Abandoned Towns
Lochiel's white adobe church with a cross on its stepped front, on a grassy rise among mesquite

Silver mining town · Farm and ranch town

Lochiel

An 1880s smelter town on the Mexican line that became a ranch center and a port of entry. A few people still live here, and border wall construction reached it in 2026.

31°20′09″N 110°37′26″W · ≈4,690 ft

Photo: The Old Pueblo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Private · border closure (Oct 2026)

Lochiel's buildings are private and fenced. The church, the old customs station, the schoolhouse and the teacherage can be seen from the road. Contractors are building a double steel border wall along the line, and KJZZ reported on October 15, 2026 that both walls now run through the town. A Coronado National Forest order signed September 28, 2026 closes national forest strips along the border for the wall work, from September 29, 2026 through January 20, 2029. The strip nearest Lochiel starts at the west edge of the town's private land and runs west toward Nogales, mostly 300 yards deep and up to 1,000. Another runs east along the border from the San Rafael State Natural Area to the Coronado National Memorial. Going into a closed strip without a Forest Service permit is a Class B misdemeanor, with a fine of up to $5,000, up to six months in jail, or both. The order makes no exception for roads inside the strips, so check its maps before you drive or walk near the border, and stay out of work areas and off private land.

Overview

Three names on one border corner

The San Rafael Valley from San Rafael Ranch Road, looking east
The San Rafael Valley from San Rafael Ranch Road, looking east · Photo: The Old Pueblo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Lochiel sits where Washington Gulch opens into the San Rafael Valley, flat against the Mexican border about 25 miles east of Nogales. Before the late 1870s, Mexican ranchers here called the place La Noria, for its well. In the late 1870s a smelter went up to treat ore from the Patagonia Mountains, and a town named Luttrell grew around it. By 1881 it had about 400 people, five stores, three saloons, a brewery and a boarding house run by Dr. James Monroe Luttrell. It served the ranches of the valley and the mining camps of Washington Camp and Duquesne, five miles up the gulch.

In 1884 the Scottish ranchers Colin and Brewster Cameron started the San Rafael Ranch a mile north and had the post office renamed Lochiel, after their home. A later boundary survey put part of the settlement in Mexico. The Mexican side kept the old name, and La Noria still appears across the line on today's maps. The post office closed in 1911, but Lochiel carried on as a ranch community, and its port of entry stayed open until the 1980s.

A few people still live here. The adobe schoolhouse, used into the early 1970s, has been restored by the Patagonia Museum. An adobe church, a hilltop cemetery, the closed customs station and a big concrete cross honoring Fray Marcos de Niza stand nearby. In 2026 the border wall came through. Crews cut four old cottonwoods along the line, the last on October 5 after activists had kept someone in its branches for 71 days.

Timeline

From La Noria to Lochiel

  1. Mexican ranchers live at a well site they call La Noria. A smelter built in the late 1870s for the Patagonia Mountains mines brings American settlers.
  2. A post office opens under the name Luttrell, for Dr. James Monroe Luttrell, who ran the boarding house.
  3. Luttrell has about 400 people, five stores, three saloons, a brewery, a butcher shop, a bakery and livery stables.
  4. A second post office, La Noria, opens nearby. Both offices close within about a year.
  5. The Cameron brothers start the San Rafael Ranch about a mile north. The post office reopens as Lochiel, after their home in Scotland.
  6. A boundary survey finds part of the settlement in Mexico. The Mexican side keeps the name La Noria.
  7. Pancho Villa's men are reported to have rustled cattle and horses here. By this time William C. Greene owns the San Rafael Ranch.
  8. The post office closes for good.
  9. A soldier of the 12th Infantry sketches the road from Nogales to Lochiel and marks the U.S. custom house.
  10. The National Youth Administration builds the Fray Marcos de Niza monument just west of town.
  11. Customs inspectors staff the Lochiel port of entry. It closes in the 1980s; sources give dates from 1980 to the mid-1980s.
  12. The one-room school closes. Sources give 1972 and 1973.
  13. The Greene family sells the San Rafael Ranch to The Nature Conservancy and Arizona State Parks.
  14. The Patagonia Museum leases the schoolhouse and restores it and the teacherage over 12 years.
  15. Border wall construction reaches Lochiel. Four cottonwoods are cut, the last on October 5 after a 71-day tree-sit. By mid-October both walls run through the town.

Legend and record

The friar, the cross and the rustlers

The 1939 Fray Marcos de Niza monument
The 1939 Fray Marcos de Niza monument · Photo: The Old Pueblo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Fray Marcos de Niza. The concrete cross at the west edge of town marks the place where the Franciscan friar is said to have entered what is now Arizona, on April 12, 1539, while looking for the fabled Seven Cities. The National Youth Administration built the memorial in 1939, 400 years after the expedition. The spot is a tradition, not a finding. Arizona Highways notes that historians consider the friar's account too imprecise to place his route at any one point, though it probably passed somewhere in this part of the borderlands.

Pancho Villa. Several sources say Villa's men crossed here in the 1910s to steal cattle and horses, and some put it on more than one occasion. We haven't found a dated record of a specific raid, so read it as a reported story.

Even the town's first name has two translations. Wikipedia gives La Noria as a wheel-drawn well, and a 2022 local history gives it as the spring.

The movies. Legends of America says Oklahoma!, Monte Walsh and Tom Horn were filmed around Lochiel. Other accounts place the filming in the wider San Rafael Valley. The San Rafael Ranch house north of town, which Arizona Highways says Colin Cameron built in 1900, appeared in the 1963 John Wayne film McLintock!

On the line

A port of entry, then a wall

The closed U.S. Customs station, 2014
The closed U.S. Customs station, 2014 · Photo: The Old Pueblo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Border wall construction east of Lochiel, August 11, 2026
Border wall construction east of Lochiel, August 11, 2026 · Photo: CBP Photography, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

In the 1940s Lochiel was one of seven ports of entry on Arizona's border with Sonora. An Army road sketch from April 1915 already marks a U.S. custom house here, and the 1948 and 1958 USGS sheets show it beside the line. Customs inspectors staffed the station through the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s, when the crossing closed. Sources disagree on the year, from 1980 to the mid-1980s. The station building was still standing in 2014.

In 2026 a new double steel bollard wall, two walls about 60 feet apart, reached the valley. Three cottonwoods near the line were cut in June. Activists then kept someone in the branches of the last one, which they called the grandmother tree, for 71 days, camping on private land next door. On October 5 Border Patrol agents cleared the camp, contractors cut the tree, and activists said at least 12 people were arrested. CBP said all four marked cottonwoods on federal land had been removed. Protesters then set up another tree-sit in a cottonwood just across the line in La Noria, Mexico, which ended days later with the tree-sitter's arrest. KJZZ reported on October 15 that the camp had closed after more than 70 days, that organizers said many of those arrested were charged with violating a closure order, and that both walls now ran through the town. In early October the small white church stood about 100 feet from the new wall.

What's left

School, church, customs house and cross

The one-room schoolhouse, 2014
The one-room schoolhouse, 2014 · Photo: The Old Pueblo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Most of what survives sits close to the border at the foot of Duquesne Road. The red-plastered one-room schoolhouse is adobe. The Patagonia Museum dates it to before 1905, while Legends of America and a 2006 local guide give 1918 for the school and its teacherage. It taught ranch and mining children until the early 1970s. The Patagonia School District owns it, and the museum has leased and restored it since 2010. The white adobe church sits on a rise, the cemetery is on a hill at the west side of town, and the closed customs station, still standing in 2014, is at the old crossing. We haven't found a report on whether it survived the 2026 wall work. Legends of America says the townsite is privately owned and fenced, and federal land records list the townsite as private, so look from the road. The monument stands beside FR 61 just west of town, and the Forest Service marks it on its visitor map.

The old maps below trace the town's changes. The 1905 sheet shows Lochiel with Cameron's Ranch to the north and Duquesne and Washington up the gulch. The 1932 sheet adds a schoolhouse and a camp of troops just west of town. The 1948 sheet marks the monument, cemetery and custom house, and the 2004 sheet shows La Noria on the Mexican side.

  • One-room adobe schoolhouse (restored)
  • Teacherage
  • Adobe church
  • Hilltop cemetery
  • U.S. Customs station (closed 1980s)
  • Fray Marcos de Niza monument (1939)
  • Ranch houses (private)
  • San Rafael Ranch house, 1 mi north (state land, closed)
Current USGS topographic map of Lochiel with Duquesne Road running southeast to the border
USGS The National Map, topo. Duquesne Road comes down from the northwest and meets the border at Lochiel.
Aerial view of Lochiel: a diagonal road, scattered buildings among trees and the straight border road across the bottom
Aerial imagery, same area. The straight line across the lower third is the border road. Lochiel's buildings sit where the diagonal road meets it.

Historic maps

Lochiel on USGS maps, 1905–2004

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Lochiel, 1905
Nogales sheet, 1905, 1:125,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Patagonia is the nearest town. From there the route follows Harshaw Road through the Patagonia Mountains past Harshaw and Washington Camp, then Duquesne Road down to the border. From Tucson the routed approach runs through Nogales and over the mountains on Duquesne Road. Both end on dirt forest roads, so allow more time than the estimates.

USGS topographic map from Patagonia south through the Patagonia Mountains to Lochiel on the border, with both routes drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Patagonia22.4 miabout 54 min
  1. From downtown Patagonia, follow Naugle Avenue (AZ 82), turn right on Taylor Avenue and then left on McKeown Avenue.0.4 mi
  2. McKeown Avenue becomes Harshaw Avenue on the way out of town.1.2 mi
  3. Continue on Harshaw Road (FR 58) up the Harshaw Creek valley.4.8 mi
  4. Keep right where Harshaw Road continues as FR 49, past Harshaw and the Mowry turnoff to Washington Camp.10.4 mi
  5. Continue straight onto Duquesne Road (FR 61) and follow it down Washington Gulch to Lochiel.5.6 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The Coronado National Forest's May 2025 visitor guide describes its loop over FR 58, FR 49 and FR 61 as part paved and part dirt. It says the dirt roads suit most vehicles but recommends high clearance, and warns they may be impassable after rain or snow. AZ Luminaria described the drive in, in October 2026, as more than 10 miles of rough dirt road through the national forest.
  • Lochiel is no longer a port of entry. You can't cross into Mexico here.
  • Border wall construction was under way along the line in October 2026. Expect work crews, heavy trucks and Border Patrol, and stay out of work areas. A Forest Service order closes national forest strips along the border until January 20, 2029, roads inside them included.
  • The Forest Service warns that smuggling and illegal crossings are common in this area. Stay aware, stay on designated roads, and report anything suspicious to Border Patrol at 800-232-5378.
  • Expect mining traffic on Harshaw Road between Patagonia and South32's Hermosa mine site.
  • There are no services in Lochiel. The Forest Service names Patagonia as the nearest place to buy water. Fill your tank before you reach Patagonia. Legends of America found only one gas station there, with limited hours.
  • The buildings are private and fenced. The San Rafael State Natural Area to the north is closed to the public, but FR 61 crosses it and you can look from the road.

Photos

Lochiel in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Lochiel?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Lochiel

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Arizona index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Lochiel": fact sheet fields (roads, legal description, climate, best time, post office dates, other names).
  2. Wikipedia, "Lochiel, Arizona", retrieved October 2026: names, the 1881 town, the Camerons and the ranch, the boundary split, Villa, the Greene family and the 1998 sale, remains, the 1939 monument, coordinates and elevation (GNIS 31163).
  3. Legends of America, "Patagonia Back Road Ghost Towns": post office names and years, Dr. Luttrell, the 1918 school date, the customs station closure, films, private fenced townsite seen from the road, fuel in Patagonia.
  4. Arizona Highways archive, Sam Negri, "Ghost Trail to Lochiel" (undated): the cross at the town entrance, the April 12, 1539 tradition and why historians doubt the exact spot.
  5. Arizona Highways archive, Leo W. Banks, "Patagonia to Sonoita" (2003): about 30 residents, the 25-foot cross, the San Rafael Ranch house and its films.
  6. Arizona Highways archive, "Bienvenidos a Sonora!" by George Geyer (late 1940s; cites 1946 trade figures): Lochiel among the seven ports of entry on the Sonora border.
  7. The Patagonia Museum, "The Lochiel One Room Schoolhouse": adobe, built before 1905, school district ownership, the 2010 lease and restoration.
  8. Patagonia Regional Times, "Lochiel Celebration Draws a Big Crowd" (May 2022): La Noria as the spring, the Cameron brothers, the school closing in 1972, the 12-year restoration.
  9. San Juan Basin Archaeological Society field trip report (March 2014): school used until 1973, crossing open until the mid-1980s, the San Rafael Ranch house and McLintock!
  10. John and Bette Bosma, "Southwest Arizona Ghost Towns" (Green Valley hiking club, April 2006): post office names, the 1918 school, private church and cemetery, a 1980 closing date for the crossing.
  11. Arizona Daily Star, "Photos: Lochiel border station in 1970s-80s" (March 1, 2022; read from an Internet Archive copy of April 12, 2022): the port staffed through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
  12. AZ Luminaria via Inside Climate News, "Final 'Grandmother' Cottonwood Toppled" (October 5, 2026): the wall, the cottonwoods, the 71-day tree-sit, the raid, the church near the wall, road conditions.
  13. KJZZ Fronteras Desk, "After Old-Growth Cottonwood Is Felled, Protests Continue in Lochiel" (October 7, 2026): wall design, continuing construction, the second tree-sit across the line in La Noria.
  14. KJZZ Fronteras Desk, "Last Tree-Sitter Arrested in Lochiel Anti-Border Wall Encampment Has Been Released" (October 15, 2026): the end of the La Noria tree-sit, the camp closing after more than 70 days, closure-order charges, both walls through the town.
  15. KJZZ Fronteras Desk, "AZ Border Encampment Ends" (October 16, 2026): the encampment's end and both walls through the town.
  16. National Archives, War Department Map Collection, "Road Sketch from Nogales Pumping Station to Lochiel, Arizona" (E. Weisz, Co. E, 12th Infantry, April 26–28, 1915): the 1915 road and the U.S. custom house.
  17. KJZZ, "Why Isn't Arizona's San Rafael State Natural Area Open to the Public?" (June 2025): the closed natural area and FR 61 through it.
  18. Coronado National Forest, "Patagonia Mountains and San Rafael Valley" visitor guide (May 2025; map created March 2025): the Fray Marcos landmark, scenic loops, dirt roads suited to most vehicles with high clearance recommended and impassable after rain or snow, summer heat and monsoons and cold winters, mining traffic, border safety, no amenities, nearest water in Patagonia.
  19. Land status: BLM Surface Management Agency data, queried October 19, 2026: private land at the townsite point.
  20. Coronado National Forest, "Border Barrier Construction Closure", Order 03-05-00-26-011, signed September 28, 2026, with its order text and Exhibit A map: closure strips along the border, their widths, where Area 2 begins at Lochiel and where Area 1 runs, the dates (September 29, 2026 to January 20, 2029), the permit exemption and the Class B misdemeanor penalty.
  21. USDA Forest Service, "Harshaw Road #58, 49, 61 and HWY 82 Scenic Drive" (updated April 15, 2026): no restrooms, no drinking water, no fees.
  22. Coordinates: USGS Geographic Names Information System, populated place "Lochiel" (feature ID 31163). Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Status checked against the sources above on October 22, 2026.

Photo and map credits