Santa Rosalia

Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur, Mexico is a unique town for this part of Mexico with its old wooden buildings in a desert area with no trees and a French flavor. The town was founded in 1869 to mine and process the high-grade copper ore from the area. After being started by the Germans, a French company purchased the operations in 1884. The town has mostly wood houses rather than adobe and block. The wood was used a ballast for the sailing ships returning to take another load of copper back to France. The mines closed in the ‘50s. Because of the French connection the town has a church designed by Alexander Gustav Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame. The church was exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 189?? along with the tower as an example of an easily relocated building. Not sure how it ended up here but the plaque in front of the church says it was shipped from Brussels. We have been here a couple of times before. My previous posts give more details on this city of 18,000.

This trip I rode my bicycle to the top of the mesa south of town to visit a graveyard and get a great view of the city. The pictures are below.