The Arizona town most people drive past has a plaza, a thriving art scene, and no chain stores

Ajo’s plaza, art scene and wild backyard

About 110 miles from Phoenix and 131 miles from Tucson, Ajo sits in the Sonoran Desert with one traffic light and around 4,000 residents.

What it also has is a 1917 Spanish Colonial Revival plaza that stops people in their tracks, a converted school full of working artists, and 12 million acres of public land pressing in from every side.

Most people drive through. The ones who stop end up staying longer than they planned.

White stucco, red tile roofs and a plaza built in 1917

The downtown plaza runs three sides of a graceful square.

White stucco buildings with arched walkways and red tile roofs frame a central park with grassy areas, benches and vintage street lamps. Towering palm trees line the perimeter.

The whole thing was designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style with Moorish influences, and it holds up.

Walk the shaded arcades on a warm afternoon and it feels nothing like the desert town you drove through to get here.

How a copper mine built a town that outlasted it

In the early 1900s, mining executive John Campbell Greenway arrived to run the New Cornelia copper operation. Beginning around 1916, he turned a scattered mining camp into a planned company town with real architecture.

The Phoenix firm Lescher and Kibbey designed several of the key buildings. The New Cornelia mine became Arizona’s first open-pit copper operation and ran for decades.

When it closed in 1985, many residents stayed.

The buildings stayed too, and the plaza looks today almost exactly as it did when miners were walking through it.

Two white churches face the plaza across the street

Step out of the plaza and look across the street. Two white mission-style churches stand side by side, their smooth stucco walls and rounded arches nearly matching.

The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church went up between 1924 and 1926, designed by Santa Barbara architect George Washington Smith. The Federated Church followed a year later, designed by Lescher and Mahoney.

Both have terracotta roofs and a quiet, formal presence that reads well against a blue desert sky. Check individual schedules before stepping inside.

The old school is now home to 30 working artists

The Curley School opened in 1919 as Ajo’s public school and closed in 1995.

The nonprofit International Sonoran Desert Alliance bought it and converted the seven-acre campus into something unusual: 30 affordable live-and-work apartments for artisans from across the country, plus a clay shop, a wood shop, studios, a gallery, and an auditorium with an indoor-outdoor stage.

The copper bell tower is visible from the plaza. Walk the main corridors and you’ll find artwork on display throughout.

Follow the murals through Artists Alley

Ajo’s first major mural project launched in 2015, and the work has spread across building walls throughout town, especially around Artists Alley near the plaza.

The murals pull from Southwestern, Mexican and Native American themes, reflecting the mix of cultures that shaped this place. The facade of the Ajo Copper News building draws a lot of attention.

Pick up a self-guided walking tour map at the Visitor Center and you’ll have about 25 stops: murals, mosaics, sculptures and yard art scattered through the historic district.

Three galleries worth ducking into on the plaza

Art Under the Arches is a nonprofit co-op gallery right on the plaza showing work from more than 20 local and regional artists. The Ajo Copper News Art Gallery spotlights similar work nearby.

Over at the Curley School campus, the gallery there shows pieces by the resident artists who live and work on site. The Clay Studio on the same campus is a free shared workspace open to both artists and the public.

On the second Saturday of each month from October through May, the International Sonoran Desert Alliance runs guided walking tours of the historic town center.

A copper pit a mile and a half wide sits outside of town

A short drive from the plaza brings you to the New Cornelia Open Pit Mine lookout. The pit stretches about a mile and a half across and drops more than 1,000 feet.

Peer through the openings in the safety fence and you’ll see the massive scale of it, and at the bottom, a pool of turquoise-hued water. By 1935, the New Cornelia Branch ranked as Arizona’s leading copper producer.

A small free museum at the lookout has historic photographs and mining artifacts that give the numbers some context.

Circle A Mountain on the 10-mile scenic loop

The Ajo Scenic Loop runs about 10 miles around the edge of town, circling A Mountain through Sonoran Desert landscape.

Volcanic rock formations rise out of cactus-covered terrain, and the drive connects to Bureau of Land Management roads with hiking and mountain biking trails branching off.

Along the way, you’ll pass the old mine hospital and look up to spot the Greenway Cross on the highest peak in Ajo, placed there by Isabella Greenway in her husband’s memory.

It’s a low-effort way to get a feel for the desert surrounding the town.

Organ pipe cacti grow naturally only in one US spot

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument sits about 30 minutes south of Ajo and covers more than 330,000 acres of Sonoran Desert.

It’s a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve, and the only place in the United States where large stands of organ pipe cacti grow in the wild.

The 21-mile Ajo Mountain Drive winds through cactus-covered foothills with views into Mexico.

For a shorter stop, the 1.2-mile round-trip Arch Canyon Trail leads to a double arch, with an unmaintained route continuing closer if you want it.

The Kris Eggle Visitor Center has ranger talks and trail information.

860,000 acres of refuge and a permit to enter it

West and north of Ajo lies the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest wilderness areas in the lower 48 states.

The refuge was established in 1939 to protect desert bighorn sheep and now also focuses on the endangered Sonoran pronghorn and the recovered lesser long-nosed bat.

You need a permit to enter, available through the visitor center in Ajo, which also has exhibits and a film about the refuge.

Ajo earned designation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat community, the 65th in the nation, and sits along migratory flyways where hundreds of bird species turn up throughout the year.

Over 100 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places

The Ajo Townsite Historic District covers more than 100 homes and buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.

Many of the houses near the plaza still carry their original architectural details and whitewashed walls.

The town draws from three cultural threads: Anglo-American, Mexican and Tohono O’odham, and all three show up in the food, the art and the community events held throughout the year.

The skies out here are dark enough for serious stargazing, and Kitt Peak National Observatory nearby runs telescope viewing and educational programs. Ajo calls itself a small town with a big backyard.

Twelve million acres of public and tribal land makes that hard to argue with.

Explore Ajo’s historic downtown in Arizona

To get your bearings, start at the Visitor Center inside the historic Ajo Train Depot on the plaza. Staff there will hand you maps, brochures and local tips.

From there, walk the shaded arcades and the central park of the 1917 plaza, then cross the street to take in the two white churches up close.

Pick up the self-guided art tour map and follow it through Artists Alley to see about 25 murals, mosaics and sculptures. Finish with a walk up to the Curley School to check the galleries.

The whole loop takes a few hours and covers most of what makes Ajo worth the drive. The Visitor Center is located at 400 Taladro St., Ajo, AZ.

Hours vary by season, so check the official website before you go. Entry to the plaza and art walking tour is free.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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