This Day 118 Years Ago: A Confirmed Report of the Killing of Ten Men

Today is Día del Ferricarillero, or Railroader’s Day, in Mexico, and the small, rural town of Nacozari de García, Sonora, is celebrating the anniversary of its near destruction. On November 7, 1907, the engine of a train resting in Nacozari malfunctioned and sputtered sparks onto several cars of dynamite, which were mistakenly positioned near the front of the train. If the fire had continued, the train would explode and flatten the town. Luckily for the town, a railroad worker named Jesús García noticed this and made a quick decision to drive the train out of Nacozari himself. The dynamite detonated and killed him, along with 14 others, but did not harm the town. Only 25 years old at his death, García immediately became a legendary figure, hailed as the “Héroe de Nacozari” and the namesake of many streets throughout Mexico. Most notably, the town erected a statue of him and renamed itself Nacozari de García. Comparisons were drawn to Casey Jones, an American railroad worker who also saved civilian lives by sacrificing himself. Both García and Jones became heroes and would have popular ballads written about them.

For this article, I talked to Professor Sarah Sears in the History department, who studies the borderland region between the United States and Mexico, which includes Nacozari. Sears helped to point me towards some valuable resources and provide me with deeper context for the event. Nacozari itself was founded in the 17th century by missionaries in a process of colonization not dissimilar to the mission system of Spanish California. The Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico City consistently struggled to exert control over their northern provinces including Sonora, and their successor state, Mexico, continued this trend. As a result, a series of Yaqui Wars were fought in Sonora from the colonial period until well into the 20th century, resulting in the forced deportation of thousands of indigenous Yaqui people by the Mexican government. Nacozari is located in the lands of the Opata peoples and its name may mean “place of nopals” or “honeycombs” in the Opata language. However, by the early 20th century, the vast majority of Opata had allegedly vanished, many either assimilated or massacred, though an Opata community still persists today.

Northern Mexico was receiving more attention at the turn of the century than ever before. As Sears informed me, northern Mexico and the American southwest were part of a wide region called the Copper Borderlands, where American companies like Phelps Dodge, who García worked for, set up mining operations. Essentially, the American companies were invited into northern Mexico and given subsidies and sponsorship by the Mexican government to facilitate increased state control in the region, which was under threat from Apache and Comanche raiders. As you may remember from HUM 110, Mexico was ruled by the dictator Porfirio Díaz at this time, whose overthrow in 1911 would be part of the opening stages of the Mexican Revolution. It was in the government’s best interest to seize on García’s sacrifice as a unifying event to fight growing labor unrest in the mines and railroads of Sonora and boomtowns like Nacozari.

At the time of García’s sacrifice, northern Mexico was the center of an extractive operation on the part of American corporations. These companies were invited in to strengthen control of the area, but their actions also tied northern Mexico more closely with the American southwest. Indeed, the Arizona Republican identified García’s death as occurring in “a terrific powder explosion near Nacozari, Arizona,” showing just how much these American companies had established dominance over the Copper Borderlands. The government’s enthusiasm to celebrate his sacrifice attempted to tie the country together around this new martyred hero, while the Porfiriato was on the brink of falling into violent civil war.