Tag Archives: Grannymacs Kitchen

Why

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It’s not a question. Why is actually the name of a place in southern Arizona.

IMG_6274According to Wikipedia,

Why (O’odham: Ban Hi:nk) is a tiny unincorporated rural community in Pima County, Arizona, United States. It lies near the western border of the Tohono O’Odham Indian Reservation and due north of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Arizona. It is approximately thirty miles north of the Mexican border where Lukeville, Arizona, and Sonoita, Sonora, Mexico, border each other, and ten miles south of Ajo, Arizona.

The population in Why at the 2000 census was approximately 116.[1] Why Not Travel Store

There’s not much in Why. In addition to a few homes, there’s a restaurant called  Grannymacs Kitchen that boasts chicken decor, decent food, and a totally uninterested staff. There’s also a gas station/convenience store combo called The Why Not Travel Store.

Coyote Howls Campground and RV Park is also in Why.

According to the campground’s website,

Coyote Howls…is located in the heart of Arizona’s Great Sonoran Desert…surrounded by low mountains and plentiful in desert vegetation and wildlife…

Coyote Howls is a combination of two campgrounds to provide your ideal desert camping experience. The two campgrounds that make up Coyote Howls are simply Coyote Howls East and Coyote Howls [W]est.

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Coyote Howls East Campground consists of nearly 208 acres with 600 campsites. The sites are large, random in shape and placement. These are our “primitive camps”. There are no hookups, so your trailer or RV needs to be self-contained. There are, however, restrooms, showers, dump stations, and water faucets scattered throughout the park…

So why is Why called Why? In a January 2014 post, Arizona Oddities says,

Many years ago [in 1949, according to Coyote Howls history], Peggy and Jim Kater homesteaded at the base of  the Little Ajo Mountains near the junction of State Routes 85 and 86. Because the junction formed a Y-intersection, they simply called their place “the Y.” Eventually, the Y attracted so many other residents that the community needed a post office. When postal authorities asked for a town name, the Katers said it should be “Y,” like it always had been.

But Arizona law required all town and city names have at least three letters, so the name was changed to Why because (a) people were always asking why anybody would live in such a remote place and (b) because “Why” rhymes with “Y”.

The Arizona Department of Transportation later removed the old Y-intersection for safety reasons and replaced it with a conventional T-intersection. But Why is still Why, and most everybody who goes there still asks why.

Why no longer has a post office. Folks who need a post office box rent one in Ajo. But Why is still a community, if not quite a town. It’s a good place for folks traveling south on Highway 85 to get gasoline, and it’s a good place to get away from any sort of hustle and bustle and watch the sunset.

Why Sunset

The Arizona Oddities article says Why was established at the junction of highways 65 and 86. I took the liberty of correcting that, since I know highway 85 is the main route through the community.

I took all of the photos in this post.