The 1930 AUTO CLUB BAJA GUIDE and MAP

Quote: Originally posted by BajaTed

DK TJ to Ensenada: Halfway House mentioned How long has the "Halfway House" been in existence? First place I remember as a kid eating @ with my parents on our regular trips to Quintas Papagayo.

hey Ted first opened in 1922...

[Edited on 6-11-2022 by Don Pisto]

Quote: Originally posted by bajaric

Cool map. Perhaps one of the earliest (accurate) road maps of Baja. Regarding El Arco, states "El Arco furnishes employment for 100 men engaged in the mining of gold", a statement that has been repeated by travel writers ever since, when what they were actually mining at El Arco was probably a gold-bearing copper ore.

Somehow I knew there would be some feedback from the copper academy here!

The Lower California Guidebook by Gerhard & Gulick first edition (1956):

"The gold mines of El Arco, which at one time employed over 1000 workers, began to be developed by an American company in the 1920s, but operations ceased after a prolonged strike of the miners. A new company is endeavoring to reopen the mines."
[this was not copied from the auto club]

The first time I recall reading about copper being discovered there was in the 1972 edition of Airports of Baja California by Arnold Senterfitt. He describes how copper ore ("so rich it looks like jade") was painted white to outline the new south runway, put in by Larco, the mining company. Senterfitt goes on, saying, "I'm told that if they opened up everything available the open pit would be some 20-30 miles in diameter."

When the Baja highway was constructed, it bypassed El Arco in favor of going through Guerrero Negro, the growing salt mine center. However, the importance of El Arco in those years was enough to build a 25-mile-long branch paved highway (Mexico #18) even though nothing new had yet happened there.

In 2017, the town was all but abandoned with one cattle ranch established amongst the abandoned town. Some modular buildings were new to my eyes, placed on the hill to the east. See the drone flyover by AirBaja Drone: https://www.facebook.com/groups/vivabaja/permalink/101992156...

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

the modular buildings have been there as long as I have been to El Arco about 35 years or so

Thanks Ric... great follow-up post!

In this 1939 Rand McNally road map, we see that a well-graded or gravel road wend northbound from San Ignacio to around where El Arco is. A 'less-improved' road continued on to Ensenada where the pavement began.

The 1930 AAA mapping crew may have been the first to drive a newly bulldozed roadbed. A roadbed that after years of neglect became a primitive single lane road, made famous in the early Baja 1000 races.

By the 1960s, it was returned to simple pair of deep ruts across the sandy desert...
Many of us witnessed how a well-graded road, passable by 2WD and motorhomes deteriorated between 1986 and 2006 (Puertecitos to Gonzaga Bay) to become a very rough and rocky roadbed.