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Explore Ensenada and Its History Online
By Ann Jarmusch
September/October 2024
The oldest known photograph of Ensenada, by Charles Beebe Turrill, dates to December 1888.
 Charles Beebe Turrill captured the romanticized beauty of adobe ruins at the Mission of El Rosario. |
 Alfred Channin French, a photographer turned miner, sought his fortune at El Alamo, a new gold-mining town near Ensenada, seen here in his 1889 photograph. |
 Ensenada historian and author Arnulfo Estrada Ramírez. All photos courtesy Crónicas de Ensenada |
Arnulfo Estrada Ramírez, formerly Ensenada’s official historian, produced 200 articles on the coastal Baja California city’s history, natural history, and urban development during his five-year tenure. He continues to research and write the history of the area and its founding families, as well as wide-ranging subjects—from indigenous languages to marine life—all of which are richly illustrated. His work appears online at “Crónicas de Ensenada,” or “Ensenada Chronicles”.
As Estrada clearly demonstrates, no curious, determined, and skilled historian lacks good material. His recently published two-part series on Ensenada’s early photographers and their work is as stunning as it is revelatory. He identifies landmarks in the oldest known photograph of Ensenada, a panoramic view from 1886 showing wood-framed buildings clustered near the harbor. Its photographer, Charles Beebe Turrill, a California 20-year amateur photographer-turned-pro, collector, and writer, also shot the Mission of El Rosario’s adobe ruins softened by time.
In Part 2, Alfred Channin French, another Californian, arrives in Ensenada to look for gold and stays 22 years. “The San Diego Union newspaper constantly reported on the discovery of the gold deposits in the new village of El Alamo,” Estrada writes. French’s 1889 photo of El Alamo depicts families living in a dusty, hard-scrabble camp.
SOHO recommends Estrada’s valuable and fascinating contribution to preserving our binational history online and, as advertised, for its rich detail and unbridled passion.
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