In the Sierra de la Laguna between Buenavista and Santiago, on the edge of desert plane populated by an army of cactus, motionless sentries facing the Sea of Cortez, lays the ruin of an abandoned hospital with a strange past.
Hospital El Carrizalito was designed to address the problem of tuberculosis, a disease which, at the time, plagued nearly a quarter of the population of the territory. The Baja peninsula was a territory, not a state until 1952, when only the portion north of the 28th parallel at Guerrero Negro was granted statehood as Baja California. The lower portion remained an administered territory until 1974, two years after the trans-peninnsular highway was completed. The federal government would not fund such a hospital in a remote territory, so it was locally funded at the command of the governor of the territory, General Francisco J. Múgica.
Múgica was a fascinating character. He had participated in the Mexican Revolution and became a staunch ally of Cárdenas. His leftist political views led him to arguments with other figures in the revolution, including Alvaro Obregón, who at one point tried to have him assassinated.
When Cárdenas became president in 1934, he appointed Múgica Secretary of the National Economy. Múgica, a leftist, and began taking apart established anti-labor rules and regulations. Backed by labor unions and the president, he rose not only in popularity but also in risk. He was either loved or hated - there was nothing in-between. The establishment hated him, while the people, the labor movement, and importantly the President, loved him.
He was considered likely to be Cárdenas’ successor but for the elections of 1940, Cárdenas instead chose a moderate, Manuel Avila Camacho. Cárdenas feared that Múgica’s strong social programs and pro-labor policies, while in line with Cárdenas’, might be perceived as too left in an environment laden with fear of Communism. When Camacho won, he feared Múgica’s popularity and fame.
Kicking Múgica out of the government would make him a martyr so instead, Camacho appointed him governor of the Territory of Baja California Sur, one of Mexico’s most remote and most sparsely populated parts of the country. He served in this capacity from 1940-1946