1936 to 1939: Transition

On December 23, 1936, Gabriel Corella is named Interim President (the Council will be removed in May). Among his first acts, will be the change of the name of Plutarco Elías Calles school, to Enrique Quijada.

After the defeat of nationalsocialism, Cardenas will have to concede that those opposing Callismo in Sonora will now win political power in the State elections of 1936. With it, the conditions will be established for the polarization during the next two years in Sonora. Now, the struggle will be between the Cardenas project and the opposition to Calles. In Sonora, their candidate to end the guvernmental constitutional period 1937 to 1939, will be Roman Yocupicio.

Among the candidates tu succeed in the governorship we find Lic. Alfonso Romandia Ferreira, who had been the first director of the Nogales High School, in 1930. In Nogales, there are parades supporting Gral. Otero Pablos as candidate of PNR to the governorxhip. This will force the resignation of Lic. Ernesto P. Uruchurtu as State President of the PNR. In the following elections, Yocupicio is declared winner.

On June 1, 1937, the Catholic and Methodist temples in Nogales are reopened. The first one thanks to the labours of Minister Eleuterio Valencia, and the second by those of Father Salvador Sandoval.

In 1938, after the Catholic Church was reinstalled, the Juan Bosco school (the first three years of grammar school) reopens. School Eusebio Francisco Kino will open in 1942 (girls from 4 to 6), and in 1946 school Fray Pedro de Gante (boys, from 4 to 6). This last will be changed into a junior high school in 1958, and in 1983 into a complete high school. Besides this, several religious associations will be founded: the Union of Catholic Men and the Union of Young Husbands; the Ladies of Isabel La Catolica, the Chabelas and several Guadalupan groups; while for the youth there will be the Catholic Association of Mexican Youth (ACJM).

The cattlemen of Northern Sonora, who had rebelled against Ramos in 1935 receive the amnesty. A little later, Cardenas declares that the expropriations in Sonora are finished, and Certificados de Inafectabilidad Ganadera will be issued to the ranches La Arizona (now belonging to Joe Wise), Santa Barbara (Mascareñas), Aribabi (Gilberto Ramos), San Rafael and Cuchuta (Arturo Morales), as also a temorary Certificate to the cattle company of Cananea.

Starting in 1938, the children from Madero school are taking classes in the firefighter´s salon, as their school building is falling down. By May, Jim Kerson opens the La Caverna Garden. By then, Gral Anselmo Macias has been "destapado" as candidate to the governorship, and on July 12, when he visits Nogales in campaign, among the speeches welcoming him, there is one that asks "to establish in Nogales an Industrial School, because not everybody can be a contrabandist" Also, the baseball stadium is being built those days.

In January, 1939, Gral Anselmo Macias "destapa" in Sonora the candidacy of Manuel Avila Camacho to the Presidency of Mexico. With this act, he disarms Almazanismo in the state, who thought that Cardenas would elect Gral Mujica -a more radical leftist than himself- to succeed him.

In May, the Presidente Municipal is authorized to close the slaughterhouse (located in today´s 18 de Marzo St), which is totally insatisfactory. Meanwhile, the "...ex campament in Lomas..." will be used as slanghterhouse. However, on March 19, 1940, the Ayuntamiento inaugurates a new slanghterhouse, built by the Junta Federal de Mejoras Materiales at the end of Colonia Granja.

When it is announced that Cardenas will come to Nogales, and as the municipal elections are getting closer, the local unions belonging to the CTM send a petition to the President of Mexico, asking several things: that the local authorities are constantly fighting them forming spurious unions, accusing that even the President of Mexico´s orders had been disobeyed, when the Presidente Municipal said "...you don´t have anything to do with the municipality businesses" They also complain that every year, starting in May, even though the local water company charges for water usage, there is no water in the system. That the colonos at La Arizona have been attacked, with the intention of expelling them, while those at Cibuta don´t have water. Finaly, they add that the cost of living in Nogales is very high, and that the teachers salaries at the high school and at the Tipo school are very low.

Regarding the general situation, they also add that there is an enormous foreign influence, and no local industry nor commerce. To solve this situation, they ask for the expropriation of La Arizona and Cibuta, to give work to the people living there. That the high school be widened. That the water company be expropriated (this, they add, is supported by the local authorities). That the Ayuntamiento give work to at least 50% of the federal workers. That a work inspector be sent to check the local unions, as well as the "...famous union..." of the Veterans of the Revolution, "who have displaced the teachers". They end with the petition that a Preparatory school be established in Nogales. The signers: General Secretary: Roberto Espinoza Perez. Labor Secretary: Francisco Curiel Ramos, and Srio of Foreign Businesses: Manuel Leyva.

When Presidente Cardenas asks for an explanation, the local government has already been changed, and the new Presidente, Mascareñas, answers the final days of October that he employs members of the federal unions, and that that years there was no lack of water.

This same month, the Commmission of Minimun Salaries of the Junta de Conciliacion y Arbitraje, is established. It´s members, representing the employers, are Alonso Aviles and Jim P. Kerson, while the workers are represented by Salomon Rojas and Professor Roberto Espinoza.

A few days later, the President informs the Council that he received orders from the President of Mexico, to undertake a campaign against prostitution "...removing the women named entertainers from the Elias Street cabarets [then the order] is discussed, but as the Councilmen don´t reach an agreement, it is approved to leave it for the following meeting" During this discussion, the President proposes to build a hospital to cure exclusively sexually transmitted diseases, as well as a seamstress workshop to help in the rehabilitation of the prostitutes. This idea, he adds, is supported by President Cardenas.

However, other problems of more urgency will come out the following days, and this proposal won´t be acted upon.

The same day of President Cardenas arrival, Congress authorizes that the Ayuntamiento transfer ownership to the local firefighters of the building they occupy, so on June 17, the President is authorized to transfer it.

Also, the same date Fernando Carreño is authorized to start building a bull fight plaza behind the Cerveceria de Sonora building

In September, the Federal Preparatory school is opened. The teachers will work for free until 1944, when finally the SEP will authorize an annual subsidy of $4,000. This will be the first higher education institution in Sonora, as the Preparatoria y Normal in Hermosillo didn´t issue bachelor degrees. The idea, according to the school organizers, was to prepare nationalist educated people in Nogales who would recuperate the destiny of the border under a modern and lay ideology, while at the same time could compete with the local economic elite, who until then, lived only from tourism, both legal and illegal.

In an article published by Professor Alfonso Acosta, Director of the High Schoool, he explained that with this higher level education schools, they wanted to "avoid the exodus towards the US of those students that finished the grammar school, and, above all, to defend our culture and historical traditions" That is, to recuperate in the border the nationalist vision, while at the same time, through education, to achieve the professionalization of the Nogales population.

Nogales grows again that second half of the decade after the economic crisis of the previous years.

In 1939, Second World War is declared, while in Nogales the economic formula of selling the image of "old Mexico" on the Sonora side and the hotels on the US side is gaining impetu again. On October 1, the long distance telephone service between Mexico City and Nogales is inaugurated by Compañia Ericcson.

While all of this takes place, a small woman dressed in black, with a crucifix in her chest, is seen nightly in the streets of Nogales. She goes asking for money at the bars and theaters of the town. Her mission: to pick up the abandoned girls, to feed them and educate them. She never wanted to give her girls in adoption, as "the older ones need the love of the smaller ones" she will explain.

They call her Madre Conchita, as she is exactly that, the "mother" of all the orphan girls of Nogales. And although she didn´t begin the orhan asylum, as she took over it´s direction after the previous director, Esther Aguilar passed away on October, 1939, Madre Conchita will take over it´s direction during the harship years of the World War, when more and more girls were abandoned. It won´t be until after her death, in her birthplace, Aguascalientes, when a Patronato will take over the direction of the asylum.