Camp Naco restoration melds adobe structures with historical, heritage revival

The millions of dollars secured last year will allow the Naco Heritage Alliance and the city of Bisbee to not only prevent the place from deteriorating further but to rehabilitate the old buildings. These old buildings will be brought back to life with a museum, community center, library and the possibility of future artist in residence programs and historical research.

“For the buildings to last, we’ve got to use them. They have to live or else they’ll just fall down again,” said Oroszco.

Today, Camp Naco sits in ruins only 600 yards away from the U.S. border with Mexico. At first glance, it’s an unassuming cluster of adobe buildings in varying states of disrepair surrounded by weeds and a chain link fence. But these ruins have a story to tell.

The ruins we see today were built in 1919 during an unsettled decade in the borderlands. The adobe buildings were built to replace a temporary Army encampment placed on the border to prevent the violence of the Mexican Revolution from spilling over into the U.S. It was one of 17 permanent camps built along the border during the Mexican Revolution and is the last one still standing.

During this period, Camp Naco was manned by Buffalo Soldiers from the 9th and 10th cavalry regiments and 25th infantry regiment of the U.S. Army. After the Civil War, African American soldiers who had served the Union Army continued serving in the U.S. Army but were segregated in the 9th and 10th cavalry regiments and the 24th and 25th infantry regiments.

As the U.S. continued expanding west during the 19th and 20th centuries, the Buffalo Soldiers were sent to the frontier to fight in the Indian Wars, escort frontier settlers and serve as some of the first national park rangers. During the Indian Wars, they served with distinction, earning the name Buffalo Soldiers due to their fierce fighting abilities and the resemblance of their hair to the coat of a buffalo.

Today, Camp Naco serves as an important cultural heritage site for the history of the Buffalo Soldiers and the borderlands. It provides a place to tell their story.

“You must admit that one of the coolest things about this place is its multicultural nature,” said Helen Erickson, director of the Heritage Conservation Program at the University of Arizona and one of the creators of the story map that helped secure Camp Naco’s grant money. “People can draw on heritage in many different ways. What we’re seeing now is Black Americans looking for heritage not rooted in victimhood.”

The restoration of Camp Naco will help tell the story of Buffalo Soldiers who played a major role in the history of Cochise County, a history that was largely forgotten until recent years.

Carlos “Lobo” Bazan and Virgil “Musafa” Bandy are members of the Sierra Vista chapter of the Buffalo Soldier Motorcycle Club. As members of the club, they have been helping the Naco Heritage Alliance maintain the site for the past three years and seek to educate the community about the history of the Buffalo Soldiers. They call it “doing good in the hood.”

Neither of them had heard about the Buffalo Soldiers during their extensive military careers. This is something that they would like to change.

“I joined the military in 1973 and never once heard the term Buffalo Soldier mentioned,” said Bazan.

“I retired from Fort Huachuca and I knew the Buffalo Soldiers were there, but to what extent nobody had ever mentioned,” said Bandy. “I knew it was the home of the Buffalo Soldiers but I probably had a little more background on African American soldiers than he (Bazan) did so I knew that they were there. At one point every single infantry and cavalry unit they had were stationed at Fort Huachuca.”

Now, with the help of $8.1 million in grant funding, groups like the Buffalo Soldier Motorcycle Club and the Naco Heritage Alliance can begin to revive the history of the Buffalo Soldiers using a rehabilitated Camp Naco as a stage for the story to be told on.