Tucson Celebrates 250 Years
A Salute to One of North America’s Longest Inhabited Regions
By Jay Gonzales
With thousands of businesses, some large, some small, that have driven the growth of Tucson in its 250 years, there’s one prominent but often overlooked reason why the city became what it is today.
To those who have lived here over the last 80 years, it’s been a dry riverbed that some outsiders have questioned why we even call it a “river.”
But to Hugo O’Conor and a band of Spanish soldiers making their way north from Mexico in 1775, the Santa Cruz River looked like the lifeblood to a place where they could thrive, where native tribes had existed – some dating back 12,000 years.
Father Eusebio Francisco Kino had arrived around 1700 and began building of one of the region’s landmarks, the San Xavier Mission del Bac.
“The valley of the Santa Cruz is one of the richest and most beautiful grazing and natural regions I have ever seen. Occasionally the river sinks, but even at these points, the grass is abundant and luxuriant,” wrote J. Ross Browne, a journalist and traveler who passed through the area in the 1860s. Browne was referenced in the 1986 book Los Tucsonenses, by Thomas E. Sheridan, which chronicles the history of the Mexican community in Tucson from 1854 to 1941.
When O’Conor’s soldiers arrived in 1775, they built a fort, the Presidio San Augustín del Tucson, about a half mile east of the river. Tucson was born. Centuries later, that spot would become the intersection of Church Avenue and Washington Street in the center of today’s Downtown Tucson.
The soldiers’ arrival triggered the earliest instances of commerce in the area when they began trading for crops and food with the tribes already established here, said Amy Hartmann-Gordon, executive director of the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson, a museum that operates where remnants of the fort were discovered.
“There was trade immediately,” Hartmann-Gordon recounts. “They’re trading for the native crops − the beans and the corn − and they’re bringing in new objects that the native people are interested in.”
Stretch that humble beginning to consider what now comes out of Tucson − computer technology from IBM, the most advanced cancer diagnostics from Roche, missiles from Raytheon, solar technology, copper and, of course, world-class cuisine from the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in the U.S.
More than two dozen businesses have operated here continuously for more than a century, Tucson Electric Power, El Charro Café, Hotel Congress, the Tucson Museum of Art, O’Reilly Chevrolet, the copper mines and others. Pivotal additions like the University of Arizona and the U.S. military − Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and the Arizona Air National Guard − have been employment anchors for the local economy for decades. (See page 34, “Century Club: Through a Business Lens – Sampling of Businesses, Institutions, Organizations, Installations)
Tucson High Magnet School is more than 100 years old. Tucson International Airport evolved from what was the first municipal airport in the U.S. opened in 1919 at Irvington and Sixth Avenue, where the Tucson Rodeo Grounds now stand.
It all started even before O’Conor and the soldiers arrived, said Larry Lucero, a seventh-generation Tucson and longtime businessman with a prominent history of community involvement and service. Lucero, who retired from Tucson Electric Power after 27 years with the company, also serves on the board of directors of the Presidio Museum.
“We had a well-established agricultural environment for hundreds of years in this area because of the rivers,” Lucero said of the region considered one of the longest continuously inhabited areas in North America.
“Agriculture was very important. People started making tortillas. They started making the stews, the kind that led to the City of Gastronomy. It’s really kind of interesting how it goes way back to the beginning of the Presidio,” Lucero said of the designation awarded in 2015.
While the Spaniards were bringing their goods for trade, an early export that developed in the region was derived from, of all things, a small beetle − the Cochineal beetle − that was abundant in the region and was discovered as a source of a red dye for fabrics and other products.
“One of the big exports from up here was this little bug,” Hartmann-Gordon said. “When you think of pictures of Queen Elizabeth, or royalty from Europe wearing big red coats and red capes, that was the Cochineal. They couldn’t get that dye in Europe, so that was a very popular thing that they were exporting.
“They were starting to build their own community and build their own economy, and that really is the very beginning of this commercial community that we’re in now,” Hartmann-Gordon said.
As time passed, a vibrant and diverse economy gained a foothold, and a city began to take shape.
When the railroad arrived in 1880, Lucero said, it was a “seminal moment.” It changed everything − construction, communication and retail. Hardware stores and other much-needed suppliers for construction set up shop.
“Now, you were able to access building materials easier, whether it was cement, bricks, plywood or wood, because otherwise they were going up to Mount Lemmon to get the wood,” Lucero said.
The ability to bring in materials for bricks led to quarries opening around Tucson, mostly along the river.
“Even in Menlo Park along the river, there were all these quarries where there were brick makers,” Lucero said. “The brick-making business was a big deal in terms of helping the builders have material readily available.”
The late 1800s and the early 1900s were a series of other so-called seminal moments that helped Tucson develop as a community and as a commerce center. Over time, Arizona came to be known for the “five Cs” − copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate.
While all continue to have a prominent impact on the Arizona economy, copper and climate remain at the top of the list of all industries impacting the state and, in particular, Southern Arizona.
Arizona is still the leading copper producer in the U.S. There are three active mines within shouting distance of Tucson, the Sierrita mine and the ASARCO mine southwest of the city, and the Silverbell mine directly west of Marana.
Climate, which means tourism, has a significant say in the economy with an annual economic impact of $300 million.
When the University of Arizona was founded in 1885, it established one of the longest and most important relationships that would set a foundation for Tucson’s growth and identity.
“Tucson obviously is a college town, and everyone (at UA) has been proud to be part of Tucson and to call U of A home,” said Ed Ackerley, a native of Tucson, a longtime Tucson businessman, now a faculty member in the UA’s Eller College of Management.
There’s been so much happening at the UA for more than 100 years, some of it gets lost in the conversation, he said.
“There’s a lot of wonderful stuff going on at the University of Arizona, maybe we’re not telling that story as well,” he said. “The average person that you stop at a Tucson mall probably couldn’t tell you three things that are going on at the U of A that affect them on a regular basis when, in reality, there’s 9,000 things going on at the U of A that are directly related to the whole community and the world’s well-being.”
Colleges, schools and departments of engineering, medicine, mining, agriculture, biomedicine, astronomy, optics, and so many others, contribute directly to the economy with expertise and advances in technology, while also churning out talent to support those industries locally. Tech Launch Arizona and the UA Tech Park are moving UA research into the business markets.
“At the University of Arizona, we have world-class faculty and researchers who are working on solutions to the world’s grand challenges every day,” former UA President Dr. Robert C. Robbins told BizTucson in a 2021 interview. “Translating their research into products on the market is one of the best ways we can have a positive impact as an institution.”
Just after the UA was established, Tucson Electric Light & Power Co. helped Tucson take another giant step forward when it brought electricity to the area in 1892. The first generating station was on Church Street, across from the old Pima County Courthouse, the beautiful domed building that still stands as a monument to Tucson’s history.
In the grand scheme of things, having electricity meant a lot of things to the growing business center. But in the simplest of terms, the ability to power refrigerators and store food was a major development for the 7,500 or so residents living here at the turn of the century.
“A huge step in the evolution of Tucson was electrification,” Lucero said. “Having a little electricity provided the opportunity for people to start buying appliances. Refrigerators were the first. To be able to preserve your food, and for the stores to preserve their food, was a big deal.”
Downtown Tucson began to bustle in the early 1900s. Historical photos show the clothing stores, drug stores, restaurants, churches and doctor’s offices that sprang up. There was a streetcar running on electricity. Dirt roads were paved just after Arizona became a state in 1912. All of it was developing just to the east of the Santa Cruz River, which continued flowing up until the 1940s.
In 1922, one of Tucson’s most historic and iconic businesses was established when Monica Flin opened El Charro Café, a restaurant serving Mexican cuisine. The business first opened on Fourth Avenue, just south of Sixth Street, and would move twice within the downtown area. It settled at the now-familiar house at 311 N. Court Ave. where Flin lived, and where her great-niece, Carlotta Flores, and her family currently operate what could arguably be called a restaurant empire.
Flores, now 78 years old, has memories of traveling, as a young girl, with Flin to California and other parts to shop for everything from ingredients for the menu, to dishes and equipment for the restaurant. They sampled the Mexican food in California and Phoenix and from those experiences decided what their food would look and taste like.
“All the Flins could cook, every one of them,” Flores said of Monica’s family. “The boys and the girls could bake and make sauces. I still think the sauces are our thing.
“Los Angeles is sophisticated but at that time, the Mexican food wasn’t. It wasn’t to our taste,” Flores said. “I really couldn’t put my finger on it until I got a little older and realized that Tucson had a very pure Mexican food. Even going to Phoenix, I found the food was different.”
Flores also heard how the various ethnic groups in Tucson cooperated with each other for the overall good of their businesses, and El Charro was no different.
“Monica would go out the back (of the restaurant) to the Chinese store, buy her groceries, and charge them,” Flores said. “That was the first form of charging that we knew of. Then, she would get her money at the end of the day and go pay her Chinese grocery friend.”
Flin ran El Charro into the mid-1970s when Flores and her family began operating it. Over the years, it played a significant a role in the overall development of local cuisine and in the growth of downtown, side-by-side with businesses such as the Hotel Congress, which was built in 1919. Initially named The Congress Hotel, it became part of Tucson’s lore for the next century and beyond.
The current owners, Richard and Shana Oseran, are well aware of the hotel’s place in Tucson’s history. Since purchasing it in 1985, they’ve worked through tough times downtown to maintain its identity and its place in Tucson’s identity.
“We believe it really belongs to the community. We’re caretakers of the property,” Richard said. “When you push through the door, you feel it’s your place.”
Shana added: “I do believe when people come here, they kind of feel it. You realize this could be yesteryear. There’s no TVs in the rooms. They’re probably exactly the same since after the fire.”
You can’t mention the Hotel Congress without mentioning one of the most notorious moments in Tucson history, a 1934 fire at the hotel which directly led to the arrest of public enemy No. 1, gangster John Dillinger, and his gang − some of whom were staying at the hotel at the time.
With all its history, The Hotel Congress survived Downtown Tucson’s decline in the 1970s when businesses left the city center. Today, downtown is thriving once again, with the hotel standing as a beacon for what Tucson once was and what it is today.
When the opportunity to purchase the hotel arose, Richard fondly recalled Tucson in the 1960s, when he attended the UA and businesses like Steinfeld’s department store, Jacome’s, Levy’s, Myerson’s, Cele Peterson’s and the Pioneer Hotel were the signature businesses in a busy downtown.
“When I came here in 1963, if you wanted a pair of shoes or a haircut, you had to come downtown. This was where everything was,” Oseran said.
Today, downtown is everything again. It’s just the start of the reason people are drawn here, for the history, the food, the weather, the lush surroundings and the commitment to business development. There are more than 1 million people living here now. Massive companies like Amazon, Raytheon, Roche, Caterpillar and IBM have a significant presence here alongside the UA, the military installations and more.
Visit Tucson President & CEO Felipe Garcia said it all ties together, from the earliest settlers in the region to the present. The Mexican culture that took root at the arrival of Hugo O’Conor and the Spaniards remains part of the community’s identity.
“We’re now responsible for keeping, maintaining, preserving the history and culture,” Garcia said. “We feel that we’re stewards of this land and this place, and we want to make it a better place. I think that’s what visitors are fascinated with.”
Tucson’s fascinating history has been an industry in itself – $300 million in economic impact − with visitors coming here to experience everything from the remnants of the earliest settlers and their adobe dwellings to stargazing at the most technologically advanced observatories in the world.
“The fact that Tucson has kept its essence is crucial,” Garcia said. “Twenty years ago, we thought that to be competitive in the tourism industry, you needed to build modern things, and that’s what consumers and visitors wanted.
“But we discovered that there’s this huge number of individuals that want to go to places that really have a sense of place, that really have culture and history − that have a persona. I think that’s what is unique about Tucson, the personality of our community.”
PAINTING – Dennis Ziemienski ‘Enchanted Trail’ Oil on Canvas 40” x 60”. Courtesy Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery
