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Tubac on the Spanish Colonial Frontier
True West August 2018 Marshall Trimble
The Bells of Tumacacori by Bill Ahrendt. Bill Ahrendt is one of America's greatest western artists. He spent eleven years in Europe studying the work and techniques of the Old Masters. In 1965 Ahrendt passed his entrance examination at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts where he studied in the Max Doerner Department of Painting Technology. He makes his home today in Strawberry, Arizona.
The presidio at Tubac, founded in 1752, was the first European settlement in Arizona. The name came from a Pima Indian word meaning "Where something smelled rotten," based on a legend about a battle between warring bands of Indians and the rotting bodies of the dead inspired the name.
Tubac was located on the banks of the Santa Cruz River about forty miles south of Tucson. It was established near the old mission of Tumacacori, founded by the legendary Jesuit Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino. It was customary during the Spanish Colonial Period to have a military presence a discreet distance from a mission. It was here the first white women settled in Arizona. Also the first vehicles, two-wheelers called carretas, were introduced to what would one day become Arizona.
To the east of Tubac were the beautiful Santa Rita Mountains and to the west was the rich mineral-laden Cerro Colorado range.
From 1774 to 1776, Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, who is known as the Spanish Lewis and Clark, led two expeditions opening the first land route from the interior of Mexico to California. The second expedition brought the first settlers to establish the future cites of Monterrey and San Francisco.
A year after the second expedition the presidio at Tubac was moved north to Tucson. In August, 1775 the Old Pueblo of Tucson was born. The commanding officer of the new presidio and Tucson's "founding father," was a red-headed Irish colonl in the Spanish Army named Hugh O'Connor. Those irrepressible Irish were ubiquitous and besides that were everywhere.
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Marshall Trimble is Arizona's official historian and the Wild West History Association's vice president. His latest book is 2018's Arizona Oddities: A Land of Anomalies and Tamales. Send your question, with your city/state of residence, to marshall.trimble@scottsdalecc.edu or Ask the Marshall, P.O. Box 8008, Cave Creek, AZ 85327.
True West August 2018
One Proud Hostile
Doc's Diet
Ride That Train!
The Man Who Killed the Man Who Killed Billy the Kid
Bizarro's Take on American Indians
The Long and Rich History of In-din Humor
What History Has Taught Me: Alden Big Man Jr.
What were the Strongest Indian Tribes of the 19th Century?
Western Events for August 2018
Virginia City, Nevada: Queen of the Comstock
Were Schoolteachers Armed during the Old West Era?
Who Stopped the Near-Showdown Between Gunfighters "Doc" Holliday and John Ringo?
Hell on Wheels Meals
Trailing the Wild Bunch
How did Slim-Hipped Westerners keep their Gunbelts in Place?
Shoot-Out in El Paso
A Daring Sense of Humor
Hollywood's Flintlock Fakery
Custer's Last Strand
Why Did Hopis Capture Eagles?
America's Cowboys Get Their Due
Black Hills and Gold Dust
Western Books & Movies
DVD Review: The Durango Kid Collection
Westward from the White House
Rough Drafts
Convinced by Gold
Building Your Western Library: Michael F. Blake
Land of the Apache
A Violent Borderland
I, the Lawman
Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound
Starr of a Publicity Photo
Horse Race at Castle Gate
Colorado City, Arizona City, and Finally Yuma
More than a Barkeep
Shooting the Silhouette
Frontier Women
Land Grabbers
Bisbee Queen of the Copper Camps
The Night of Blood
The Outlaw Trail
A Bad Man Goes Down
The Cheyenne Go On Trial
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