History of Puerto Penasco, Rocky Point, Mexico

Source: Puerto Penasco Gov MX

Puerto Peñasco is a city in the state of Sonora, located in the northwestern region of the state, constitutes one of the most important tourist destinations in northern Mexico and is the head of the homonymous municipality.

NAME’S ORIGIN:
Originally it was known as Rocky Point, later as Punta de Piedra and Puerto Punta Peñasco due to the mountain of volcanic origin that juts into the Sea of Cortez or the Gulf of California.

NAME OF THE MUNICIPAL HEAD: Puerto Peñasco.

LOCATION:
It is located on the northwest coast of the State of Sonora in the Great Altar Desert.

ADJUSTMENTS:
To the north with the municipality of Plutarco Elías streets and the United States of North America. To the east with Caborca, Sonora.
To the west with San Luis Río Colorado.
To the south with the Gulf of California.

TERRITORIAL EXPANSION: 9,774.45 Square Kms.

LOCATION:
Located at the parallel 31 degrees, 19 minutes, between the parallels 30 degrees 56 minutes and 32 degrees 12 minutes of north latitude and the meridians 112 degrees 40 minutes and 114 degrees 02 minutes of west longitude, at an altitude that varies from zero to 7 meters above sea level.

CLIMATE:
High up to 42 degrees Celsius in summer; in winter it drops to 12 degrees.

ROUTES OF COMMUNICATION:
Highway Number 8, Puerto Peñasco-Sonoyta, which joins Highway No. 2, Tijuana-Santa Ana, to Highway No. 15, Nogales-México, D.F .; Coastal road to Caborca, Coastal road to the Gulf of Santa Clara and San Luis, Rio Colorado.

MODERN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT:
With flights to Tijuana and Hermosillo and soon to Phoenix and Chihuahua.

CLIMATE:
High up to 42 degrees Celsius in summer; in winter it drops to 12 degrees.

RAILWAY:
Pacific freight train, Mexicali-Guadalajara.

TOURIST LOCATIONS:
Las Conchas, La Cholla, Estero de Morua, Playa Encanto, Playa Miramar, Estero de la Sierra Pinta, Isla San Jorge, Mayan Palace, Paseo Sandy Beach, Laguna Shores and Laguna del Mar. Schuk Toak Museum and Visitor Center (Pinacate) and El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

EJIDES:
San Rafael, López Acevez, Las Lágrimas, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ejido Miramar, Ejido la Sierra Pinta, Ejido Nayarit, Los Norteños, John F. Keneddy, López Collada, Ejido Puerto Peñasco, Pinacate, Tiburon, Clams and Cinita.

PORT:
Fishing. Port area with commercial fishing piers and tourist pier and currently under construction a Home Port for tourist cruises.

POPULATION:
City: 60,000 inhabitants.
La Cholla Bay and Las Conchas: 300

ANNUAL VISITORS:
2,500,000 foreign and national tourists.

MAIN TOURIST ATTRACTIONS:
Malecón Fundadores, Plaza Colosio, Municipal Art Gallery, pedestrian walkway near restaurants and seafood and handicrafts market. Schuk Toak Visitor Center, visit to the volcanoes in the El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, boat trip, visit to San Jorge Island and the estuaries; visit to the CEDO Intercultural.

BEACHES:
110 kilometers of beautiful white sand beaches and attractive estuaries such as Adair Bay, Cerro Prieto, Estero Morua, Estero Sierra Pinta, Estero Almejas.
Playa Arenosa or Sandy Beach, Playa Hermosa, Playa Bonita, Playa Mayan Palace, Playa Tesoro, Playa El Mirador, Playa de Oro, Playa Las Conchas, Playa Miramar, Playa Encanto, Playa San Jorge, Playa La Cholla, Playa Punta Pelicano, Playa Cerro Prieto; San Jorge Island, an enclosure for birds and sea lions.

PINACATE BIOSPHERE RESERVE:
With an area of 650,000 hectares, it has more than 400 volcanic manifestations among which are craters, volcanoes, cineritic cones, volcanic bubbles, lava rivers and a great variety of desert plants and a large area of gigantic dunes that extend parallel to the coast to the Gulf of Santa Clara and archaeological sites.

ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES:
Commercial and sport fishing, tourism, commerce and to a lesser extent, agriculture.

FLORA:
Typical of the Altar Desert, bushes, chollas, governor, sahuaro, cinita, ocotillo, pitaya and others.

FAUNA:
rattlesnake, horns, coral and others. Desert tortoise, chameleon, Gila monster, white-tailed deer, mule, pronghorn, bighorn, cougar, opossum, raccoon, skunk, gray fox, owl, dove, churea, gray hawk, red-tailed hawk, rats and field mice and the typical desert fauna.

GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION:
It is part of the Altar Desert, flat and sandy terrain, some mountain ranges such as Sierra Blanca, San Francisco, and La Sierra Pinta, with the Sierra del Pinacate and its volcanoes standing out. The Sonoyta river that reaches the estuary of the Sierra Pinta and large dunes parallel to the coast.

DISTANCES TO:
BEAUTIFUL: ……………………………………… 522 kilometers. MEXICO D.F .: ……………………………………… 2,480 kilometers. MEXICALI, B.C .: ……………………………………… 405 kilometers.

E.U .: ………………………………………… 105 kilometers.
PHOENIX, AZ .: ……………………………………… 350 kilometers.
TUCSON, AZ .: ……………………………………… 335 kilometers.
EDUCATION:
Count a with 3 public secondary schools and one private, 3 business and computer schools, 2 high schools: CetMar and Cobach, 20 elementary schools and 11 pre-schools and a school for special education children, 2 professional schools: ITMAR and the Institute Tecnológico Superior de Puerto Peñasco and a private tourism school.

SERVICES:
There are 25 hotels with 1,250 rooms, 13 recreational vehicle parking lots with 1,500 spaces. 46 first-class restaurants, 15 tourist bars, 7 nightclubs and 6 gas stations and all kinds of workshops and shops, where handicrafts abound.

MEGAPROJECTS:
Princesa de Peñasco, Puerta Privada, Sonoran Spa, Sonoran Sea, Sonoran Sky, Sonoran Sun, Mayan Palace, North Beach, La Joya, Punta Diamante, Residential Del Mar, Laguna Del Mar, Paradise Villas, Laguna Shores, Costa Real and more .

HEALTH CENTERS:
2 IMSS Hospitals, Health Center, ISSTE and ISSTESON clinic, as well as five private clinics. There is a Hyperbaric Chamber and soon a Hemodialysis Unit.

SPORTS FIELDS:
Baseball stadium, sports unit with soccer fields, amateur and children’s baseball, basketball courts, tennis courts, fronton and fast soccer, La Milla track and skating rink.

BUILDINGS OF INTEREST:
Replica of the House of Benito Juárez, Hotel de Piedra La Roca (1928), House of Culture, Library, 5 Catholic temples and a dozen Protestant temples.

SOCIAL CARE:
Casa Hogar for the elderly José Dávalos Valdivia, Casa Hogar Esperanza for children, Amores de Peñasco Orphanage of the Municipal DIF.

MONUMENTS:
Monument to La Madre, Lázaro Cárdenas, Víctor Estrella, Al Pescador, Benito Juárez, Camarón, Marino, Maestro, Abuelo

SQUARES AND GARDENS:
Plaza del Camaronero, Plaza a La Madre, Plaza Club de Leones, Jardín Niño Feliz DIF, Plaza Colosio, Plaza del Maestro, Plaza del Abuelo.

PREHISTORY:
According to studies carried out by Julián Hayden, from Tucson Arizona, people lived in this municipality (El Pinacate) for 40,000 years, whom he called badlands people and lived until around 9,000 years ago. After this group came others called San Dieguito because they came from the San Diego area. This group left the place, according to studies, around 7,000 years ago. The Amargoza culture arrived from the California desert a little more than 4,000 years ago to settle in this region and from them are descendants the Pinacateños who lived around the Pinacate up to approximately 700 years. When the first Spaniards arrived in the region, the Arenas Pinacateños still lived, although there were already other subdivisions such as the Hia’Ced and Tohono O’odham, current residents of this municipality. Currently there are ethnic groups such as Mayos, Yaquis, Seris, Papagos or O’odham and others that have arrived from southern Mexico.

FIRST SPANISH:
The first Spaniards to visit these places were Francisco de Ulloa in September 25, 1539 and Hernando de Alarcón in 1540 by sea and Melchor Díaz by land in 1540.

1698-1706
Father Eusebio Francisco Kino entered this municipality on several occasions: in October 1698 to Pinacate, where he baptized the Sierra as Cerro de Santa Clara. In February 1699 he traveled to the Colorado River, in March 1701 to Bahía Adair and Tinaja del Pápago, in November 1701 he returned to Colorado and in February 1702 to Pinacate, and for the last time in November 1706 he returned to the Colorado River.

1826
It receives the name of Rocky Point, after the retired Lieutenant of the Royal Navy of England, William Hale Hardy, when he traveled the coast of Sonora and Baja California in those years, in search of pearls and precious metals. name by which it is known until 1936, when General Lázaro Cárdenas visits it and asks for its meaning in Spanish: Punta Peñasco.

1927
The Americans John Stone and Sofus Janssen began the construction of the Marine Club, a hotel built entirely of rock and that served as a hotel, fishing club and where liquor was sold. A fresh water well was drilled 21 kilometers from the city for their use. They had 2 fishing boats and an aircraft company called Scenic Airlines.

1927
Benjamín Bustamante establishes a fishing field in the estuary of the Sierra Pinta, within this municipality, they work for them Martín and Julián Angulo and an assistant Alberto “El Cuate” Peña as a parajero.

1928
In October of this year, another American, Thomas Childs, married to a father from Arenas (Hia Ced O’odham) upon seeing the existence of a fresh water well, saw the opportunity to make money and hired the first families to come to settle in Puerto. Peñasco: Melquiades Palacio, his wife Manuela Madueño, their children Alejandro, María (and their daughter Victoria), Tulita (Gertrudis), Rosalía, Melquiades son, Jesús, and Manuel and Oscar are born in Sonoyta. Guillermo Munro Fourcade, Maria’s husband, also arrived. Benjamin and T came from the Sierra Pinta ecla Bustamante, El Cuate Peña, Julián and Martín Angulo. That same year other fishermen who were passing to El Golfo de Santa Clara and San Felipe began to stay, such as Víctor and Juan Lafont, Joaquín Matus, Nicolas Bercovich, Alberto “El Loco” Miranda, Eugenio Uriarte, Úrsulo Soberanes, the Palomo family and other fish buyers such as Chale Pino, Luis Mercado, Rafael López.

1932
A police delegation is declared, the first delegate being Mr. Guillermo Ortega, who comes to settle with his wife Concha and his daughter Herminia, alias “La Chiquita”. Encarnación López, Tomás and Marcelo Pino, Alfredo Borboa, Julián Bustamante, El Grande Moraga, Nick Corona, Fernando “El Chubasco” Vásquez, Lorenzo Jerez, Armando Urrea, Modesto Carranza, Héctor Vega, Juan Blea and Pablito Ruiz arrive among others.

1934
Also arriving are Germán Sánchez Valenzuela, Abelardo Pino, Rubén and Loreto Robles, José Mejía, Manuel Maytorena, Antonio Sandoval and Víctor Estrella and Esteban Pivac, among many others.

1936
He receives the entourage of General Lázaro Cárdenas in the presidential campaign and promises to unite them with Baja California and the rest of the country. The idea was to build a huge dock to receive and ship materials and merchandise on freight trains that would reach the dock to transport them to Mexicali, Baja California and vice versa. United by rail.

1937

The construction of the railway begins from Baja California and dozens of people arrive at Punta Peñasco, among them Gilberto Villaescusa, Los Robles, Miguel, Lupita, etc.

1937
Eng. Jorge López Collada as brigade chief, the driver Gustavo Sotelo and the chain workers Jesús Torres Burciaga and José Sánchez Islas, died of thirst during the verification of the railway line. People like Crescencio Limón arrive to install the first gas station, which is established in the port. Also arrive Manuel Bercovich, Juan Barkijia and Juan Seperich among others.

1939
In talks with the government of President Rooselvet and on the recommendations of the United States Intelligence Service that had collected news of Japanese vessels and sighted submarines (read whales), they agreed to build the Peñasco-US highway. by the Mexican government and Tucson-Mexico by the US government. It is agreed to establish a meeting between these two presidents in Punta Peñasco for which the construction of a hotel for this event begins. The meeting never takes place and the hotel is abandoned for many years until a certain Ricardo Hussong, grants it as Hotel Cortez in the early 50’s.

1940
Inauguration of the section of the Punta Peñasco-Mexicali railroad, with the visits of General Anselmo Macías, Governor of Sonora and Lieutenant Colonel Rodolfo Sánchez Taboada, Governor of Baja California. Many railroad families settle in Punta Peñasco, including Roberto Guzmán Tellez and Luisa Vásquez de Guzmán, José García and Mercedes Alarcón de García, Daniel Lomelí and Any Celaya de Lomelí, among others.

1941
It stands as a police station, jurisdiction of Caborca.

1942
Being governor of San Luis Potosí, General Gonzalo N. Santos got rid of a social and economic problem by sending 300 inmates to Punta Peñasco with sentences of 5 to 25 years. These prisoners arrived in Peñasco on a National Navy ship and formed crews to work on laying the road. Most of them deserted and returned, some stayed to live in Sonora.

1948
The Puerto Peñasco-Benjamín Hill section is inaugurated on April 7 by the President of the Republic, Miguel Alemán, on a journey on the Olivo and Scop train stopping in Trincheras, Pitiquito, Caborca and Punta Peñasco, where he was received by Commissioner Jesús L. Tena.

1952
Puerto Peñasco stands as a dependent municipality of this municipality the Sonoyta police station. Its first municipal president was the shipowner and merchant Víctor Estrella, a friend of the then governor Ignacio Soto.

1957
The Federal Electricity Commission starts supplying electricity in the port area with 2 diesel units of 150 kilos. The administrator was Ramón Gutiérrez and the operators and assistants were Juan Gutiérrez, Pablo Vega, Vicente Bercovich, Beto Pino and Manuel Romero.

1965, 1968, 1969 AND 1970
Astronauts Alan Shepard, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong visit this municipality to carry out NASA practices in the Pinacate region.

1967
Governor Luis Encinas J. inaugurates the potable water network with Mr. Francisco Higuera as municipal president.

1972
President Luis Echevarría visits Puerto Peñasco.

1989
Its municipal territory is reduced to give birth to the municipality of Plutarco Elías streets (Sonoyta).

1991
The United States, Europe, Asia, Africa and the whole of Mexico know the name of Peñasco, due to the electoral fraud committed against the PAN where the Rocaportense people are violent by burning and attacking some buildings, tired of the mockery and fraud committed since 1982.

1993
Visits by the president, Lic. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Lic. Luis Donaldo Colosio, Lic. Carlos Rojas, Lic. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, to declare the biospheres of the Upper Gulf and Delta of the Colorado River and of the Pinacate and Great Desert of Altar.

1999
Visit of Dr. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León.

POLICE DELEGATION 1932-1941
In 1932, a police delegation dependent on the Sonoyta police station was declared, with Mr. Guillermo Ortega of Pápago origin being the first agent to settle with his wife and daughter. Fortunato Figueroa, Federico Molina, Joaquín Matus and Abelardo López, among others, also became police delegates.

PUERTO PEÑASCO POLICE STATION 1941-1952
In 1941 Puerto Peñasco became a police station, under the jurisdiction of Caborca, serving as commissioners: C. Fortunato Figueroa, C. Federico Molina, C. Jesús T ena and C. Armando Valle. For the following period of commissioning (1952-1955) Dolores Bonillas ran against Dionisio Perales, being elected by vote Mr. Perales who was left without exercising the position since Congress annulled the elections and appointed the shipowner and merchant Víctor Estrella (then great friend of Governor Ignacio Soto), as the first municipal president in 1952.

MUNICIPAL PRESIDENTS 1952-2000
1952-1954 ……………………………………… C. Víctor Estrella
1954-1957 ……………………………………… C. Rodolfo Rogel Villa
1957-1958 ……………………………………… C. Julián Bustamante Soto
1958-1961 ……………………………………… C. Rafaél Godoy Cisneros
1961-1964 ……………………………………… C. Eduardo Ibarra Aguirre
1964-1967 ……………………………………… C. Francisco Higuera Padilla
1967-1970 ……………………………………… C. Gerardo Portugal Coronado
1970-1973 ……………………………………… C. Valente Cornejo López
1973-1976 ……………………………………… C. Oscar Federico Palacio Madueño 1976-1979 ……………………………………… C. Gilberto Castillo Montiel
1979-1982 ……………………………………… C. Fernando Pérez Barnett
1982-1985 ………………………………………… C. Alfredo López Aceves
1985-1988 ……………………………………… C. Gerardo Portugal Martínez
1988-1991 ……………………………………… C. Genaro Alfredo Gastelum Cinco 1991-1994 ……………………………………… C. Fernando Martínez Vázquez 1994-February 1997: …………………………. C. Oscar Federico Palacio Soto
February 1997-Sept. Of 1997 ……………………. C. Reyes Guadalupe Hernández Vega 1997-March 2000 …………………………… Chemical Manuel Guillermo Flores Díaz April-September 2000 ……………………… .. C. José Luis Espinoza Sesma
2000-2003 ……………………………………… C.P. Rodrigo Velez Acosta
2003-2006 ……………………………………… C. Francisco Ramòn Martìnez Gonzàlez

2006-2009 ……………………………………… C. Heriberto Renterìa Sànchez 2009-2012 ……………………………………… C.P. Alejandro L. Zepeda Munro 2012-2015 ……………………………………… Profr Gerardo Figueroa Zazueta 2015-2018 ……………………………………… Lic. Ernesto Roger Munro Lòpez