Templo de la Purísima Concepción de Caborca (El Fuerte de Caborca)

The Templo de la Purísima Concepción in Caborca traces its origins to the mission chain established across the Pimería Alta in the era following Padre Eusebio Kino's 17th-century missionary expeditions, part of the network of adobe and stone churches Jesuit and later Franciscan friars built to evangelize the O'odham and other Indigenous communities of what is now northern Sonora. The church's most famous moment came in April 1857, when American adventurer Henry A. Crabb led an armed party of roughly 100 men into Sonora on a filibustering expedition; Sonoran soldiers and Caborca townspeople barricaded themselves inside the thick-walled church and, after a six-day siege, defeated and captured Crabb's force, an episode that ended with Crabb's execution and is remembered locally as 'El Fuerte' (the Fort) for the building's improvised defensive role. The church's pockmarked facade, still bearing what local tradition holds are bullet scars from the siege, and a small adjacent historical marker make the building as much a monument to 19th-century Sonoran resistance to foreign incursion as a religious site. The building continues to function as an active parish church for Caborca.