Border Field State Park To Hold Free 50th Anniversary Events

IMPERIAL BEACH, CA —Border Field State Park, a historically rich site on the Mexico–United States border, will hold free events Saturday to mark its 50th anniversary, a park coordinator said.

The 800-acre park along the Pacific Ocean will let in visitors from 1 to 4 p.m. for interpretive events and an app-guided tour, its operator California State Parks said in a news release.

“I think that Border Field State Park is a really significant place for a lot of reasons,” park education coordinator Anne Marie Tipton told Patch on Wednesday. “One is cross-border cooperation ... and then it’s just so many different layers and such a rich history.”

Fifty years ago, former first lady Pat Nixon dedicated the park as a symbol of friendship between Mexico and the U.S., which often chafe over the treatment of undocumented migrants trying to cross northward over the border. After the U.S.-Mexico War in the 1940s, both sides came together to establish their first border monument in what's now the park.

Border Field State Park, located in the Tijuana River Estuary, today supports a rare intact sand dune system and growth of coastal sage scrub, a plant species that’s endangered because of development elsewhere, Tipton said. Birdwatchers will find plovers, terns and tiny gnatcatchers in the park. Horseback riders can use the park's trails.

But the 60,000 park visitors per year normally go to experience being at the far southwest corner of the continental U.S., Tipton said.

Anniversary event speeches from 2 p.m. include messages from California State Parks Director Armando Quintero and Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina. Visitors that day can take an app-guided tour to learn about the area’s first people, called the the Kumeyaay.

Registration is not required for the anniversary events.