road was pushed south-westward from Loreto, until then accessible by road only from the north, to join the main peninsular road at Santo Domingo. This road made Mission San Xavier, the outstanding example of Jesuit mission architecture, accessible to tourists. A road was graded northward from La Paz to Villa Insurgentes by 1954, and paving proceeded steadily to the point by 1961. For the next few years, repairing washouts caused by severe storms seems to have occupied the road-building resources of the Territory, but in 1968 a major program paved the road south to San José del Cabo. At the same time a project was instituted to complete a paved road north from Villa Insurgentes to San Ignacio, the most northerly oasis in the Southern Territory. A completely new alignment was chosen, crossing the uplands in an east-northeasterly direction to reach the Gulf Coast south of Loreto. Grading preceded paving, often by a year or more, but work progressed steadily and reached San Ignacio in 1972. Note 12

Extending the northern part of the paved road south from San Telmo did not begin until 1968 and in two years progressed only 20 kilometers, and in a year and a half more, to early 1972, made only a like distance, though surveying and grading for a modern road had begun beyond San Quintin. Suddenly the operation was accelerated; federal money became available, and two major contracts were let to grade and pave the entire 600 kilometer intervening stretch to San Ignacio, working from each end. Hundreds of trucks and graders and thousands of laborers were employed. Various stages of construction, from bulldozing a brecha to final hardening of roadside gutters in cuts, were carried on simultaneously over one-hundred kilometer stretches to hasten essential completion of the highway by the end of 1973.

The heavy investment in the new highway is being justified by its attraction of vastly increased numbers of American tourists and the employment that will be created in providing them with services. The American visitors prior to the paving of the highway have been of two classes, the drivers who traveled slowly, enjoying the scenery and the nearly empty country, camping out and spending relatively little money; another group flew to luxury resort hotels, particularly for fishing. The Mexican government's planning assumes that with a paved highway the additional drivers will seek and pay for luxury hotel accommodations and several rather luxurious hotel-restaurants have been established at formerly unpopulated sites as well as new hotels at established resorts such as Cabo San Lucas and Loreto.

The "Baja 1000 Rough Road Race" has attracted annually a further set of tourists, concerned to tear up the countryside rather than look at it. The hope that the paved highway would end this desecration of the landscape was vain. In 1973 the race was run cross country on a newly staked out track. It has been continued with completely new lineation but the course has been shortened to 500 kilometers.

Though it is only two lanes wide, less than ten meters in the least traveled middle of the route, the new highway was designed and built by modern engineers given free rein. Curves are broad and gentle, grades are moderate, and visibility is generally good. Since water for construction was always scarce and sometimes had to be hauled scores of miles, and ingenious, water sparing roadbed construction scheme was devised. Crushed gravel, sand, and cement were mixed dry, spread and graded into place, sprinkled with water and then rolled. The resulting surface is smooth and hard though how it will hold up will be determined in years ahead. The final surface is oiled and covered with fine gravel.

Except where the highway is actually cut into a hillside, it runs on top of an artificial ridge more than a meter high and only slightly wider than the roadbed. To build this ridge, earth was scraped from as much as a hundred yards on both sides, destroying the vegetation, much of it unusual endemic plants, and leaving a scar that will remain for decades if not for centuries. Protection against washouts rather than maintaining the wildly beautiful desert environment clearly had precedence in the engineer's plans.

There are almost no places that a car can be stopped safely, and getting off the ridge on which the road rests is difficult and even dangerous. Clearly the Baja California Highway will funnel tourists directly to the resort centers. Pausing to examine the extraordinary flora and the attractive desert terrain, the features that attracted the driving tourist of the past, is discouraged and often made impossible. One could drive to La Paz without being conscious of more than a long dull highway interrupted by a few settlements.

The alignment of overland transport routes in Baja California has changed in one rather consistent pattern from earliest historic times. The earliest mule trails and probably their Indian trail predecessors went rather directly from water source to water source. These streams and tanks were settlement sites, and in general are concentrated in the rugged uplands of the center and eastern edge of the peninsula. The mines which gave rise to the first wagon roads tended also to be in the rougher country, but they sought the shortest and easiest route to the coast, either Pacific or Gulf. The pattern of swinging back and forth across the peninsula that marks the original road for wheeled vehicles derives from two tendencies, the effort to utilize the mining roads whenever feasible and seeking lower and leveler land. Water sources and settlements were still connected if possible, but a number of oases that had held missions -- San Borja, Santa Gertrudis, Guadalupe, and San Xavier -- either long did without any road connection or were tied to the main road by long, poorly maintained side tracks.

The new highway continues this trend. The biggest shifts in alignment involve staying far out on the flats of the Vizcaino desert almost to the latitude of San Ignacio before heading east to that point, thus by-passing the former mining and trading centers of Calmalli and El Arco, and following the Gulf coast well south of Loreto before crossing the drainage divide into the Magdalena Plains. The mission oases of La Purisima, Comondú, and San Xavier are by-passed.

In its most recently completed sector, from Rosario to San Ignacio, the highway has been consistently displaced one to three kilometers west of the old road except west and north of San Ignacio where there is a completely new alignment. All the tiny settlements along the old road that eked out a precarious existence serving tourists have been by-passed as have some larger ones. In some instances, their residents have been able to move to a new site on the highway, but this requires more capital than many possess. Further the new alignment, in contrast to the old, is not focused on hitting the infrequent spots where water can be obtained.

Finally, the long term residents who have depended on tourists geared their services to the minimal requirements of the rough-road camper. The tourist whom the new highway is designed to attract will be served by new entrepreneurs from Mexico City who will provide, at high prices, what might be found in an American resort. Profits are going to the investors and managers imported from the mainland. Mexico's problems of underemployment and her need to develop lucrative economic activities cannot be ignored. One can only hope that the benefits gained by the crassest touristic development of the wild lands and shores of Baja California will be worth it.

Notes

It is possible that a wagon road ran over the 25 miles between the silver mines of Santa Ana and La Paz. The mines were opened in 1748 and worked sporadically for several decades. No mention of such a road has been discovered, however. Zephyrin Englehardt, Missions and Missionaries in California, Volume 1, Lower California, Santa Barbara, 1929. The drawings of Fr. Ignacio Tirsch, presumably describing Baja California in 1767, the time of the Jesuit expulsion, offer two views of San José del Cabo, Plates VIII and IX, and several other scenes in the Cape area. San José is shown as a busy port, but the paths in and out of town are only for riding animals, and many of them, but no wheeled vehicles appear in his several scenes. The Drawings of Ignacio Tirsch: a Jesuit Missionary in Baja California. Narrative by Doyce B. Bunis, Jr. Translation by Elsbeth Schulz-Bischof, Dawson's Book Shop, Los Angeles, 1972.
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Homer Aschmann, "Recuperación de la vegatación desertica," Calafia, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Oct. 1976), pp. 52-57.
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Jorge Engerrand and Trinidad Paredes, "Informe relativo a la parte occidental de la región Norte de la Baja California" in "Memoria de la Comisión del Instituto Geológico de México que exploró la región Norte de la Baja California." Parergones del Instituto Geológico de México, Vol. 4, 1913, pp. 277-306.
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Carl H. Beal, Reconnaissance of the Geology and Oil Possibilities of Baja California, Mexico, Geological Society of America, Memoir 31, 1948.
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A copy of the typescript, evidently the original, is in my possession.
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"Report of the trip made by C. B. Salisbury and J. E. McLean of the Automobile Club of Southern California from Los Angeles into Lower California for the Purpose of Ascertaining Road Conditions as well as Outing and Hunting Possibilities, and to Take the Necessary Notes and Data with which to Compile a General Map, Particularly of the West Coast Portion." (1926) Automobile Club of Southern California, Los Angeles.
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Personal communication from G. P. Parmalee, Automobile Club of Southern California, retired.
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Manuscript of lecture given by G. P. Parmalee, June 1967, entitled "History of Road Signing in California."
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Personal communication from Paul Jacot of San Diego, California who trucked onyx for his father's mine in the 1940s.
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Reference must be made to the Baja California Guidebook by Peter Gerhard and Howard E. Gulick, Arthur H. Clark Co., Glendale, Calif. four editions beginning in 1956. With its accurate discussions of road conditions and mileages to the tenth of a mile, becoming lost -- even on side roads in uninhabited areas -- was no longer an unavoidable risk.
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Ulises Irigoyen, Carretera Transpeninsular de la Baja California. Editorial America, Mexico, 1943, 2 vols.
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The dates are from my own observations and personal communications from Howard E. Gulick of Glendale, California.
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Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

what is moon dust?

Drive from Puerto Chale to Punta Conejo offroad and you will find out. PS The 1000 used this route and the moon dust was knee deep in some spots when I drove it in June 2022.


[Edited on 7-16-2022 by chippy]

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

moon dust - silt?

Chapala Silt Bed, 1965

This was it... and you see the ranch in the distance, left by hill? Well, you pointed to the ranch and then just dropped into the 'liquid' (well it acted like liquid) as it fully covered your vehicle. The dry lake bed is beyond, over to the right.
Photo from Howard Gulick... a year before my folks and I drove this...




In 1973 (July), the new highway was under construction and went around the west side of the valley, avoiding the silt bed and dry lake... However, as we found out the Chapala silt was all over the valley! My dad sold his 4x4 and bought this Ford wagon thinking the highway was all but finished... it was not! He asked me to get up onto the new roadbed and take a photo of his wagon in the Chapala dust, on the detour road alongside the new highway.

Quote: Originally posted by BajaBlanca

Paco: got any more stories?

try the fesh fesh on a scoot!

Quote: Originally posted by surfhat

Harold, for all the places you have explored and shared here, moon dust/silt beds is new? This surely cannot be. You have been lucky to have avoided them. They would be forever imbedded in your life of exploring Baja once you did. Driving north from Pequena in the early 90's in a Ford 4wd van did not inspire confidence once I hit the patch that seems never ending until I gave up and just barely managed to turn around in that thick and so fine dust. If I had not been alone I might have gone on with some company to share the moon dust with that manages to get in everywhere. Who knew I needed a dust mask at the time to drive through that stuff? That patch of road, if it could be called that, was extra wide like a four lane highway was going to come in. It is just as well that the GN Salt works plants owners never made the paved highway south along the coast happen. Good roads bring all 'sorts' of people is a well known common phrase. Bad roads are a savior in their own way and are so worth the trouble they can bring to get out there. Who didn't first come to Baja to get out there? That a few inaccessible areas remain to this day, continues to inspire many us longtime and short time Baja lovers alike.

I know that awful stuff - did not know the term "moon dust"





[Edited on 7-17-2022 by 4x4abc]

What remains of the whale, when I was out there in early 2019. It is beached just south of south of town. My first trip out to San Juanico was in 1993 ,we had met up with couple from Alta California on the drive south who had bought a lot and were moving there full time.