Willcox Playa

Willcox Playa
View facing east across the Willcox Playa toward the Dos Cabezas Mountains from a point just east of Cochise, Arizona.
Willcox Playa is located in Arizona
Willcox Playa
Location in the state of Arizona
LocationCochise County, Arizona
Nearest cityWillcox, Arizona
Coordinates32°08′28″N 109°50′53″W / 32.141°N 109.848°W / 32.141; -109.848
Area2,369 acres (959 ha)
Designated1966
Aerial view from the northeast of Willcox Playa, near Willcox, Arizona, January 2019. The line across the righthand side is a pair of railroad tracks and S. Railroad Ave., heading from Willcox on the near edge of the playa toward Cochise on the far edge of the playa.

The Willcox Playa is a large endorheic dry lake or sink (playa) adjacent to Willcox, Arizona in Cochise County, in the southeast corner of the state. It is part of the Sonoran Desert ecoregion and is the remnant of a Pleistocene era pluvial Lake Cochise. The playa itself is roughly 8 miles (13 km) wide by 10 miles (16 km) long, with an area of approximately 40 square miles (100 km2). Portions of the dry lake bed have been used as a bombing range by the US military. Most of this area is currently used by the Electronic Proving Ground, based at Fort Huachuca.[1][2] It was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1966 for its fossil pollen captured underground, the thousands of sandhill cranes that roost in the area and the largest diversity of tiger beetles in the United States.[3]

  1. ^ "Bombs in Your Backyard: WILLCOX AIR FORCE RANGE".
  2. ^ "EPG About Us".
  3. ^ "National Natural Landmark". National Park Service. Retrieved March 27, 2023.