Among being one of the best places to come for a beach vacation, Rocky Point is also a town that has lots of history over the past several years and lots of history to share with it’s visitors. We figured that we would take some time to share some of the most interesting facts about the town of Rocky Point and how it has come to be over the course of time.
Rocky Point is still a very young town, being only 85 years old. Even with it’s young age Rocky Point was one of the fastest growing cities from 2000-2007 and one of the few places on the world where desert meets ocean, creating a beautiful paradise for tourists and locals to enjoy their time.
Back in 1698 Padre Kino named the early settlers in Rocky Point “as people in the sand.” This name is fitting for Rocky Point because of the expansive sand dunes and desert. Over the years Rocky Point gained popularity and in case some of you were wondering, it is in fact true that infamous mobster Al Capone made frequent visits to Rocky Point in the early 20s. Capone and his crew would come hide out in Rocky Point and spend the time drinking, partying and spend massive amounts of money.
One of the most interesting and my personal favorite historic fact about Rocky Point is that back in 1977 Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Alan Shepard practiced moon walking for Apollo 14, the first mission to put a man on the moon. El Pinacate was deemed by NASA to be the terrain on Earth that most closely resembled the moon. They hiked and trained in this area to get a better feel for what they were going to experience. El Pinacate is well known around the world and recently received World Heritage status, which takes a huge step forward in the protection and preservation of this phenomenon. Visit our blog to read more about El Pinacate receiving World Heritage status. 
It may come as a surprise to most being that we never have to worry about such things, but Cholla Bay actually did not have electricity until the year 2000. How did they see you ask? Well they must have done it the way their ancestors did it, through the light of the stars and moon and night. Now Rocky Point is a fully developed tourist destination. Looking back to 1999 you could ride an ATV from Playa Bonita resort to the Reef campground and not pass any high rises. Currently there are 44 muti-level towers and an entire housing community that takes up a large portion of what once was an empty beach. To say the least Rocky Point has come a long way from it’s humble begging in 1928. We hope to see Rocky Point continue to grow and creates many more memories that will be engrained into history for people to look back at.
