ARIZONA FEATURE

Travel Golf Media Quick
Look: All About Tucson

By Ryan Finley,
Staff Writer

The city of Tucson, despite its rapid growth in the past 50 years, is hardly a boomtown.

The “Old Pueblo” has, in fact, been around for over 12,000 years.

First known as “Stook-zone”, meaning “water at the foot of the black mountain”, Tucson was inhabited by the Hohokam Indian nations for millennia before white settlers began to inhabit the area in the late 1700s.

Spanish friars, hoping to extend Catholicism to the “savage” tribes, founded the Mission San Xavier del Bac in 1699. Father Francisco Kino, who helped to found the mission, is regarded as one of Tucson’s founding fathers to this day.

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The city sided with Mexico in a war for independence in 1821, and remained a part of the country until the United States acquired the “Arizona Territory” in the Gadsden purchase in 1854. The city was quickly populated by settlers in the late 1800s, officially becoming a territory in the 1860s. In fact, the city of Tucson was the capital of the Arizona Territory for nearly a decade in the late 19th century.

1889 saw the founding of the University of Arizona, which has been the centerpiece of the city’s culture and population since its inception over 100 years ago. The University brings students from all over the country to the “Old Pueblo” with each new academic year.

Officially named the nation’s 48th state in 1912, Arizona serves as a haven for winter vacationers and retirees looking to enjoy the city’s mild weather.

The city has grown substantially since its inception some 12,000 years ago. Metropolitan Tucson welcomes some 2,000 new residents each month. Despite the city’s 24,000 newcomers each year, the city maintains close ties to the past.

The descendants of the Hohokam tribes, the Pima and Tohono-O’odham nations, continue to subsist in the area well into the 21st century.