Hotel Elegance, Territorial-style

smoking rooms. The expensive furnishings came from the East Coast, along with the women from Boston who served the dining room clientele.

However, by the time of the 1882 grand opening, the railroads had passed by Sykes and Calabasas, heading for the route to the south and the settlement that would become the border city of Nogales. Sykes had his luxurious hotel opening anyway.

The menu alone earned front-page attention. Diners started with a mock turtle and tomato soup, proceeded to leg of mutton in caper sauce, chicken in cream sauce, tongue and ham. Roasts of beef and pork and more chicken, followed by lobster and salmon salads. Game included wild turkey, wild pigeon and English snipes, with vegetables of sweet corn, tomatoes, potatoes mashed and fried. For dessert, the menu promised puddings and pies, ending with fruits, cheese and nuts. That anyone could walk after such a spread seems a miracle. But these folks didn't walk. They danced into the night.

"It could not be equaled," a reporter wrote in the Arizona Weekly Star. "A brilliant affair," wrote the scribe for the Arizona Daily Citizen.

The train ride to Calabasas garnered columns of print. Partygoers began at dawn in Tucson; they headed east to Benson and then picked up the southwestern route to Calabasas.

[LEFT] Hotel guests brave the cold to be pictured with a rare southern Arizona snowfall.

[ABOVE] Jack C. Gale of Tucson, working from historical records and photographs, drew the exterior of the Hotel Santa Rita.

The ladies wore bustles and bows, and the gentlemen sported their bowlers. The Tucson Brass Band rode along with them, reportedly playing and parading almost nonstop until the wee hours of the next morning.

While one reporter extolled the event as opening "an important era in Arizona progress," another did mention, "The town has yet but a few permanent buildings."

The guest ledger from the Hotel Santa Rita now rests at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson. Richly bold signatures fill the opening pages. The entries for October 5, 1882, show the hotel to be so full that the 10 members of the well-used band ended their gig five to a room.

Subsequent pages carry the names of worldly travelers from cities of power like New York and Chicago. Then, the entries become fewer and fewer. By 1885, a single guest might spend the night. By 1887, days would pass with no guests at all. On December 13, 1893, the last guest signed in, followed by nothing but empty pages.

The simple lack of a home-based railroad hadn't stopped Sykes. He had organized his own railroad in 1880, and another in 1885, both designed to serve Tucson, Phoenix and beyond. Neither ever materialized past the money-raising stage.

Sykes died in 1901 at the age of 77, possibly of a heart attack. His descendants left Calabasas in 1916, moving on to prominence on both sides of the border. The hotel advertised as "the finest between San Francisco and Denver" burned to the ground in 1927.

Today, the site of the town of Calabasas has been engulfed by a golf course. New homes dot the surrounding hills. International commercial traffic flows ceaselessly on nearby Interstate 19. To the west, the Rio Rico Resort Hotel reigns from a hilltop perch. C.P. Sykes had indeed seen the future. He just celebrated a hundred years too soon.

To see the area, drive south on Interstate 19 out of Tucson. Take the Rio Rico exit and turn east. At Pendleton Road, turn right for a short drive through the land where Sykes once dreamed. Al

ARIZONA'S MOUNTAINS