David K - 1-24-2022 at 12:29 PM
Good morning all you Baja history fans!
I recently received an email and photo from Kevin of the www.caminorealbaja.com team. Part of their latest research is with the Mulegé branch of El Camino Real. However, his email was specifically about
the La Magdalena remains, which is on this branch of 'ECR'.
To get you up to speed, 'Magdalena' with these ruins, is mention by the padres, travelers in the 1800s, and Arthur North on his 1906 adventure
published in 1910 as Camp and Camino in Lower California.
North had studied all the available mission data of the time and he was aware of the proposed Jesuit mission, named Santa María Magdalena.
When the locals told him the ruins were of 'La Magdalena' so he assumed that was the Santa María Magdalena site. It was not.
"Mission S. M. Mag" is shown as 'started' on the 1757 Jesuit map well north of both San Ignacio and the future Santa Gertrudis (then proposed to be
called Dolore del Norte). It was also mentioned in the Jesuits lists from the 1740s. The map is actually made from details of 10 years earlier.
So, Arthur North calls the site near Mulegé, "Santa María Magdalena" and books and maps made after, continued with this error. Well, until my book,
of course! 
My wife and I visited La Magdalena in 2009 and found it very impressive with both stone walls and adobe outlines! We did not walk over to the pila
(reservoir) which had been photographed about ten years earlier by 'BajaOkie'.
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In 2014, the huge flash flood widened the arroyo and erased the stone ruins.
We returned in 2015, saw only some of the adobe room outlines that missed being washed away and went to the pila, now very near the edge of the big
arroyo. This pila was fed using a long, impressive aqueduct coming from near the town of San José de Magdalena:
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Today, one would find half of the pila washed away.
From Kevin:
Hello David,
We had a great trip to Baja and were successful with our work on ECR. We visited Magdalena and checked out what remains of the ruins. There is not
much left of the site itself, but the aqueduct is in very good shape still. Most of the reservoir is missing and will continue to be washed away with
succeeding flash-floods.
Here is the 2022 photo from Kevin of CaaminoRealBaja.com:
On my map, see 'La Magdalena (site)':
Links:
1757 Map: https://vivabaja.com/maps/1757-02/
2015 trip Baja Bound article: https://www.bajabound.com/bajaadventures/bajatravel/la_magda...
2009 trip Baja Bound article: https://www.bajabound.com/bajaadventures/bajatravel/mysterio...