The U.S. wanted a wall on our SE AZ border with Mexico as far back as the 1900's... it would be part of a U.S. strategy to keep the Mexican Revolution from crossing over the border and into Cochise County.
As many as 5,000 troops were stationed at Camp Naco including on the land now known as Turquoise Valley Golf and RV, where Buffalo Soldier troops occupied a tent encampment from 1914, and National Guard troops until about 1924.
The Newell family owned the property and made it available to the government on more than one occasion, and between those occasions they themselves occupied the structures of adobe, a building-material-rarity for a military property, built by the troops in the years the military occupied the strategic border acreage.
The Buffalo Soldiers camp was at Camp Naco starting in 1914. The Arizona National Guard (white troops)were camped at the golf course. The tent camp was made into a permanent adobe camp in 1919. The Civilian Conservation Corps were there in the 1930s.
To look into the eyes of Camp Naco and know anything about her past is pure mystical seduction. She is so weathered and worn yet so full of character, mystique, and pride. This must have driven historian Rebecca Orozco, of south-of-the-border heritage born with a thirst for factual historic knowledge, who has traveled the world in an on-going quest to quench it, to spend the last 20 years exploring ways to rebirth Camp Naco with historic integrity and a need for local functionality and sustainability.
Seek out the on-line history of Camp Naco, sometimes referred to as Camp Newell, then, refer to this second part of my interview with Becky as we get a glimpse into a living plan for the future of what was, and seems to want to be more of.
