Photograph by National Park Service inventory, Public domain. Via
Wikimedia Commons.
Bates Well Ranch
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
From the record
“The Bates Well Ranch, also known as the Bates Well, Growler Well, Gray Ranch and El Veit, was one of the fifteen ranches and line camps in the Gray family cattle business in the Sonoran Desert country north of the US-Mexico border in Pima County, Arizona. Operating for nearly 60 years, the ranch is now part of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.”
Wikipedia article Bates Well Ranch, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 204 National Register listings published here for Pima County · listed in 1994 · category: District.
National Register reference number.94000493- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
23 since 2001
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 23 fires within 5 miles of Bates Well Ranch
between 2001 and 2018, burning about 35 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
12
Recreation and ceremony
6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Date
Cause
Size
Reported by
Name on the report
6 August 2016
Recreation and ceremony
4.0 acres
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
BATES R WASH
11 August 2015
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
under an acre
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
LONE TREE
7 July 2016
Debris and open burning
1.4 acres
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
GROWLER
20 July 2014
Debris and open burning
under an acre
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
TASK FORCE
18 July 2013
Recreation and ceremony
under an acre
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
BATES WINDMILL
26 June 2018
Debris and open burning
9.8 acres
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
GROWLER
26 June 2013
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
1.3 acres
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
KINO
22 June 2017
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
under an acre
Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - Southeast District
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
12 workings within 5 miles of Bates Well Ranch: 4 unknowns, 4 occurrences, 3 past producers, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Gold, Copper, Gold, Silver, Copper, Gold, Silver. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Ajo, the town this property stands in, in 23 storm reports between 1993 and 2023: 13 thunderstorm wind, 8 flash flood, 2 heavy rain.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Thunderstorm winds in Ajo downed four power poles and blew the roofs of a couple of houses while a number of other residences experienced minor roof damage along with damage to siding, garage doors, sheds and trees.
About 2.5 inches of rainfall in less than two hours caused the roof of a historic building to collapse in Ajo. Residents of the building, which used to be the Curley School, were displaced.
A strong (60 mph, 52 knot) thunderstorm wind knocked down five power poles in the Town of Ajo at a sub station causing a widespread power outage. The power was reported to be out in the Towns of Ajo, Whey, and Lukeville.
Law Enforcement reported that two cars were stuck in a wash crossing just north of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument due to fast moving flood waters.
A storm spotter reported that several streets in Ajo were beginning to flood as of 1:45 pm. Thereafter, at 2:47 pm a report from law enforcement stated that all roads along the Gibson Wash were barricaded due to water over the road crossings. The affected road crossings included Rasmussen Road, 22nd Avenue, and Highway 85.
A trained weather spotter measured a thunderstorm wind gust of 91 mph and law enforcement estimated wind gusts of 70 mph in town, but no damage was reported in Ajo.
Heavy rain over far Western Pima County caused flash flooding south of the Town of Ajo. The flooding occurred along State Route 85 from milepost 60 to 80, which had to be closed.
1 paper published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 524 issues,
3,531 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Listed places nearby
1 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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