Nogales, Arizona, since 1920

In 1917 Jake Rochlin and John Robinson had arrived to Nogales, Arizona, and opened a store for the soldiers in the Military Camp. Two years later, Hyman Capin also arrived and established a tailor shop who provided uniforms also to the soldiers.

After the closing of the military camp, when the Mexican Revolution ended, the commerce of Nogales, Arizona was reorganized, directing their operations now towards the Mexican Pacific Coast. Rochlin and Robinson sold their store to Charles Bracker, marking the beginning of Bracker's. A little later, in 1920, Capin also bought a small store, El Paso, to Sam Leeker, and five years later La Ville de Paris to Charles Dumazert.

Also during 1920 the first local economic crisis occurs when the price of cotton collapses, and Arizona being a main producer immediately fires the cotton pickers, causing enormous quantities of displaced mexicans. As a consequence, both border towns are invaded by hundreds of mexicans. Four years later the Border Patrol is organized.

We have seen in other chapters the economic development of Nogales during those years. However, it is interesting to remember now the structural changes within the Nogales, Arizona, economy, which will turn it into the store for the whole of the Mexican Pacific Coast.

During all of these years, which will last until the Peso devaluation beginning in the 1970's, the stores of Capin's descendants, which were incorporated in 1929 as Capin Mercantile Co., besides clothing and luxury items, they will extend also to hardware stores and hotels, among them Robinson's and Americana Hotel.

One of Capin's sons in law, Roberto Marcus, will establish his own store when he buys Pogash furniture store in 1943, and turns it into Marcus Furniture Store. One year later, he also opens La Popular, a clothing store.

Another of Capin's sons in law, Harry Chernin, will open another furniture store in 1941, Citizen's Furniture Store.

As alma Ready -Nogales, Arizona local historian- has told us when she remembers the role that an old Nogalian, Wirt Bowman, played in the economic development of Nogales, Arizona during the posrevolutionary period:

In him -certainly exxagerated- were represented the qualities that characterized the men that had been able to turn and perpetuate that dynamic little commercial center named Nogales [Arizona] whose importance was, and in 1970 still remained, out of all proportion to it's size.

It is that during those years, Nogales, Arizona economic bonaza was enviable.

And associated with the image of "Old Mexico," Hollywood stars turned then Both Nogales into their rest area, while year after year the Fiestas de Mayo attracted thousands of visitors, both Mexican and non Mexicans.

Those days, the border was opened to everybody, without the need of presenting a passport. Those days of May were a symbol of an economic bonanza that seemed eternal.

In May, 1947, the Nogales, Arizona Airport is opened as a terminal for Aeronaves de Mexico (which will move to the Nogales, Sonora Airport in April 1953), while two months later, on July 14, Monsignor Louis Duval passes away.

He had been born in Draguignan, France, in 1864, studied in Avignon, then in Saint Suplice, in Paris, where he was ordained Priest in 1888. He arrived to Arizona in 1903, and would be the local Catholic Priest of Nogales, Arizona for 40 years. During his funerals, on the 17th, the whole town stops as a sign of respect for him.

That same year, 1947, Walter Holm starts a line of trucks to bring agricultural produce from South Sonora and Sinaloa, while a bracero program will be in operation in Nogales, Arizona, between 1948 and 1962, processing some 30,000 Mexican seasonal workers.

In 1948, the Customs Officers of Nogales, Arizona, are ordered to leave behind their weapons, and by 1953 the exportation of vegetable produce in refrigerated cars is started, while three years later the Crossing Gate No. 3 (on Pesqueira Street) is opened, besides the two already operating: the Main Gate, and on Morley. This gate will process the growing trade of vegetable trucks.

In 1954, Harry Karns, who had arrived to Nogales, Arizona in 1907 and undertaken several of the public works in town, as well as being the local Mayor, will publish his English translation of Luz de Tierra Incognita, the travel diaries of Juan Matheo Manje, military companion of Kino in many of the missionary expeditions throughout the Pimeria Alta.

By 1958, the exportation of vegetables transported by truck exceeds those carried by train, while the last days of 1960, due to the increase of violence associated with the drug trade, the Customs Agents are again authorized to carry weapons, while beginning the 70's the first computers and drug sniffing dogs appear in the International crossing points.

In 1976 the new Border Crossing located West of town will start operating. It will substitute the Pesqueira crossing in the processing of trucks carrying vegetables.

The border was then delimited by a chain link fence ordered to be built by the International Boundary Commission in 1950, while the actual building was carried on by San Xavier Rock and Sand Co., of Tucson. It had a total length of some 2.5 miles: One mile East of Monument 122, and 1.5 West of it. It had 11 feet in height within city limits, and 9 feet outside of town.

The following year, other agencies will take over it's maintenance, while a few years later it will fall under the US Immigration and Naturalization Service administration. However, during those years, it's existence will be more a symbol than a barrier to international crossing. Sonorenses will see in it more a symbol of two different styles of life.

However, starting in the 1970's, and the economic restructuring of Nogales, Sonora, at the same time there will appear a hardening of the measures to cross the border, as well as the reorienting of the economic offer of Nogales, Arizona.

The old luxury articles stores gradually started closing or changed their operations, while only those who offered cheaper or defective products remained.

The immediate aim will be to fight unemployment levels of around 25% within the Santa Cruz County. The reason behind these changes was the dependency of Nogales, Arizona, on the diminishing acquisition power of Mexicans from the Pacific Coast.

So, Nogales, Arizona saw that the only solution to keep alive it's economy, was to sell the cheaper Asiatic articles to attract again Mexican consumers, although with that solution the economic control that Nogales, Arizona, had kept over the Mexican Pacific Coast was broken.

However, the decrease of international commerce continued. Nogales, Sonora saw the opening of commercial centers that offered the same products than in Nogales, Arizona, and the recipe of offering Asiatic products didn't solve the problem in the long run.

Nogales, Arizona would have to look for another different way to improve it's economy, and at this writing it hasn't achieved it yet.