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Ajo, Arizona, is located on Arizona State Highway 85 a few miles north of the Mexican border. The region is rich in mineral deposits and Native Americans have long used the pigments that they extracted there for paints which they used to adorn themselves. The Spanish word "Ajo" is similar in sound to the O'odham Indian word for "paint." Ajo means garlic in Spanish, but it became the name of the community. In 1847, Tom Childs discovered an abandoned Spanish copper mine known as the "Old Bat Hole." Soon thereafter, Peter M. Brady, a friend of Childs, established the Arizona Mining and Trading Company to exploit the rich surface ore. After extraction the ore was shipped around Cape Horn to Wales in Great Britain for smelting. The business incurred severe losses and failed. In 1900 new processes were developed that permitted large scale mining. Ajo boomed until 1985 when prices dropped and the mines were closed. Today it is a small community of retired persons and a gateway into Mexico.
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