The French Connection and Santa Rosalía

Santa Rosalía came into being durning the 1880s after a French corporation, the Boleo Mining Company, was formed to exploit local copper deposits that had been bought up from small, independent miners. El Boleo, as it was called in the region, brought in large equipment and, beside digging shafts and pits to acquire ore, also built a company town complete with administration buildings, a hotel, a school, a pre-fabricated steel church designed by Gustave Eiffel, a narrow gauge rail line, a breakwater to create a small harbor, and barracks for workers. Most of the miners were Yaquis brought over from Sonora. To feed a town that grew to 10,000, El Boleo developed dozens of ranches in adjacent interior areas to provide meat, fruit, and vegetables. After more than 30 years of profitable operation, the amount and quality of ore diminished. The company could not be sold, but lingered on in one form or another until the 1970's when the picturesque mill and the miniature rail line were shut down. One of the real attractions of the peninsular drive lost much of it's appeal; a colorful chapter in local history was closed.

• Santa Rosalía near sunset, 1967.
• Santa Rosalía: the Boleo mill in action, 1967.
• Santa Rosalía: Scrapped railroad wheels at the Boleo mill, 1967.
• Santa Rosalía: Narrow gauge engine at the Boleo mill, 1967.
• Santa Rosalía: A worker oiling machinery at the Boleo mill, 1967.
• Local ranchers scan horizon from atop El Picacho in the Sierra de la Laguna, 1972.
• Red volcanic agglomerate cliff in Arroyo de San Pablo, Sierra de San Francisco, 1977.

Remote Places that Remain Remote

Despite the paved highway, despite the proliferation of pickups and wheeltrack roads, despite a rash of small developments, some places are still remote, still pristine, still beautiful. If you want to know them as they have been, go now and tread lightly. Progress is on its way.

• Morning mists at Mesa del Tabardillo, northwest Sierra de San Francisco, 1977
• Sea of Cortez from a beach north of the salina at San Evaristo, 1972.
• Sea of Cortez from a beach south of Los Dolores, 1972