The Chiricahua Mountains are part of the southeastern Arizona landscape surrounding Linda May’s planned homestead near Douglas, Arizona. In the book, they matter not as a separate destination but as a neighboring place where seasonal work might make an isolated land project more viable.

Setting and Connection to the Homestead

Linda May’s five-acre parcel lay at the foot of the Porilla Mountains, in the Sulphur Springs Valley, an arid expanse between the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. The Chiricahua Mountains rise to the north of her property; the account identifies them as part of Coronado National Forest. This places the proposed homestead within a wider landscape of mountain ranges and public land rather than treating it as an entirely self-contained refuge.

Work and Mobile Life

The mountains offered a practical possibility alongside the homestead: Linda May had told the author that camp-hosting jobs were available north of her land in the Chiricahua Mountains. The work could potentially complement a life built around the remote parcel, connecting a permanent foothold to the seasonal employment on which many mobile residents relied. The book presents this as an option, not as a job Linda May had already taken.

Narrative Significance

The Chiricahua Mountains help show how Linda May’s plan depended on links beyond the property itself. Her proposed home was in a rural district where building-code exemptions could allow experimental construction, but the surrounding region also mattered for access to work. In this account, the mountains mark one possible connection between an ambitious act of self-building and the itinerant labor that could support it.