IEditor’s Note: Levant Alcorn is the founding father of the “Álamos revival,” the key reason Álamos began to attract foreign residents who purchased and restored the Álamos mansions of centuries past. He arrived in this community in January, 1947, purchased the Álmada mansion on the Plaza de Armas, turned a portion of it into the Hotel Portales, then bought and sold other Álamos properties for the next 50 years. He died in 2004 at Age 99, and he is buried here in the Álamos panteón.

Leila Gillette came to Álamos in 1989 and immediately became involved in the history of the community. She purchased a house in the Barrio La Campana and began researching the historic homes in the town’s central district. She published The Stately Homes of Álamos with historical details about many of these homes later that year, and the book has gone through four editions. After the first edition was published, Leila asked Levant’s daughter, Chela, if she could interview Levant, and this interview was published in a later edition of her book.

Leila was a charter member of the Álamos History Association and active in exploring and preserving the history of Álamos until her death in 2015, also at Age 99. The editor’s notes in this interview were added by History Association Board Member Errol Zimmerman to clarify some of the buildings Levant discussed, and to add additional information for purposes of history.

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I saw Chela Alcorn in the portal of the Palomares Cafe in the Plaza de las Armas. She told me that her father was here and that a common friend had written to him and mentioned my guide. I asked if I could make an appointment to meet him. When I came home from the market at 12 noon, a man was sitting on the porch of the casita. He was tall and slender, with a friendly, smiling face, a full military type of white mustache and bright blue eyes. He stepped to the car and introduced himself as Levant Alcorn. After I gathered my wits and greeted him, I asked if I might tape the conversation. It was about articles on Álamos in magazines.

Mr. Alcorn: Sutherland, in the Saturday Evening Post, “A Visit in Ruins!”. That man came here to write about the twin city of Álamos, which was Barro Yega. He was sent here by some radio concern in Los Angeles.

Of course the mining business was what attracted many Americans in the early days to come here. The area is highly mineralized and there were many mines at Minas Nuevas. The bigger one is at Promentario. I think there’s three levels on the Promentario. Oh, there’s been all kinds of stories about buried treasure. And the tunnels. I think there’s tunnels under the Plaza. I think there’s tunnels to the house next door to me. Oh, it was one of the early, early houses and the only one that has the really old railings on it. It belongs to Adolfo Guerrero. Guerrero Sign Company in Mesa (Arizona). Adolfo is an artist, and he is very well educated. You’d enjoy visiting with him.

Question: I asked him about La Esmeralda.

Mr. Alcorn: We sold that to those people and they never changed the roof, and of course the roof fell in on them and they had to put a new one on. There wasn’t too much land that goes with it.

Question: I mentioned the President of Mexico

Mr. Alcorn: He is the one who is making Álamos a national monument instead of just a state monument. I was here, of course, when they made it a state monument. Soto was our governor then (Ignacio Soto, governor of Sonora from 1949 - 1955). Anselmo Macías was governor just before I came here (1939 - 1943). i

i Editor’s Note: Anselmo Macías was born in Agiabampo, but educated in Álamos and returned to this city in the 1940s (while also residing in Huatabampo). He built a house on the corner of 16th de Septiembre and what is now Calle Macías, which became a motel after his death, and now is the monastery of the Missionaries of Fátima.

The president of Mexico at the time of this interview (1989) was Carlos Salinas de Gotari.

Question: The Urrea family, which owned La Esmeralda

Mr. Alcorn: Now those Urreas were one of the first class families, and they were some of the ones I met when I first came here, and the sister is the one that we dealt with to get the house. There were 12 heirs. There was one we never could find him to sign the title. They finally accepted that this one brother was gone, lost, so they accepted the eleven and we were able to get the house. It’s a beautiful house just above the Tesoros on the corner, that the English woman owns and wants to sell. She sold it just recently. It’s No. 4 (Calle Obregón) right there in front of the city hall. ii Gaxiolas were the ones that owned the Hotel Álamos. There was a maid who inherited those houses. She had a brother; he never was married. Gaxiola…..

ii Editor’s Note: Levant Alcorn is talking about the property which is now Hotel Colonial at #4 Calle Obregón. It was the childhood home of Otilia Urrea de Figueroa, whose book “My Youth in Álamos” is printed on this website under “Publications.” It later became important in the foreign community as the home of “the baron” (Richard Flach de Flachslanden) and was purchased in 2005 by Janet Anderson who, with Kelley Hale, run Hotel Colonial.

The “English lady” was Veronica Deegan.

I’ll tell you this one story. I had a big dairy back in Pennsylvania and I worked for the government back there. The Farmers’ Home Administration. It was a federal agency. One evening this chap came in. He was from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I thought, “Somebody from my state!” although it was three thousand miles away. So Paul Robinson and I had as nice visit, and he got all enthused and he wanted to buy a house. We had another man staying at the hotel—Paul wanted to know what I had for sale, and this other American said, “Why don’t you show him that old silk mill in front of the City Hall?” We did have that for sale and it was after dark, and Paul said “Why don’t we go look at it with flash lights?” So we went over and looked at that old silk mill and he was taken with it and wanted to know what I wanted for half of it. Well, I’d bought the thing and paid for it—well, anyway, whether I had or I hadn’t, anyway I said $5,000. So he said the next day, “I’ll take it.”

Well he went back to Pennsylvania and then in two or three months he wrote back, he wanted the other half, “How much do you want for that?” I said $5,000. So he bought the whole thing. Well, here I had bought the two buildings for $7,000. So I had the Hotel Álamos left over and $3,000 to boot. I came out well on that deal! That just made me all the more enthusiastic to get into this ruin business down here. iii

iii Editor’s Note: Levant purchased two properties from the Gaxiola family. One was the “silk factory,” which is described on this website under “Historical Buildings” and also is described in the “Interview” section in “The Vega Family.” Paul Robinson bought the building and restored it in the 1940s, and later it was partitioned into three areas: two resident houses and the store El Nicho.

The second property was the Hotel Álamos, the ruin directly across the Plaza de Armas from the Hotel Portels. It has not been open as a hotel for more than 20 years and remains as a property of the Alcorn family.

And I just bought and sold and bought and sold and bought and sold these ruins ‘till we sold most all of them. Well, just as soon as we got one room fixed in that Portales we had it occupied. The murals in the hall as you go in, a fellow came up from Mexico City to paint them. There were in the house originally.

Question: What was the first property that you bought here in Álamos?

Mr. Alcorn: When I came here the first time there were soldiers quartered in the building {a large building on the Plaza de Armas}. It was a quartel {barracks} and they had a couple of parrots that would walk up and down. And the soldiers would come out and play the bugle and then march around.

I didn’t buy it from the city. There was a bachelor here. He was well educated, educated in Denver. Robinson Bours of the Bours family on the corner, and of course he spoke English and I didn’t speak any Spanish. We became very good friends, and George stuttered a little bit and he said—we were in the Plaza sitting on a bench in front of the hotel—W-wouldn’t you l-like to buy a h-house here?” And I said “Oh, I don’t know. Which one?” “This one right in front. I-it belongs to my aunt. S-she lives in Guadalajara.” And I asked “What does she want for it?” He said “Three Thousand.” I said “I’ll give two.” He said, You want me to send her a telegram? I said “yes.” He sent her a telegram and the next day the reply came back, she’d take $2,500. “And then I have another little house which used to be the carriage house, if you’ll give $500 for that, three thousand for the two of them.” So that was the beginning.

We only got four pesos and 50 centavos for a dollar. And it went to eight fifty and then to twelve fifty and then in a few years time……….. iv

iv Editor’s Note: This was Levant Alcorn’s first purchase in Álamos, the former home of José María Almada. In this lavish home José María and his wife, Isabela, raised 21 children, and the building now encompasses the Portales Hotel, the Teracota restaurant, a coffee shop, and the home of the late Bill Alcorn. The “George” mentioned by Levant was Jorge Robinson Bours, whose aunt—Angelina Almada—owned the property and sold it with the carriage house for $3,000. The carriage house is now the home of Bill and Anne Latham at Mina #14, nearly a kilometer from the Almada house.

When Levant arrived in Álamos, soldiers were quartered in the building, but Levant’s widow, Ana María Alcorn, has no idea about the “parrots that would walk up and down.”

It still had a roof but it needed a lot of repair, and I put a new roof on it. Today I might not have changed all those roofs, because it had beams like that (gestures)—great big ones—and I don’t believe it was leaking. But we thought we had to put in new ones so then we went to San Bernardo and bought the beams from the pine up in the Sierra and it’s awfully soft and then the termites would get into the ends and then they would rot off. We have a room in our house; they just put the beams up yesterday that have been only 15 years.

Question: Was it an article in a newspaper or a magazine that made you want to come down here from Pennsylvania? Because you were quite youngish and to leave all those cattle which really take close supervision……..

Mr. Alcorn: I had a marvelous life in Pennsylvania. And a marvelous family and a beautiful wife and children. I had 90 cows and seven hired men on this farm. Then I had a couple of political jobs. I had a post with the Bureau of Markets and it was the operation of the Babcock Test, testing milk and its products for butterfat content. I had half of Pennsylvania as my territory, and it’s a big state. And I had it for three and one-half years. Then I went to the Farm Security Administration. I had seven counties in northwestern Pennsylvania and, of course, I had assistants and secretaries and all this business. I had that for seven years. Then I expanded the dairy—I went to Canada and bought 200 Holstein heifers. I worked very hard and I was beginning to have stomach ulcers and migraine headaches. They’re awful! And I got so I had one every week. It was too much! And that was the time when my friend Aldy and I said, “Let’s go West!”

I had a pretty good car; it was a Buick. In the month of October we were going to take a trip. We went to San Antonio and we got the bug to go to Mexico. We looked at the map and there was a paved road down the east coast. “Let’s go!” So we went to Mexico. Both his wife and my wife (Gladys) were afraid in Mexico City. We happened to get there the day that Alemán {Miguel Alemán Valdés} became President and it was the first day of December, and of course there were parades and motorcycles and mariachi {singers} one after another. They would crowd up to the car and want to play. The women were just frightened stiff! Aldy and I—we just loved that. So they didn’t enjoy the trip much. The result was that we both went home and we both separated from our first family. I don’t think he ever had a fight with his wife, and I sure never had a fight with Gladys. We came to this town and it changed my life…..I could hardly believe it, coming through that little street—deja vieu, you’re back in the 18th Century. And when I saw Mexico and he did too, it changed his life and mine. He came west a little after I did, and I came here. Something came over me, I don’t know what it was, but I just gave up that wonderful life I had back there, and I did have a good one.

v Editor’s Note: Miguel Alemán Valdés was inaugurated as President of Mexico on December 1, 1946.

Question: Well, I was surprised that you found this place, because at that time (1946) there was about 30 miles of terrible road to get to it.

Mr. Alcorn: It was awful. You know it took us three days to get to Navojoa from the border, from Nogales. We came the first day to Hermosillo. It still takes us four hours on the pavement. You know it’s quite a long distance. One-hundred seventy-five miles? Close to it, and the next day we had to ford two rivers because those dams were not in, that backed up those great wide rivers that weren’t very deep. (The Yaqui and San Miguel) They were shallow, but they were awfully wide and we had no bridges. So we had to get on these things, they would have two of these row boats with planks on them and they’d swing them around to the bank and one car would drive on and he’d swing around and go across and unload us on the other side. Well, you can imagine—there were 30 or 40 cars.

I remember one day there were about thirty standing in line waiting for those one or two pongos. Maybe there were two on that river, just making trips across. We lost time there, you know, in comparison with what the highway is today It takes us 12 hours to come from Tucson today, with the time it takes to get through the border. So we stopped in Hermosillo the first night and we stayed at the hotel, the little yellow one at the top of the hill. Very soon we knew the people and the woman was from Chihuahua from the family that’s in this movie “Old Gringo,” isn’t it? You must see it. Well, this family in the movie they own huge ranches. This woman is almost my age. She’s 82. The next night we stayed in Guaymas and my—we were entertained there! And the next day we drove only from Guaymas to Navojoa and were all day getting there because of these rivers.

And we got into Navojoa. And it was just the smallest little village you can imagine. Forty years ago it was all dirt roads because there were no paved roads this side of Hermosillo. And the bridges were not in between Hermosillo and Nogales. We went into the only restaurant, I guess, that was there to get something to eat in the evening, and two other Americans came in. And they looked at us and we looked at them, and finally they said, “Come on over and join us!” So we did and we had dinner together—we made their acquaintance. One was Jack Berg and the other was Alberto Maas. They lived in Álamos—they were prospectors. They were looking for silver and they were promoting, of course, any American that came along to put a little money in with them. We weren’t accustomed to being promoted! We didn’t know anything about such things and were fascinated with all these stories they told and Jack says, “Well, you can go out in the hills with us prospecting. Only 15 pesos a day for a horse (about $2.00 then) and we’re buying provisions today here.” We were sold, so we said “We’ll just take you up on that—we’ll accept that invitation.”

So the next day Jack had an old Dodge Power wagon and we drove around and gathered supplies to take out to the places they had in the hills where they ate and stayed when they were in the hills, and we left town. It was in early January of 1946, and it happened to be a day a little bit like this only maybe a little more cloudy than this. And it had been cloudy all day long. As we started for the hills there was no road. It was just path-like, you know. All the way up here. This grade was not surveyed and was not even laid out at that time. So we just wandered around, maybe hit a ranch house half-way between here and Navojoa. And it took us about three or four hours to make the trip because we went up over mountains and down into gullies and around, and at that time we had only one little station wagon to take people to Navojoa when they wanted to go—and the station wagon belonged to Ana Marie’s (Ms. Alcorn) uncle. He’s gone today.

Well, we got here late in the afternoon, you know, and it had gotten dark by the time we had gotten to the edge of the town and there were no lights, of course. Everything was dark. We came up this (Calle F. Madero) street. But they did have a few lights in the Plaza and they had an electric plant that they’d crank up, and there were lights for the center of town, and here was this Plaza—exactly as it is today—with people walking around it. Ah! The boys in one direction and the girls in another. I guess I was just taken over (His voice shakes with emotion). I never got over it , anyway. And then so—where did we stay? We stayed with Alberto Maas. He had a big old hacienda out here. It was recently sold to Dawe—Kendall Dawe. Well, Kendall’s father has been in this country not as long as I have, but he came soon afterward. And he was fascinated with it, and he invested in it and today it is all that sub-division that you see on the edge of town here.

And that’s the way I came to Álamos. vi

vi - Editor’s Note: Levant said it was January of 1946 that he came to Álamos, but his widow, Ana María Alcorn, believes it had to be January of 1947, which matches to the date of the inauguration of Miguel Alemán as president.. The movie “Old Gringo” was released in 1989 starring Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, and Jimmy Smits.

Question: In the process of getting involved, you’ve switched, bought, and sold houses for many years. Have you pared down your holdings so that they’re not cumbersome, or do you still have quite a little stuff around?

Mr. Alcorn: Well, I became un inmigrante (an immigrant), and I could have taken some of these properties in my own name. But I didn’t choose to for some reason or the other and I have left everything in Anna Marie’s name. It all boils down now that we have only this house, the Hotel Portales, the Hotel Álamos, and two or three little ones around.

I’m not paying attention to anything. I was so fascinated. I had so much responsibility (in Pennsylvania). In one year we made three million dollars worth of loans (with the Farm Security Administration). Oh, I had a wonderful experience working with those people, yes! It was a lot of stress and it got to the point where I had these migrane headaches once a week. I’ve had wonderful health since I came here. I think I would have died if I’d stayed there another year or two.

Question: How remarkable it is you are so athletic!

Mr. Alcorn: Well in a sense it is. I’m 84. When you look around at other people the same age I think I’m doing pretty good.

Question: Can I send you anything from Tucson?

Mr. Alcorn: (laughing) Just write me a letter sometime……