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Ajo ( ) is an
unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
Pima County, Arizona Pima County ( ) is a County (United States), county in the south central region of the U.S. state of Arizona, one of 15 List of counties in Arizona, counties in the state. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 1 ...
, United States. It is the closest community to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The population was 3,039 at the 2020 census. Ajo is located on State Route 85 just from the
Mexican border Mexico shares international borders with three nations: *To the north the United States–Mexico border, which extends for a length of through the states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. *To the sou ...
.


History

''Ajo'' is the Spanish word for
garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...
(). The Spanish may have named the place using the familiar word in place of the similar-sounding O'odham word for paint (''oʼoho''). The Tohono O'odham people obtained red paint
pigments A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...
from the area. Native Americans, Spaniards, and Americans have all extracted mineral wealth from Ajo's abundant
ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...
deposits. In the early nineteenth century, there was a Spanish mine nicknamed "Old Bat Hole" that was abandoned due to Indian raids. Tom Childs Sr., found the deserted mine complete with a shaft,
mesquite Mesquite is a common name for some plants in the genera ''Neltuma'' and '' Strombocarpa'', which contain over 50 species of spiny, deep-rooted leguminous shrubs and small trees. They are native to dry areas in the Americas. Until 2022, these ge ...
ladders, and
rawhide Rawhide may refer to: *Rawhide (material), a hide or animal skin that has not been tanned * Whip made from rawhide Entertainment * ''Rawhide'' (1926 film), a Western directed by Richard Thorpe * ''Rawhide'' (1938 film), a Western starring baseball ...
buckets in 1847. He did not stay long at that time, because he was on his way to the silver mines near Magdalena de Kino, Sonora. Thirty-five years later, Childs and his son returned with a friend and started developing the abandoned mine.
In the year 1884, the camp at Ajo was practically abandoned. Not a soul was in camp when Tom Childs Sr., and his son arrived. With them was Washington Michael Jacobs of
Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...
... Childs and Jacobs located the mining claim which constituted most of the old Ajo group of mines. They made a permanent camp and worked the mines.
High-grade native
copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...
made Ajo the first copper mine in Arizona. Soon the Arizona Mining & Trading company, formed by Peter R. Brady, a friend of Childs, worked the rich surface ores, shipping loads around
Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...
for smelting in
Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...
,
Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
, in the mid-1880s. The mine closed when a ship sank off the coast of
Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...
. Long supply lines and the lack of water discouraged large mining companies With the advent of new recovery methods for low-grade ore, Ajo boomed. In 1911, Col. John Campbell Greenway, a Rough Rider and star
Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
athlete, bought the
New Cornelia mine The New Cornelia mine is a currently inactive open-pit copper mine in Pima County, Arizona, United States. It was the only productive mine in the Ajo mining district, and is located just outside the town of Ajo, which was built as a company ...
from John Boddie. He became general manager of the Calumet and the Arizona mining company and expanded it on a grand scale. The Tucson, Cornelia and Gila Bend Railroad was built from Gila Bend to serve the mining industry and was in service from 1916 to 1985. In 1921,
Phelps Dodge Phelps Dodge Corporation was an American mining company founded in 1834 as an import-export firm by Anson Greene Phelps and his two sons-in-law William Earle Dodge, Sr. and Daniel James. The latter two ran Phelps, James & Co., the part of the ...
, the nation's largest copper company, bought New Cornelia and the mine became the New Cornelia Branch of Phelps Dodge, managed by Michael Curley. For several decades more than 1,000 employees worked for Phelps Dodge in the
open pit mine Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or r ...
. In 1983 union-affiliated mine employees went on strike. The mine continued with non-union labor for a short while before stopping production in 1985. The town was originally segregated, with neighborhoods called Indian Village and Mexican Town for the non-white residents. Ajo is home to many retired people, Border Patrol agents, and young families. During the construction of a new border wall in 2019–2020, many workers lived in the RV parks, hotels and rental houses.


Geography

According to the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the
census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
has a total area of , all land. The census definition of the area was created by the Census Bureau for statistical purposes and may not precisely correspond to local understanding of the area with the same name. Ajo is located in the Little Ajo Mountains. Plants of the
Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert () is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It ...
thrive around Ajo, including
saguaro The saguaro ( , ; ''Carnegiea gigantea'') is a tree-like cactus species in the monotypic genus ''Carnegiea'' that can grow to be over tall. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains ...
s and
ocotillo ''Fouquieria splendens'', commonly known as ocotillo, is a plant indigenous to the Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan and Colorado deserts in the Southwestern United States (southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas), and nor ...
s. The Ajo lily or desert lily, an onion-like plant, also grows in the area. The
mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...
ajoite was first found at the New Cornelia Mine, Ajo. The rare mineral papagoite was also first described in the New Cornelia mine.


Climate

This area has a large amount of sunshine year round due to its stable descending air and high pressure. According to the
Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
system, Ajo has a
hot desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...
, abbreviated ''BWh'' on climate maps. Rainfall is very low except during occasional monsoonal or frontal incursions, and is especially minimal between April and June. Since 1914 the wettest calendar year has been 1946 with – including a record daily fall of on September 18 – and the driest 1928 with . Temperatures are very hot from April to October and mild to warm from November to March, with extremes ranging from on January 22, 1937, during that month's record Western cold wave, to on July 20, 2023.


Demographics

Ajo first appeared on the 1920 U.S. Census as (Pima County) Ajo Precincts Number 1 (pop. 2,040) and 2 (pop. 296). In 1930, it simply appeared as the Ajo Precinct. It featured a White racial plurality in the latter census. With the combination of all county precincts into 3 districts in 1940, it did not formally appear again until 1950, when it reported as an
unincorporated village An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
. In 1980, it was designated a
census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP). At its peak population in 1960 (7,049), it was the second-largest community in Pima County behind Tucson. In both 1950 and 1960, it was the 16th largest community in Arizona. As of the
census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 3,705 people, 1,659 households, and 1,088 families residing in the CDP. The
population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
was . There were 2,485 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 78.7%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.2%
Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
or
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 6.9% Native American, 0.3% Asian, 0.1%
Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
, 9.2% from other races, and 4.6% from two or more races. 37.6% of the population were
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race. There were 1,659 households, out of which 19.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.4% were
married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 10.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.4% were non-families. 30.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 17.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.23 and the average family size was 2.74. In the CDP the population was spread out, with 20.6% under the age of 18, 4.9% from 18 to 24, 17.2% from 25 to 44, 25.3% from 45 to 64, and 32.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 52 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.3 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $25,618, and the median income for a family was $29,310. Males had a median income of $28,000 versus $18,571 for females. The
per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the CDP was $14,548. About 16.5% of families and 22.3% of the population were below the
poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 36.5% of those under age 18 and 9.0% of those age 65 or over.


Education

Ajo Unified School District Ajo School District 15 And 103 is a public school district in Pima County, Arizona, United States. Schools * Ajo High School * Ajo Elementary School References External links * School districts in Pima County, Arizona {{Arizo ...
is the only regular school district covering portions of the Ajo CDP, while another portion is not in any school district. - Pag
1

Text list
"UNI 99997 ..chool District Not Defined" - Th
2020 map
shows no school district label.
The CDP is in Pima County Joint Technical Education District's 3rd Governing Board District. An elementary school, middle school, and high school are located on the same campus.


Public Safety

The CDP is served by the Pima County Sheriff's Department's Ajo District, Ajo Ambulance and the Ajo-Gibson Volunteer Fire Department.


References


External links


Ajo Chamber of Commerce
{{authority control Company towns in Arizona Census-designated places in Pima County, Arizona Census-designated places in Arizona Populated places in the Sonoran Desert Populated places established in 1884 1884 establishments in Arizona Territory