TUCSON HISTORY, From Indian Tribes To
Spanish And Anglo Settlers
Archaeological digs Have revealed adobe huts, pit houses, and irrigation systems built by the Hohokam and other tribes who settled and farmed the Tucson area Almost 2,000 years ago
The first Europeans to set foot in the American Southwest arrived in present-day Arizona via Mexico less than fifty years after Columbus discovered the New World--many years prior to the settlement of New England by the Pilgrims. Read More Tucson History Early History
AN EARLY MISSION
Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino arrived in the Santa Cruz River valley in 1692, and founded the Mission San Xavier del Bac in 1700. Tucson was officially founded as a Spanish colony 75 years later in 1775 and the Spanish settlers built the Presidio of San Augistin del Tucson as protection from Apache raids. Part of this walled presidio still exists today, and its name, "Old Pueblo," is now extended to the city as a whole
When Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. Tucson became a Mexican town until the Gadston purchase in 1853. See below.
 PANCHO VILLA, THE "BANDIT"?
A statue to a murderer and a bandit, or a Mexican hero?
The statue of Pancho Villa in downtown Tucson has created heated argument since it was presented to the city by Mexico in 1981. Like most civil wars and revolutions one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist. Villa has been described as a Mexican Robin Hood, “a man who had unlimited amounts of self-confidence, courage, and endurance”. Others have suggested the statue be melted down for scrap. The demands for its removal continue but the city shows no sign of doing so.
Read about Pancho Villa
 A Borderline Decision For Tucson
In 1853 the United States purchased land from Mexico along what is now the Southern part of Arizona and New Mexico to enable the building of a transcontinental railroad. Originally the border with Mexico was to be to the north, at the Gila River, leaving Tucson as a Mexican city. The Gadsden purchase 1853 changed that to include Tucson.
Tucson was the capital of the Arizona Territory from
November, 1867, until it was moved north to Prescott in 1878. |
"Tucson is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States"
The history of Tucson began thousands of years ago with the arrival of native Americans and changed forever when the Spanish arrived 1775.
Spanish soldiers founded Presidio San Augustine del Tucson shortly after they arrived and since then many different cultures have occupied the city.
FOUR GOVERNMENTS
Over the years Tucson has been run by four governments...
Spain, Mexico, the United States, and the Confederacy all governed at some stage.
Father Kino rides on along Tucson's Kino Blvd. Read more about Father Kino and the three statues.
Originally built in the Romanesque Revival style in 1896. By the 1920s, its “French style” was thought inappropriate for Mexican and Spanish parishes. Its towers and facade were rebuilt with reinforced concrete and plaster and given a Spanish Colonial Revival look.
Read More
The Southern Pacific Railroad came to Tucson in 1880, and the population reached 8,000 soon after. Arizona became the 48th state in 1912, and by 1990, Tucson's population topped 400,000. A restored adobe house in the Barrio Viejo, south of downtown.
 Dressing well… A western couple from the 30s
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