Nogales takes its name from the Spanish word for walnut trees, for the black walnuts that once grew thick in the mountain pass the city shares with Nogales, Sonora. This map of the Arizona side prints the J. E. Wise Building, Nogales High School, the Arizona-Sonora Manufacturing Company Machine Shop, the Montezuma Hotel, the Nogales-Rochlin Public Library and Camp Little Park, with Crawford Hill, Nogales Wash and Arroyo Barranca Honda giving shape to the land.
Nogales is a city and the county seat of Santa Cruz County, on the border with Mexico.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded relief of Crawford Hill comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. Historic sites such as Nogales City Hall, the J. E. Wise Building and Nogales High School were confirmed against the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places. The city sits at 3,829 feet, and 19,770 people lived here at the 2020 census.
From Los Nogales de Elías to Ambos Nogales
Nogales stands at the start of the trail Juan Bautista de Anza followed in 1775 and 1776, when his expedition entered what’s now the United States from New Spain on the way to San Francisco Bay. Today the city is on the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, which runs 1,210 miles from Nogales to San Francisco, and a small room on the second floor of the Nogales Courthouse is set aside for the expedition. In 1841 a Mexican land grant to the Elías family created Los Nogales de Elías, and after the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 the area became part of the United States. In 1880 Isaac and Jacob Isaacson, Russian-Jewish immigrants, homesteaded a trading post here called Isaacson, and in 1883 the post office took the name Nogales.
The two cities, together called Ambos Nogales, make up Arizona’s largest transborder community. Interstate 19 ends at the border here and continues south as Mexico Federal Highway 15, and Nogales has four international ports of entry. The city’s page says an estimated $30 billion of trade a year passes through, in fresh produce and manufactured goods, and most of the local economy rests on agribusiness and produce distributors. The Santa Cruz County Courthouse, a Classical Revival building designed by the El Paso firm of Trost & Rust, has a statue of Lady Justice on top, and the Nogales Lady Justice wears no blindfold. Historic homes along Crawford and Court streets, the city’s page says, give a glimpse of border life at its peak.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
Names on this map
These names are printed on this map.
Streets and roads: Dorada Ct, Bodega Dr, W Country Club Dr, W Cam Campestre, W Potrero Dr, N Cam Alto, Old Tucson Rd, Club Dr, E Manzanita Dr, N Victorio Dr, W Gold Hill Rd, N Frank Reed Rd.
More street names, A to Z
Air Park Dr, Angel Rd, Ballett Rd, E Apache Blvd, E International St, E Ocotillo Dr, E Patagonia Hwy, E Roper Rd, E Skyline Dr, E Terminal Produce Dr, Hills Dr, Manor Dr, Mills Rd, N Canon del Oro Dr, N Cebarel Ln, N Grand Ave, N Silver Hill Dr, N Smokey Ln, N Western Ave, Old Mine Rd, Shell Loop, Tucson-Nogales Hwy, W Bell Rd, W Kino St, W La Quinta Rd, W Mariposa Rd, W Paul Bond Dr, W Target Range Rd, W White Park Dr.
Buildings and the people who grew up here
The Montezuma Hotel went up in 1926 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style as the largest hotel in Nogales, and it’s been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1985. The old Nogales High School building, from 1917, is on the National Register too; it was designed by the firm of William Redding & Son, and the school held its centennial celebration there. Today’s Nogales High School, in the Nogales Unified School District, offers Advanced Placement courses and the IB Diploma Programme. The city’s page also lists Old Nogales City Hall among the National Register properties of Nogales and Santa Cruz County, which number 200 in all.
Charles Mingus, the bassist, composer and bandleader considered one of the greatest jazz musicians in history, was born in Nogales in 1922, the son of an Army staff sergeant. The city’s notable people include poet Alberto Ríos, Arizona’s first state poet laureate, who wrote Capirotada, a memoir about growing up on the Mexico and Arizona border that won the Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award. Academy Award-winning Disney artist and director Jack Hannah is on that list too, and when Benicio del Toro won his Oscar in 2001 he dedicated it to Ambos Nogales. During World War I elements of the 10th Cavalry, the celebrated Buffalo Soldiers, were stationed at Camp Stephen Little, the army post just north of the city. The Nogales-Rochlin Public Library, the Arizona-Sonora Manufacturing Company Machine Shop, Camp Little Park, Nogales Wash and Arroyo Barranca Honda are printed on the sheet.
This map of Nogales is a good addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of the area. It’s made for anyone who calls Nogales home, from Crawford Hill to the border, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the city as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Nogales map.
Sources
