page_title: Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Roosevelt Council Boy Scouts participating in the dedication ceremony for the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
context_page_description: Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge is located in southwestern Arizona in the United States, along 56 miles of the Mexico–United States border. It is bordered to the north and to the west by the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, to the south by Mexico's El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, to the northeast by the town of Ajo, and to the southeast by Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
  Located within the Yuma Desert, a lower-elevation section of the Sonoran Desert, the refuge was originally established in 1939 to protect desert bighorn sheep. It is home to more than 275 different species of animals and nearly 400 species of plants.
  CPNWR is the third largest national wildlife refuge in the lower 48 states. Its total area is 860,010 acres, which is greater than that of the state of Rhode Island. The refuge is administered from a small headquarters building, located in Ajo.
  The area is an active corridor for illegal entry and smuggling into the U.S. Since 2017 the skeletal remains of at least forty people have been found here, migrants crossing who died due to lack of water and/or from extreme temperatures.
context_section_description: In 1936, the Arizona boy scouts mounted a statewide campaign to save the desert bighorn sheep, leading to the creation of CPNWR. The Scouts first became interested in the sheep through the efforts of Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the noted conservationist who has been called the "Father of Scouting". Burnham observed that fewer than 150 of these sheep still lived in the Arizona mountains. He called George F. Miller, then scout executive of the boy scout council headquartered in Phoenix, with a plan to conserve them.
  Several other prominent Arizonans joined the movement and a Save the Bighorns poster contest was started in schools throughout the state. The contest-winning bighorn emblem was made up into neckerchief slides for the 10,000 Boy Scouts, and talks and dramatizations were given at school assemblies and on radio. The National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League, and the National Audubon Society also joined the effort.
  On January 18, 1939, over 1,500,000 acres (6,070 km²) of Arizona were set aside at CPNWR and at Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and a Civilian Conservation Corps camp was set up to develop high mountain waterholes for the sheep. A brick and stone monument was erected on a hill near Tule Well, and Major Burnham delivered the dedication speech opening CPNWR in 1941.
  The desert bighorn sheep is now the official mascot for the Arizona Boy Scouts and the number of sheep in these parks have increased substantially. In 1989, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of this refuge, the stone monument on the site was re-dedicated to the Arizona Boy Scouts and Major Burnham.
caption: Boy Scouts dedicate Cabeza Prieta NWR, 1939
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