Coronado National Memorial
The Coronado National Memorial commemorates the first organized expedition into the Southwest by conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1540. The memorial is located in a natural setting on the Mexico–United States border on the southeast flank of the Huachuca Mountains south of Sierra Vista, Arizona and is bordered to the north and west by Coronado National Forest. Within the memorial is an overlook at Montezuma Pass where the Coronado expedition entered modern Arizona. The memorial confirms the ties that bind the United States and Mexico. History Official statements indicate that it was initially designed as a gesture of goodwill and cooperation between the United States and Mexico, through the recognition of Coronado's 1540 expedition to the area. For example, in 1939 the House Committee on Foreign Affairs noted: As a result of this expedition, what has been truly characterized by historians as one of the greatest land expeditions the world has known, a new civilization was established in the great American Southwest. And E. K. Burlew, Acting Secretary of the Interior added in 1940: To commemorate permanently the explorations of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. . .would be of great value in advancing the relationship of the United States and