Welcome to the Historical Hall

In the summer of 1881, surveyors employed by the Santa Fe Railway trekked through the lush grass of the Sonoita valley, roughly following the curves of the Babocomari River. Behind them followed teams of men and mules, grading and scraping earth to make way for what would quickly become the Patagonia Branch of the New Mexico & Arizona Railroad. Just over a year later, freight and passenger trains were transporting people and goods through a remote section of Arizona that had previously only been accessible via horseback or wagon. By 1962, however, the Patagonia Branch was abandoned, and the steel tracks were pulled up and salvaged. Although it lasted only a brief eighty years, the Patagonia Branch thoroughly transformed the towns of Elgin, Sonoita, and Patagonia.

Shortly after the Southern Pacific Railroad completed its first line across Arizona and connected with the Santa Fe Railway in New Mexico to create the nation’s second continental railroad in 1880, the two companies began negotiations over an additional line to Mexico. The recent discovery of coal in Sonora and a potential direct line to the Gulf of California via Guaymas made the profitability of such a line obvious. The two railways eventually agreed to joint use of the tracks between Deming and Benson, at which point the Santa Fe would construct a railroad south to the border. On June 17, 1881, the Santa Fe incorporated the New Mexico and Arizona Railroad Company for construction of the line, and soon a route was finalized which would wind south from Benson to the confluence of the Babocomari River and the San Pedro, then follow the Babocomari to Sonoita Creek, from where it would head through Patagonia to Calabasas and eventually to Nogales.

From the moment the first rails were laid in September 1881, construction was not without frequent, perilous incidents. Just two months after work began, two men were thrown from the top of the construction train when the engineer attempted to reconnect with an uncoupled car. One was sent to St. Mary’s hospital in Tucson, while the other underwent an emergency amputation of both legs on site. Amazingly, both survived. Railroad workers continued to face deadly hazards even after the tracks were completed. In 1914, a laborer named Albert Hall was repairing a damaged trestle when a gust of wind blew him off the tall structure, breaking his neck and killing him. He was buried near the worker’s camp in Sonoita, where his grave can still be visited today. 

Aside from the dangers of the work itself, law and order were tenuous and life seemed constantly precarious for railroad workers. At a time when the Earps feuded with the Clantons and McLaurys in nearby Tombstone and the Army pursued Geronimo’s band of Apache across the region, laborers were frequent victims and perpetrators of frontier violence. Beatings, shootings, and robberies were so prevalent in the small communities that sprung up along the worksites that one newspaper correspondent from Tombstone reported that “the amount of lawlessness in this vicinity is scarcely credible and is something fearful to contemplate.” 

After over a year of construction, a silver spike was tapped into place as the Patagonia Branch finally connected to the Sonora Railway in Nogales on October 25, 1882. The residents of Elgin, Sonoita, Patagonia, and others along the route suddenly had access to goods that previously would have been unattainable, and easier access to markets for the region’s cattle ranches and mines. 

In terms of passenger service, the journey from Tucson to Mexico and vice versa was expedited significantly with the addition of a small, daily passenger train affectionately referred to as “the burro.” After the Patagonia station opened in June 1900, the burro would stop there for meals every day on its trek to and from Tucson.

By the 1950s, the Patagonia branch served as the backdrop for numerous westerns such as Red River, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and 3:10 to Yuma. The Elgin station specifically played a prominent role in Oklahoma!, serving as Claremore, Oklahoma, with hundreds of locals serving as extras or crew for the film.

Nearly as soon as it was completed, the Patagonia branch faced frustrating financial challenges. The operational cost regularly exceeded revenue from traffic. Flood damage alone – caused by monsoon storms that swelled the multiple waterways the branch traversed – required nearly half a million dollars of repairs within its first fifty years of operation. Over fierce objections from residents, especially ranchers, the Patagonia Branch was abandoned in 1962. Today, the remnants of the former railroad – from the Patagonia station and the Elgin section house to the still-standing trestles and empty railbed – are sources of pride to locals in this special section of Santa Cruz County.

1. Fort Grant has a history under five different names. It was the second military fort to be built in Arizona after the Gadsden Purchase. It was first called Fort Aravaipa, when it was established May 8, 1860 at the confluence of the Aravaipa and San Pedro Rivers. It was named Fort Breckinridge a few months later on August 6, 1860 after Vice President John C. Breckinridge, the youngest Vice President in history. The name was changed to Fort Stanford on May 24, 1862 after California Governor Leland Stanford. It was reestablished after the Civil War as Camp Grant in October 1865 named after Ulysses S. Grant. After the horrific Camp Grant massacre of April 30, 1871, the military reserve was moved to a new location and designated as Fort Grant on April 5, 1879.

2. According to his memoir, Edgar Rice Burroughs arrived in Willcox on May 22, 1896. With only one dollar in his possession, he was able to get a room at the Willcox Hotel, supper, and a bath. The next day he boarded a stagecoach heading to Fort Grant with the other passenger being a lady of the evening from the Hog Ranch near the Fort. The stage coaches, like the one pictured that went from Willcox to Bonita, were not very fancy. Life was pretty boring at the fort, except for Edgar’s time helping to hunt down the Apache Kid.

3. By the 1890s, the Apache wars were over, but the renegade known as the Apache Kid was still causing trouble. He had been a scout for the U. S. Army hunting Geronimo’s band in the 1880s. A breakout and melee at San Carlos Reservation resulted in the Kid’s imprisonment at Alcatraz for a time. A $15,000 bounty was advertised for his capture. There were many stories of his being killed at several different places, but no one ever collected the bounty. 

4. Tom Horn, a legendary figure of the Old West, was personally hired by the commander of the 7th U. S. Cavalry Regiment at Fort Grant as a civilian chief of scouts to guide troops in the field during the Army’s 1896 campaign to hunt down the Apache Kid. He was employed in this capacity from June through September 1896. He was paid $75 per month. Tom Horn was a cowboy, government packer, interpreter, participant in the Geronimo campaigns, lawman/vigilante in Arizona’s Pleasant Valley War, Pinkerton operative, range detective, man hunter, and hired assassin for cattle barons in Wyoming. He was hanged, one day before his 43rdbirthday, in Cheyenne, Wyoming on November 20, 1903, for the murder of fourteen-year-old Willie Nickell. 

5. John Slaughter of the San Bernardino ranch and some of his cowboys teamed up with a military patrol from Fort Grant along with Army Indian Scouts. They took the trail after a band of renegade Apaches who had been stealing cattle among other depredations. On May 8, 1896, they surprised an Apache rancheria in the Guadalupe Mountains. One renegade was killed and a two-year-old Apache girl was captured. John Slaughter took her home to his wife, Viola. With no children of their own, they adopted her and named her Apache May after the month she was found abandoned. They fell in love with the little girl, and she came to adore them. They took her into Tombstone several times where people would line up to see her. During one of these visits, her picture was taken by C. S. Fly, the famous Tombstone photographer. Sadly, little Apache May died in 1900, when her dress caught fire while playing near the big iron kettle in the ranch house yard where water was boiling to wash the clothes.