By Carl Trischka

A gleaming column of white granite, atop a granite base decorated with a bronze Mexican eagle and bas-relief bust dominates the village square in the small Mexican town of Nacozari de Garcia in northern Sonora, 60 miles to the south of Douglas, Cochise County, Arizona.

The monument was erected by the grateful people of the town in memory of Jesús Garcia, who was blasted into oblivion while saving the town and its residents from a similar fate.

Shortly after the turn of the century, Nacozari was the shipping point for supplies to the now-closed mines of Pilares, some eight miles away, and returning cars of ore were gathered there for shipment over the railroad to Douglas. Garcia was a young, cheerful, happy family man. A brakeman on the Nacorzai-Pilares Railway, his duty was to shunt railroad cars about the Nacozari yards where the trains for Pilares were made up.

The fateful day was November 7, 1907

Garcia was busy with his labors. One of the cars to be handled that day was loaded with dynamite, bound for the mines of Pilares. In some manner, never explained, the car caught fire while parked on a siding.

Seeing the fire and realizing the danger to the town, Garcia un-coupled the car from the rest of the train, fortunately, parked on a siding which had a downgrade away from town. Jumping aboard the car, Garcia released the brake, and the ear, with him aboard, started to coast away from the homes of several thousand inhabitants. Slowly gathering speed, the death-laden car rolled down the tracks, the wheels clicking over the rail joints.

After traveling somewhat more than half a mile, flames in the car reached the dynamite. In an instant, railroad car, explosives, and Jesús Garcia disintegrated. The blast had such destructive force that an 18-inch piece of railroad rail was hurled 2,500 feet, landing at the feet of a woman working in her garden in Nacozari.

Fortunately, at the moment of the blast, the car was rolling along a section of track hidden from town by a rise of ground, which shielded the town from the main force of the blast. It was estimated that if the car had not been hidden behind the small hill the shock wave would have still done tremendous damage.

Jesús Garcia, of course, was never seen again for he had disappeared without a trace. But his heroic action saved the lives of many people and quite possibly the destruction of a good part of the town.

As a token of appreciation, the people of Nacozari named their plaza Jesús Garcia and in it erected a beautiful, twenty-foot granite shaft on which, near its base, under the Mexican eagle, there was attached a bronze plaque showing in basrelief the smiling countenance of the hero. Below this is a suitable inscription, carved in stone, commemorating his historic sacrifice, At the same time, the residents added the “de Garcia” to the name of Nacozari.

There is also another monument in his honor, placed in a park named for him, in his birthplace of Hermosillo, the state’s capital city. There is a plate bearing his name on the house where he was born, and one of the city’s streets now bears his name.

November 7th is proclaimed yearly by the Governor of Sonora as “Jesús Garcia Day” as a holiday … the anniversary of the day on which the brave, simple man gave his life for his countrymen.

Published in Brewery Gulch Gazette
Bisbee, Arizona, November 14, 1963
Vol. XXXIV, No. 38

About the author:

Carl Trischka (1884-1969) was a prominent mining engineer and geologist who made significant contributions to the mining industry in Arizona, particularly in the Bisbee area. Trischka’s long career and diverse contributions to mining engineering, geology, and even archaeology have made him a notable figure in Arizona’s industrial and scientific history, particularly in relation to the development of mining operations in the Bisbee area.

© All Rights Reserved