Calabasas (Spanish for "pumpkins") is a former populated place or ghost town, within the census-designated place of Rio Rico, a suburb of Nogales in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States. [1]
Calabasas (Spanish for "pumpkins") is a former populated place or ghost town, within the census-designated place of Rio Rico, a suburb of Nogales in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States. [1]
Originally settled by the Spanish in 1756 as Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas with seventy-eight O'odham to the site from their village of Toacuquita [3] nearer the Santa Cruz River to the new site on the bluffs above it to the east. A church report in 1772 described the mission as having a population 64: 21 men, 24 women and 19 children. It described the location as being on an open plain with good lands, but that the Indians do little or no farming, and that there was no church or house for the Missionary. However, by 1773 the church was functional and in 1775, Father Pedro Font said mass there during the first Juan Bautista de Anza expedition to the upper part of Las Californias. [4] [5]
In 1777, the mission church, houses and the granary filled with maize, were sacked and set afire during a raid by part of a band of Apache, apostate O’odham, and Seris that had similarly attacked Magdalena and other Pimería Alta communities during 1776. The mission O’odham killed fourteen of the raiders, but lost seven of their own. The Mission was abandoned in 1786 when the last of the O'odham left because of continuing hostilities by the Apaches. [4] [5]
Between 1807 and 1830 the settlement area was used as an estancia (farm) for nearby Mission San José de Tumacácori. In 1808, Spanish settlers and Christian Indians moved into the Calabazas area and restored the chapel. In response, the Apaches again attacked in 1830, setting fire to the buildings and carrying off sacred vessels and vestments in the process. This discouraged anyone from living there for more than two decades, but vaqueros from Tumacácori continued to run cattle in the vicinity. [5]
In 1837, the Mexican government built Presidio de Calabasas to protect the area. In 1844, Mission Calabasas and its lands were sold at auction to the brother-in-law of Sonoran governor Manuel María Gándara. Gandara established a rancho at the old mission stocked with 6,000 cattle and converted the church into a ranch house. The 1854 Gadsden Purchase, of land by the U.S. from México, included this area in New Mexico Territory. Mexican Army soldiers, in the Tucson garrison to protect the citizens from Apaches, withdrew from the Gadsden Purchase territory early in 1856. With their withdrawal the Gándara ranch came to an end and the land was leased to the U.S. Army by Gandara, now the ex-Governor of Sonora. [5]
Late in 1856, the Mission church, now ranch house, became the temporary home of Major Enoch Steen, commander of four companies of the First Regiment of United States Dragoons who established Camp Moore, at the former Presidio de Calabasas, as the first military post in the New Mexico Territory's Gadsden Purchase area. [5] Ignacio Pesqueira, the new governor of Sonora, allowed quartermaster wagons to cross into Sonora for supplies. Now with the arrival of military protection, the Gandara ranch, and the surrounding area filled with American squatters. The following year, Steen received orders from Colonel Benjamin Bonneville, the departmental commander in Santa Fe, to move closer to Tucson. Regarding the vices of Tucson as a danger to the good order and discipline of his troops, Steen instead moved his camp 25 miles (40.2 km) northeast to the headwaters of Sonoita Creek. The new post was named Fort Buchanan in honor of the recently inaugurated President James Buchanan. [6] Subsequently, the former mission buildings served a number of purposes, a customs house in 1857 and the ranch house was occupied by family of Larcena Pennington Page before September 1859. [5] [7]
In January 1861, Apaches attacked Johnny Ward's ranch on Sonoita Creek near Calabasas, stealing cattle and abducting Ward's stepson, Féliz Martínez. Ward traveled upstream to Fort Buchanan and asked the commander Lieutenant Colonel Pitcairn Morrison to send troops east to Apache Pass to retrieve the boy and the cattle. Morrison sent a company under the command of Second Lieutenant George Nicholas Bascom, fresh from West Point. The ensuing Bascom Affair triggered the Apache Wars that would last for over two decades. [6]
To make things worse, the Civil War began in April 1861, just as the Apache began their attacks. United States troops in the Santa Cruz Valley and every other post in Arizona were ordered east. To prevent it from being used by Confederate soldiers, Fort Buchanan was burned. Camp Lowell, near Tucson, was abandoned. Thinking they had defeated the Americans, the Apaches scavenged the abandoned forts and increased raiding in the Santa Cruz Valley. Almost every mine, ranch, and town had to be abandoned. The only places holding out against the Apaches were Tucson; Sylvester Mowry's silver mine, the Mowry Mine in the Patagonia Mountains, [8] and the Pete Kitchen Ranch on Potrero Creek upstream from Camp Moore. [6]
In September 1865, the California Volunteers garrison at Tubac, Arizona was transferred to Old Camp Moore at Calabasas and it was first named Post at Calabasas then Fort Mason in honor of General John S. Mason, who was then the commander of the District of Arizona. The 1st Battalion of Native Cavalry, California Volunteers and 7th Regiment California Volunteer Infantry occupied the post until they were relieved by troops of the United States Army in May 1866. Due to persistent malaria, the Regulars abandoned Fort Mason (now renamed Camp M) in October 1866 and established Camp Cameron. [6]
Mission Calabazas was completely abandoned to ruin by 1878, with only a roofless shell remaining.
There are two remaining sites with visible ruins or remains of this old settlement, the Mission site itself, which was subsequently at various times a farm, a rancho, a military fort Fort Mason, a custom house, post office and private residence before falling into ruin. It is now protected and part of the Tumacácori National Historical Park. [4] There is the site of the 1837–1856 Mexican Presidio de Calabasas, which appears to be vacant land. There is also the Calabasas Cemetery established by the soldiers of Fort Mason during the American Civil War and subsequently used by locals.
There are also sites of the old Calabasas village, [1] Calabasas Store [9] (both now built over by modern development in Rio Rico) and the Santa Rita Hotel (once a fine hotel along the railroad line to Mexico), now a vacant piece of land near the old rail line and south of Sonita Creek, east of its confluence with the Santa Cruz River. [10] [11] [12]
Mission San Xavier del Bac is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham Nation San Xavier Indian Reservation. The mission was founded in 1692 by Padre Eusebio Kino in the center of a centuries-old settlement of the Sobaipuri O'odham, a branch of the Akimel or River O'odham located along the banks of the Santa Cruz River. The mission was named for Francis Xavier, a Christian missionary and co-founder of the Society of Jesus in Europe. The original church was built to the north of the present Franciscan church. This northern church or churches served the mission until it was razed during an Apache raid in 1770.
Santa Cruz is a county in southern Arizona, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population is 47,669. The county seat is Nogales. The county was established in 1899. It borders Pima County to the north and west, Cochise County to the east, and the Mexican state of Sonora to the south.
Tumacacori is an unincorporated community in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States, which abuts the community of Carmen. Together, the communities constitute the Tumacacori-Carmen census-designated place (CDP). The population of the CDP was 393 at the 2010 census.
A presidio was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire mainly between the 16th and 18th centuries in areas under their control or influence. The term is derived from the Latin word praesidium meaning protection or defense.
Larcena Pennington Page, born Larcena Ann Pennington, was an American pioneer known for surviving a kidnapping by Apache as a young married woman of 23 years old in present-day Arizona. Left for dead and unable to stand, she crawled 15 miles (24 km) over the next sixteen days to reach safety.
Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ, often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Bishopric of Trent, Holy Roman Empire.
Tumacácori National Historical Park is located in the upper Santa Cruz River Valley in Santa Cruz County, southern Arizona. The park consists of 360 acres (1.5 km2) in three separate units. The park protects the ruins of three Spanish mission communities, two of which are National Historic Landmark sites. It also contains the landmark 1937 Tumacácori Museum building, also a National Historic Landmark.
Mission San José de Tumacácori is a historic Spanish mission near Nogales, Arizona, preserved in its present form by Franciscans in 1828.
Tubac Presidio State Historic Park, located in Tubac, Arizona, US, preserves the ruins of the Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac and various other buildings, thereby presenting a timeline of European settlement in this Southern Arizona town. The park contains a museum, a number of historic sites, an underground archeology exhibit displaying the excavated foundations of the Tubac Presidio, and a picnic area. Various cultural events are held on-site throughout the year, including Anza Days (October), Los Tubaqueños living history presentations, archeological tours, and nature walks. Until recently, the park was administered by Arizona State Parks but is the first park in the Arizona state park system. As a result of budget cutbacks, the Tubac Presidio was scheduled to be closed in 2010, but was rescued by local residents and the Tubac Historical Society. It is now operated by The Friends of the Presidio and staffed with dedicated volunteers.
La Misión de San Gabriel de Guevavi was founded by Jesuit missionary priests Eusebio Kino and Juan María de Salvatierra in 1691. Subsequent missionaries called it San Rafael and San Miguel, resulting in the common historical name of Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi.
Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas, also known as Calabasas, is a Spanish Mission in the Sonoran Desert, located near present-day Tumacacori, Arizona, United States.
Juan Bautista de Anza I was a Spanish Basque who explored a great part of what is today the Mexican state of Sonora and the southwest region of the United States.
The Sobaipuri were one of many indigenous groups occupying Sonora and what is now Arizona at the time Europeans first entered the American Southwest. They were a Piman or O'odham group who occupied southern Arizona and northern Sonora in the 15th–19th centuries. They were a subgroup of the O'odham or Pima, surviving members of which include the residents of San Xavier del Bac which is now part of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Akimel O'odham.
The Presidio of San Ignacio de Túbac or Fort Tubac was a Spanish built fortress. The fortification was established by the Spanish Army in 1752 at the site of present-day Tubac, Arizona. Its ruins are preserved in the Tubac Presidio State Historic Park.
Prior to the adoption of its name for a U.S. state, Arizona was traditionally defined as the region south of the Gila River to the present-day Mexican border, and between the Colorado River and the Rio Grande. It encompasses present-day Southern Arizona and the New Mexico Bootheel plus adjacent parts of Southwestern New Mexico. This area was transferred from Mexico to the United States in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. Mining and ranching were the primary occupations of traditional Arizona's inhabitants, though growing citrus fruits had long been occurring in Tucson.
Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón was a presidio located within Tucson, Arizona, United States. The original fortress was built by Spanish soldiers during the 18th century and was the founding structure of what became the city of Tucson. After the American arrival in 1846, the original walls were dismantled, with the last section torn down in 1918. A reconstruction of the northeast corner of the fort was completed in 2007 following an archaeological excavation that located the fort's northeast tower.
The Presidio de Calabasas, also known as Fort Calabasas or Camp Calabasas, was a stone fortress built by Mexico in 1837 south of Tumacacori, Arizona. It was built on the land of the Grant of Manuel María Gándara, by Gándara to protect his lands near the Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas from the Apache. Civilians established a small farming settlement called Calabasas, in the area nearby the protection of the Presidio.
Following the Gadsden Purchase, the United States Army sent Major Enoch Steen and four companies of the 1st U. S. Dragoons to occupy the former site of the Mexican Presidio de Calabasas. Major Steen arrived on November 27, 1856, and named his post Camp Moore. The dragoons put roofs on the old adobe structures and added a few new ones. Camp Moore was abandoned in March 1857 after another location in the San Rafael Valley was chosen for a permanent fort that was christened Fort Buchanan.
Between the years of 1539 and 1821, the Spanish Empire explored, colonized, and ruled over what is the state of Arizona in the United States.
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