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NACO, Ariz. — Local organizations are racing the clock to preserve what some believe to be the last Buffalo Soldier fortress on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“It is a piece of our history that is rapidly fading,” said local historian Debby Swartzwelder during a community lecture Wednesday at Cochise College in Sierra Vista.
The adobe barracks of Camp Naco, also known as Camp Newell, are still standing, and historians aim to save the site whose function in the early 1900s was to provide border security.
 Soldiers with the First Arizona Infantry march in formation in November 1916 at Camp Naco, before the construction of permanent barracks and officers' quarters. This image is about one-fifth of a panoramic photo that is in the Bisbee Mining and Historic Museum. (Ted Morris-Herald/Review) |
Swartzwelder clicked through a slide show.
“Uncle Sam is building a barrier along the Mexican border line!” shouted a headline in the Fort Wayne, Ind., Journal-Gazette on Sept. 1, 1919.
Old newspaper clippings are among the many devices that Swartzwelder uses as she unearths clues to Camp Naco’s past.
A Bisbee Daily Review article from June 1919 told of America’s plan to build a $7 million “fence” along the border, consisting essentially of barracks and troops.
Add a few zeroes to that dollar figure, Swartzwelder said, “and that is exactly what is happening today.”
Americans in the Southwest became concerned when the Mexican Revolution of 1910-21 threatened to spill trouble over the border. The U.S. government responded.
“Naco had a military presence from 1911 until the end of 1923, with troop strength ranging from 50 to over 5,000 through the years,” Swartzwelder said. “And that’s not including their horses.”
Exactly when the permanent adobe military structures were built at Camp Naco remains a missing puzzle piece for Swartzwelder, who has amassed many documents and artifacts to support her ongoing research. But she still needs documentation showing when the barracks and NCO and officers quarters were completed.
Such critical documents can often be found in people’s attics or garages, she said. Such a document — perhaps a photo, or a letter sent home — could decisively prove that Buffalo Soldiers were at Camp Naco.
Another Bisbee Daily Review article, dated Aug. 9, 1919, provides a tantalizing clue. It’s headline: “Push work on new barracks at Camp Naco.”
Swartzwelder wonders why Naco, of all places, was chosen for the sturdy adobe construction, which has enabled it to endure as a rare landmark of the period.
The Ninth and Tenth Cavalry regiments, and later the 25th Infantry Regiment — all Buffalo Soldier units — are known to have served as the primary force in Naco.
The Ninth and Tenth were commended by the president for maintaining U.S. neutrality laws during the October 1914 Battle of Naco.
“There were soldiers who were killed and wounded by the rebel bullets,” Swartzwelder said, noting the American troops, which included machine-gun platoons, did not return fire and escalate the conflict, because the United States at that time was trying to stay out of the erupting world war.
The Army is known to have leased the land from John J. Newell, who was born in Ireland in 1874 and emigrated to America.
An entrepreneur, he was lured from Illinois to Southern Arizona around the turn of the century, filing his first land claim in 1902 and establishing his Naco Real Estate and Improvement Co.
“That’s where some of the mystery starts,” Swartzwelder said, noting there was a liquidation of assets in 1927.
The property lay largely unused until the present age.
After an arson gutted four of the six NCO buildings on May 21, 2006, an urgent search was undertaken to find an agency that would assume control of the 17-acre site at the corner of Willson Road and Newell Street in Naco.
Many turned it down, but in August 2006 the town government of Huachuca City accepted Camp Naco as a donation from a private company in Tucson that wished to be free of the property’s taxes and other liabilities.
Since that time, the non-taxable Huachuca City, backed by brain power from preservationist partners that include Cochise College and the University of Arizona South, has applied for an Arizona Heritage Preservation Fund matching grant of about $80,000 that would help fence off the property and pay for an architect to provide a building condition assessment report.
A Southwest Foundation Grant, in the tens of thousands of dollars, also is being sought.
It would provide seed money for community educational groups trying to establish coordinated programs about the camp.
The site has been submitted to the National Geographic Geotourism Map, and the preservationists intend to nominate Camp Naco to the National Register of Historic Places.
“Many stakeholders in the community are working toward the preservation of the camp,” Swartzwelder said. “It is a daunting task, certainly.”
How you can help
- Cleanup day — Starting at 8 a.m. May 19, there will be a volunteer cleanup day at Camp Naco. Those who plan to attend should wear sturdy work clothes including boots and gloves, and bring trash bags. More details will be announced at a later date.
- Financial contributions — Although Camp Naco has not yet been established as a nonprofit 501(3)(c) tax-exempt organization, there has been a bank account established for those wishing to contribute dollars to the camp’s preservation.
- For information — Contact Rebecca Orozco at Cochise College at 417-4772, or send e-mail to orozcor@cochise.edu
Herald/review City Editor Ted Morris can be reached at 515-4614 or by e-mail at cityeditor@svherald.com.
Joe Hicks wrote on Oct 8, 2007 2:22 PM: