5 Best Sights in Willcox, Southern Arizona

From August to October, you can pick your own apples just outside town at Apple Annie's Orchards. Peaches are ready July through September; veggies ripen midsummer through fall. If you'd rather enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor, Apple Annie's in-town country store, next to the Willcox Visitor Center, carries delicious homemade pies, fudge, and fruit butters.

Learn about the fierce Chiricahua Apaches and the fearless leaders Cochise and Geronimo at this research center, located in downtown Willcox. Other interesting tidbits about the area can be found in displays featuring the U.S. Cavalry, a nice collection of rocks and minerals, and relics of the famed Butterfield Overland Stage Route. One oddity the museum points out is that the memoirs of Civil War general Orlando Willcox, for whom the town was named, don't even mention a visit to Arizona.

This museum in the historic district is a tribute to Willcox's most famous native son, cowboy singer Rex Allen. He starred in several rather average "singing cowboy" movies during the 1940s and '50s for Republic Pictures, but he's probably most famous as the friendly voice that narrated Walt Disney nature films of the 1960s. Check out the glittery suits the star wore on tour—they'd do Liberace proud.

If you visit in winter, you can see some of the more than 10,000 sandhill cranes that roost at the Willcox Playa, a 37,000-acre area resembling a dry lake bed 10 miles south of town. They migrate in late fall and head north to nesting sites in February, and bird-watchers migrate to Willcox the third week in January for the annual Wings over Willcox bird-watching event held in their honor.