(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, a Southern Arizona road trip.

See how a one of a kind church has deep roots in the historic town of Tombstone.

(Dennis) I love old buildings and this building is so historic.

It's just a blessing to be in here sometimes.

(Tom) Be warned, just watching this story on a Nogales taco joint is going to make you hungry.

(German) Sigo haciendo salsas de todo tipo.

Me encanta hacer salsas y no hay fin para las salsas.

(Tom) The huge effort to save a small bird and the Buenos Aires wildlife preserve.

(Hannah) When they come out, you wanna make sure that they're not in the wide open.

You don't want them to be picked off immediately upon coming out.

You want them to have a nice kind of safe zone.

And best-selling author Javier Zamora finds happiness in his own backyard.

(Javier) In our new place, there's another Verdin couple who don't need to build a nest.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

First up, we take you to the popular tourist town of Tombstone where if you wander off the beaten path just a little bit, you may end up at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

The only church in the world built from adobe and the Gothic revival style.

And it's been a cornerstone of that community for over 140 years.

Throw up your hands.

We're here for your guns.

[Gun fire] (Tony) The Western themed atmosphere in Tombstone, Arizona, is known to audiences from across the country and around the world.

[Gun shot.

Applause] [Western music] Tombstone began as a prosperous mining operation in the 1870s, but it had lost much of its luster after that.

(Jon) The main news always was how many ounces of silver came out of the hills.

But years later, a writer in Los Angeles found Old Marshall Earp got wrote a book called Frontier Marshall.

made a movie and that led to the last movie and put Tombstone really on the map.

[ominous music] (Tony) And that's been a blessing for the current economy (Jon) We have a tremendous brand name.

Everybody's seen the movie or the last movie or the one before that.

(Tony) Explore beyond the familiar attractions, however, and you'll find additional discoveries that can also transport you to a bygone era.

[Old timey piano] (Tony) Built in 1882, St. Pauls Episcopal is known as the oldest continuously operating Protestant church building in the state of Arizona.

A sanctuary for reflection and spiritual guidance for generations.

[Piano continues] (Mary) When I moved to Tombstone I was an Episcopalian, so I sought out the Episcopal Church, and that was in 1999.

I just really felt at home here.

I do tell people about the church quite often.

I want them to come and see it and see how beautiful it is and see that there is another side to Tombstone other than gunfights.

It's just it's a beautiful place.

And it's it's it's a relaxing place.

[Piano ends] I'm Heather Rose, and by day, I'm an insurance adjuster.

I also am a priest.

(Tony) Heather Rose and her husband moved from Scottsdale to the small community of Pearce, Arizona, in 2016 after discovering St Paul's in Tombstone and becoming active there.

She wanted to get closer to the congregation, so the couple bought a house in town.

Eventually, she took advantage of an Episcopalian leadership program That seeks vocational priests in rural areas.

(Heather) Since 2018, I started as a lay vicar, and then I became a deacon a year after that.

And then I was ordained a priest in July of 2020 during COVID.

[Mysterious music] (Heather) Formerly a priest since July 11th of 2020.

You know, and that was an odd time to start.

But it's definitely worthwhile because, you know, I do feel like God gave me a purpose, you know, and that's a huge gift.

You know, I think everybody wants to be used for a purpose, you know, in life.

[Uptempo music] (Heather) It's incredibly special because not only is it like you walk in and you feel like you're going back in time , which a lot of our parishioners dress in 1800 garb.

But I mean, you just think of the only time what has transpired in there, you know, down through the ages, the people who have worshiped there.

“And I believe it is because Jesus sees not only this man's physical condition, but the condition of his soul” (Mary) It makes me feel peaceful It makes me feel at home.

I do Bible study here and I've learned so much.

I can go home and preach to my husband, which I do.

And I just it's a family.

[Organ music] (Dennis) I love old buildings and this building is so historic and it's so well made.

It is just a blessing to be in here sometimes.

[Congregation singing] This tower is the replacement tower from the one when the church was built in 1882.

The history that we have on it indicates that the original bell tower was struck by lightning and destroyed and this one was subsequently built.

What's so neat about it is the bottom portion of it is still adobe block.

And you if you could come around and look inside, you would see the original adobe of the church building itself.

(Bob) Obviously, a scaffold has to go up first.

The whole thing has to get scaffolded.

(Tony) Bob Vint is an architect in Tucson who is working on a new renovation project for the bell tower.

Vint is also familiar with the church's history.

(Bob) Very interesting story behind the church.

It's the first Protestant church built in southern Arizona, and it's the second oldest church in southern Arizona, the only one older being San Xavier mission built during the Spanish colonial period in the late 1700s.

[Organ music] (Bob) The minister who organized the construction and raised the money to build it was Endicott Peabody who was from New England, actually from a wealthy New England family, went into the priesthood, came out here at the age of 25 and got this church built.

(Bob) Upon entering the church through this pair of gothic pointed doors, you come through a small narthex into the nave and you will feel the space swooping up into this high triangular roof form.

And it's framed by really intricate trusses that can be traced back to the Middle Ages.

This type of truss work is found in Gothic cathedrals in Europe.

All these traditional elements you might find in Notre Dame du Paris.

So this is a very small reinterpretation of the Gothic style built in this frontier town in the 1880s, with mud, adobe walls and stained glass that came around the horn to San Francisco by clipper ship.

So it's a little outpost here in in southeastern Arizona.

(Tony) And Bob Vints connection to this building is more than professional.

(Bob)I was baptized here in this church many, many years ago, and there's a family photo of me in the arms of my godmother on the steps of St Paul's.

I've been aware of this place all my life and I never get tired of coming here.

(Tony) It's another side of Tombstones of rough and tumble Western image.

Its not even loaded.

Ya big oaf!

[Gun shot] (Dennis) People were tough and had to be tough to survive then and here.

You walk in here and it's so quiet and so peaceful and it's like, God really touches you here.

All the people that have prayed or come and wept or sought God or thanked God, it's almost like imprinted in the walls.

There's a depth and a sense in here that you're stepping back in time and yet, you know, with God, time doesn't exist.

When people come, a lot of times they come to see the history of the building and on accident they'll encounter God I annoint you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

[Organ music] Next time you're in Nogales, Arizona, Cocina La Ley is a quick stop for some tacos or soup or salsa always made from scratch.

This tasty haunt has been popular with locals and tourists for nearly 30 years.

You're about to see why.

Tengo este lugar por 29 años, voy para 30.

En la casa hay, a todo mundo le gusta la cocina.

Todo mundo cocina.

Muchas de las bases yo las tomé de mi mamá, que siempre se vivió en la cocina y siempre todo se hizo en la cocina.

Entonces ahí vas agarrando bases, no recetas, porque cada quien lleva su camino y las recetas van cambiando.

Yo he tenido uno, básicamente un maestro que me enseñó lo que es marisco cuando yo tenía como unos 17 años y no son tantas recetas sino técnicas de conservar los animales vivos, como cocinarlos, como conservarlos y él sí me tomó y me enseñó.

Aquí se abrió básicamente porque queríamos hacer empacar salsas.

En realidad esa fue la idea, empacar salsas y el restaurante iba a soportar los primeros tiempos, los costos para poder encaminarnos con las salsas.

Pero luego se fue la idea, o no se fue, sino los años se van.

Hago muchas salsas, sigo haciendo salsas de todo tipo.

Me encanta hacer salsas y no hay fin para las salsas.

Todo tipo de frutas, todo tipo de ver, puedes hacer muchas salsas.

Entonces se fue yendo las cosas por la cocina y al principio Nogales, pues es Nogales-Arizora, aquí no hay marisco.

En realidad no tenemos mar cerca, no tenemos nada.

Entonces la población de Nogales-Arizora no estaba acostumbrada al marisco.

Entonces yo empecé con carne primero, pero siempre he tirado los mariscos.

Entonces fui metiendo poco a poco, fui metiendo los mariscos.

Primero los fines de semana, un caldo.

Fui poco a poco, fui metiendo y vas educando a tus clientes y empezaron a comer marisco.

Orita los clientes que llegan desayunan marisco.

O sea, comen marisco cuando sea.

En cuanto al menú, o sea, lo que agarres está cocinado desde abajo, como le digo, o sea, no compro cirus, ni concentrado, ni nada.

Entonces se cueste jamaica, se cueste el tamarindo, se cueste la canela, las cabezas de pescado también.

Todo está cocinado de esa manera.

En agua tengo cebado, chata, jamaica, tamarindo, no más.

Siempre va a haber esos cuatro sabores.

En mariscos va a haber seis platos, no más.

Que es la sopa, que ya sea pescado, camarón o caldo largo, o pescado, o camarón.

O sea, la sopa, seis cosas de marisco y de carne, no más tres.

Cabeza, viria, lengua.

Que no compro nada procesado, ni semi-procesado, ni nada.

Por eso está buena la comida, pues.

Tienes que tener precios accesibles para que no sea una comida extraordinaria, sino que sea una comida.

O sea, no tienes muchas opciones de los clientes aquí, pero lo que agarres va a estar bueno, lo que agarres va a estar fresco, y siempre va a haber.

Es, no más, un lugar muy cuidoso, muy familiar, que pueden gritar esto y el otro.

Parece que es un desorden, pero es un desorden bien organizado.

O sea, es un lugar en que te sientes como en tu casa, vas a disfrutar.

Y vuelvan, por favor.

Pues tenemos aquí, vamos, para treinta años, y apenas vamos a comenzar.

O sea, en realidad, apenas voy a empezar, en realidad, jamás lo voy a pensar en un retiro, o sea, apenas yo empiezo con... apenas voy a empezar... mis sueños van empezando, porque estoy retomando la idea de empacar salsa.

O sea, yo no me voy a retirar de la cocina, jamás.

The Masked Bobwhite Quail sits on the edge of extinction.

Now the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge is established primarily to reintroduce birds into the wild.

So next we join Hannah Pierce for a walkthrough on what it takes to reintroduce these birds and save a species.

(motor whirring) Working with the quail It's always a little bit funny to me thinking back because first thing out of college I actually went to work for a dairy company.

That was fine, but it wasn't quite what I had been meaning to do with my life.

I went back to school and took all the core courses in wildlife biology and then when I finished those courses, I got my first position out here at Buenos Aires Before this was a national wildlife refuge.

it was a ranch.

And so the name of the ranch was Buenos Aires Ranch.

So all this land was bought up from the ranch in order to protect the endangered Masked Bobwhite.

The Masked Bobwhite is mostly found in Sonora, Mexico, where we are right now at Buenos Aires in southern Arizona is considered the northernmost part of their historical range.

Those first sightings were being recorded in like the late 1800s, pretty much about the time they found the bird.

They were noticing, you know, we're not seeing a lot of this bird.

They already found it in a state of decline, basically as soon as the Endangered Species Act was drafted Masked Bobwhite went on right at the beginning, theyre one of the first species that were on there.

We didn't have a lot of chances to really study them in the wild like you might with other species.

And so there's a lot of questions out there that are not fully answered about their history and their preferences.

You know, habitat wise, food wise, raising young.

Part of you know, the decline can be attributed to the changing landscape because of ranching.

But you cannot blame ranching for their decline in its entirety.

You've got decades of drought that were changing the landscape.

And so we always have to be doing different kinds of habitat restoration efforts.

We have prescribed burns reseeding with native plant species.

And so you have all these efforts that you have to do, you know, to help the Masked Bobwhite, but not hinder other, you know, other wildlife species on the refuge.

About 2017 is when the reintroduction side of the program got revamped.

Our second facilities in Oklahoma with our partners, they kind of have a duplicate of our flock just in case something catastrophic happened.

Everyone's not in one place, and so they focus on providing those chicks for the summer brood releases Four times over the summer months.

They are going to utilize Light Hawk, which is made up of pilots who have their own airplane.

They donate their time, they donate their plane, they donate their fuel.

We had almost 300 birds on the plane today.

So we're here in 3 hours.

We've never lost a bird.

It's interesting.

cause you get the birds on their Its like being in a barnyard for 3 hours.

But it's really it's really cool.

It's important to kind of get the species going again.

We'll meet the plane and we'll go ahead and pick up those birds, you know, and we'll bring them back down to the refuge well divide the chicks up into those brooder boxes with the parents.

And that starts the fostering process or the bonding process.

We're going straight to hey, here's your kids.

Please, please take these.

You know, and so it's a little bit unnatural because you're just skipping all those things that they would have done in the wild before they got to.

Here's my kids.

You know, we do tend to have more success using a male as the foster parent than we do with the female.

That's not to say we don't have females who take because we do somewhere in the range of 10 to 14 days we prepare the boxes, we get the chicks in the boxes, and then we we drive out to those those designated spots that we've already picked.

When they come out, you want to make sure that they're not in the wide open.

You don't want them to be picked off immediately upon coming out.

You want them to have a nice kind of safe zone and they just kind of wander off into the grass and disappear with their parent.

When we're releasing the broods, the chicks are too small to wear radio.

So the the foster parent will get the radio collar.

So each bird has its own frequency on that radio.

And so you're using your antenna to basically hone in on that frequency, and then you're able to go and locate that bird.

This program's been going on for a lot of years, and we've still got a lot of years ahead of us.

But, you know, the dream is to get to that point where those birds are are thriving and surviving.

We don't need to reintroduce we don't even need to have captive birds because they're out there and they don't need us anymore.

And so that's that's what success is, is to have multiple generations of wild born birds out there making a population that is self-sustaining.

If you're in this field, you've seen what mankind does to the earth.

The changes that we've made, and that has effects on wildlife.

It just does.

We're here because we're supposed to be stewards of the earth, and we're sharing this earth with all kinds of other wildlife, including this little bird.

And it doesn't affect someone in another state.

It doesn't even affect people in this state.

But, you know, these birds matter.

You know, all wildlife out here matters.

You know, there's the ecosystem, there's a balance and it's thrown out of balance.

When we destroy habitat.

Does it affect you and I, our life if they're not here?

No, it doesn't.

But, you know, they were here, too, and they deserve to still be here.

Next up, something a little bit different for our show.

We've teamed up with the Poetry Center to bring you a series of poems written by local poets and then visualized by producers on our team.

So first up, the poem "Aniversario" written by acclaimed poet and author Javier Zamora in tribute to his wife, Jo Cipriano.

(birds chirping) Aniversario or We Moved To Tucson During A Pandemic for Jo Cipriano First time in our porch on the first morning, we woke in our fully furnished apartment because we don't own anything but books.

We saw a small gray bird with a yellow head grab the curled beans of the mesquite.

We watched Voltaire, who we now know is a Verdin build his nest every single day.

Turns out that was his display nest.

Turns out that was the first time either of us signed a lease with someone else.

And now we moved to a “casita” and co-bought our first bed, couch, table, chairs, and a hammock.

Voltaire is elsewhere with his love an equally gray, yellow and red bird who helped V build the real nest.

In our new place there's another Verdin couple who don't need to build a nest, but whom I watch search for food every morning when I wake minutes, sometimes hours before you, to turn on the computer screen to relive the time when I searched for food, water, a different home.

It took me years to find you.

Or you found me by sitting across the table as I ate a vegan meal at the Buddhist monastery The Dalai Lama calls his home when he's in the United States.

I'm vegan now, because I can't eat next to you and not share.

I've learned from the Verdins to sing you awake whenever I want you near my branch, eating the same tiny leaf from the mesquites outside our bed.

Stay tuned to Arizona Illustrated to see more of these poems in the coming weeks.

We will also be showing a new collection of visual poems in collaboration with the Poetry Center on the big screen at The Loft on Wednesday, August 27th at 5 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public and we'd love to see you there.

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Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a story we're working on.

(Claire) Mycelium's the root system of a fungus that grows in a web-like form and the mushroom is actually the fruiting body.

It's like the bloom that sends off the spores for the fungus to procreate.

I started working with the mycelium material almost two years ago.

This was my MFA thesis project for my MFA in studio art at the University of Arizona.

I wanted to look at spaces where you could see human impact.

I was just looking up landfills in Tucson and I came across a map with all of these landfills and you could just see them right next to the river and I just found that really surprising and I figured out how to bring the two, like the material and the concept together because the mycelium and the reishi specifically will remove heavy metals from soils and they remediate soils.

Instead of being like, oh, I wanna go plant these fungus at these sites, it was more of a way of conceptualizing what the dozens actually look like and what do these layers of human waste look like and how could we reimagine those spaces?

Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara, we'll see you again next week.