South to the Border

A CHAPTER FROM A NEW ARIZONA HIGHWAYS BOOK Soach TO THE BORDER

This part of Arizona is heavily flavored with Mexican sauce. From beginning to end, the southward leg of this tour has a pervasive Spanish influence. Tucson... ancient Spanish presidio. Tubac... Spanish garrison of the 18th century. Tumacacori ... link in the long chain of Padre Kino missions. The border twin cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico, where Spanish and English blend in a language we had to find a word for-Spanglish.

Even Green Valley, the first point of interest to catch your attention as you spin down Interstate 19 from Tucson, carries a Spanish patina. It was designed as a retirement community with tile-roofed colonial architecture against a backdrop of the Sonoran Desert and Santa Rita Mountains.

At Continental, another two miles southward, you might turn onto a paved side road that takes you-some 13 miles farther into Madera Canyon, in the Santa Ritas. It's a natural recreation area, part of the Coronado National Forest, especially celebrated as a stalking ground for bird-watchers. There's a public campground, small lodge, and cafe. Nearby Mount Wrightson (9453 feet) has spectacular hiking trails.

Retrace your steps back to I-19, resume your journey southward, and 18 miles down the pike you reach Tubac.

This little place radiates history. It's the oldest European settlement in Arizona, tracing its beginning to 1752. In that year Spaniards established a garrison here to protect settlers and peaceful Pima and Papago Indians from raids by other Indians. Later, the garrison was moved to Tucson. Tubac declined but had a brief revival when silver was discovered in the nearby mountains shortly before the Civil War. Indeed, historians count no less than eight occasions on which Tubac has withered and then revived. It is now enjoying a kind of ninth life as an art center and happy hunting ground for history buffs. With some of its original adobe walls still standing, the Tubac Presidio State Historic Park and museum tell the story in a way you can almost feel. There is an admis-sion fee. Numerous shops specialize in arts and crafts.

Tubac was, incidentally, the site of the first newspaper published in Arizona. It was called The Weekly Arizonian. Equip-ment for the paper was laboriously hauled around Cape Horn, then transshipped by oxcart from the port of Guaymas, Mexico. Ed Cross, the editor, a bellicose type, man-aged to get himself embroiled in perhaps the most famous duel of territorial days. His adversary was a former Army officer named Sylvester Mowry (there's a mining Franciscan Juan Velderrain concluded the massive job of constructing the present mission San Xavier del Bac in 1776. The finishing work fell to Juan Bautista Llorens, another Franciscan. His name and the date of the project's final completion, 1797, are burned into the sacristy door. Herb and Dorothy McLaughlin photo

BY JOSEPH STOCKER ROGALES

For the traveler to and through Arizona, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, right, affords an exciting glimpse of Old Mexico and an invitation to experience a friendly neighboring culture. The city also is a gateway to Mexico's exotic interior. J. Peter Mortimer photo

TRAVEL ARIZONA

The editors of Arizona Highways Magazine proudly announce the publication of a sparkling new picture-filled guidebook (complete with detailed maps) to interesting and scenic places in the state. Travel Arizona, by Joseph Stocker, on sale after October 10, 1983, is brim-filled with 16 exciting tours in 128 easy-to-read pages. Price: just $7.95 (softcover). Order your copy now, postpaid: Arizona Highways Magazine, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009.

South

ghost town named for him some miles to the east). They fought with rifles at 60 paces, and both were such sorry shots that neither got hurt. They later became fast friends, and Mowry bought the paper from Cross and moved it to Tucson. Three miles more to the south and you're at another of the many missions established by Father Kino. Its full and proper name is Mission San José del Tumacacori. Today we call it Tumacacori National Monument. The building you see actually was built by the Franciscan Fathers and is the successor to the original mission founded by Jesuit Father Kino. Like so many other missions of that time, it was never quite (Left) This rose and drape stencil pattern is part of the mural decorations which once adorned the interior sanctuary of the Spanish mission Tumacacori, now a national monument. (Below) How Tumacacori's altar may have looked. Reconstruction drawn by Jimmie Trujillo. At left is the same section of the old church as it looks today. J. Peter Mortimer photo

completed, and vandals and souvenir-hunters took their toll of what did survive of the handiwork of the dedicated priests. The United States government finally stepped in to care for Tumacacori. The ruins that remain, with their graceful arches, cornices, and copings, testify to the beauty which was Tumacacori. There's an admis-sion charge.

Ten miles south of Tumacacori, State Route 289 turns off to Pena Blanca Lake, located seven miles west of the freeway in a mountain pocket of the Coronado National Forest. The lake is a mile long, and the fishing is goodbass, bluegill, crappie, catfish, and trout.

Back to I-19 and south another 7.7 miles, and you're at Ambos Nogales. They're among the larger of the several pairs of international adjoining towns lying along the United States-Mexican border. And, of these particular twins, Nogales, Mexico, is by far the larger-population 150,000 compared to 16,000 on the Arizona side. The towns are situated in a mountain pass which, even prehistorically, was a natural pathway for commerce. And so this is a major port of entry for Mexican farm produce, livestock, and manufactured goods. (The name Nogales, by the way, comes from nogal, Spanish for walnut.) What Nogales provides tourists is the chance for a quick look at Mexico without traveling to the interior. The two

Common Sense Cures an Ailing Monument

by Susan Luzader Prust Adobe-melting rain showers, gross temperature changes, driving dust storms, infrequent freezes and snowfalls can threaten anything unprotected on the desert of Southern Arizona. Add scavengers, vandals, and frontier Indian raiders - even the stoutest structure may not survive. But today Tumacacori Mission rises stubbornly out of the Santa Cruz River Valley. Many missions long ago crumbled to ruin. Yet Tumacacori's grandeur not only has been retained, but enhanced, in its struggle against the elements and humanity. And it endured largely without help.

Tumacacori's long history begins in 1691 with a Jesuit missionary to the Indians, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino who first visited the site and celebrated Mass there. Before the end of his life, he would establish a parish of 50,000 square miles along "the rim of Christendom."

Franciscans began the work on the present mission church about 1799, completing the task substantially by 1822.

Tumacacori was built to last, with massive adobe walls, a fired-brick bell tower, and a barrel-vaulted sacristy. But only five years of worship in the near-completed sanctuary preceded its closure by Indian warriors. By 1849, it was in complete collapse. A traveler named Hays reporting: "The fruit has fallen and none to gather it. Corrals still standing not a living thing seen. It has a melancholy appearance. The walls of the church still stand, no roof, and only the upright piece of the cross. It looks desolate indeed built of beautiful large burnt brick; the walls inside plastered with cement and adorned with paintings in the cement. The dome over the altar covered with cement which shines white in the sun; portico in front; with two tiers of columns; rich and exquisite carvings inside; four bells, one has been taken down...."

Deterioration continued even after the United States government assumed care of the mission church in 1908, making it a national monument. Attempts by federal officials to preserve and protect met mixed success. An effective early Park Service custodian Nogales are separated only by a wire mesh fence (without it they would be, for all practical purposes, one city). Mexicans cross the border daily to shop and work on the Arizona side, while North Americans cross to shop and dine on the Mexican side. You can cross the border without a passport or tourist card. Some folks drive, although most park on the Arizona side and walk. Distances are short, and you spare yourself the trouble of taking out Mexican insurance at an agency on the United States side (which is always advisable when driving in Mexico). When you come back, all that's usually asked by United States immigration officials is It was Frank Pinkley, who spruced up the grounds, stabilized the crumbling adobe, and replaced the roof over the nave of the church. "Some of this early work was the most successful because the people involved had limited budgets and worked with the original materials instead of relying on more modern methods," explains Anthony Crosby, a National Park Service architect who spent seven years researching and stabilizing Tumacacori. The modern preservation techniques employed by wellmeaning park officials actually did more damage than natural decay, being they knew next to nothing about the physical properties of man's oldest building material. One method trapped moisture within the walls and forced it higher than it would have gone naturally. Other patching attempts caused original bricks to crumble. When part of the ceiling fell in 1974, it shook Park Service officials into action. Experts met in Tucson but found they knew little about adobe missions or what was causing them to deteriorate. Moisture was suspected; but wind, earth movements, and vibrations could all be culprits.

A parade of Ph.D.s inspected, prodded, and analyzed the old mission. Probes were inserted into walls, and strain gauges sensed every sigh the church made. Even the National Bureau of Standards got into the act, evaluating all its physical properties.

After seven long years of work and $500,000 in expenses, the scientists found the best stabilization would be to leave the adobe alone or employ the techniques the old missionary priests would have used.

Portland cement coated on the exterior walls was forthwith removed and lime-sand plaster, similar to the original wash, applied. Broken or crumbling bricks were replaced with adobe formed at Tumacacori or imported from Sonora, Mexico.Next, the scientists redirected the moisture that fell as rain or seeped up from the ground.

Today, Tumacacori is stable, requiring only minimal routine maintenance. And expectations are the old mission will survive another 150 years, all on its own.

(Left) Entryway facade at Tumacacori. Like all frontier missions, it was built from natural materials found or made at the site. Cobblestones from a nearby riverbed formed the foundation and adobe brick and mortar made on site were used to build the walls. Josef Muench photo (Left, below) Tumacacori took 123 years to complete, counting delays caused by raids and what historian Marshall Trimble calls "... periods of disinterest or inability on the part of the church...." Jack Breed photo (Below) Wood engraving of Mission Tumacacori by Tucson artist Boyd Hanna.

Whether you're a United States citizen. If you are going farther into Mexico you must have proof of citizenship-a voting card or birth certificate.

You can bring back $400 worth of merchandise duty-free, including one liter of spirits.

The recent devaluation of the peso, of course, hurt the people of Mexico and businesses on both sides of the fence. But it was a boon to the North American tourist, making Mexican pottery, silver, ceramics, and other goods more attractive values.

Let's go back to Tucson by a different route-State Route 82, northeast through Patagonia and Sonoita. The route takes you through the imposing Patagonia Mountains where, south of the little community of Patagonia, are the ghostly remnants of such old mining camps as Harshaw and Duquesne, Washington Camp, and Mowry. (Check locally for road conditions.) You look out upon a different Arizona from the one you saw driving southward from Tucson. This is grassy, cattle-grazing, rolling-hill country. (Item: the people who made the movie version of Oklahoma! thought this stretch of Arizona countryside looked more like Oklahoma than Oklahoma, and they shot a lot of outdoor footage here.) Well worth a stop in Patagonia is the Museum of the Horse. It exhibits just about everything conceivable related to horsessaddles, harnesses, bridles, horseshoes, stirrups, and on and on. The items come from all over the world and date to the days of the Pony Express, the Cossacks, even to Greco-Roman times. Here, too, is the fancy velvet saddle that the Bey of Tunis gave President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There's a re-created blacksmith shop, a veritable fleet of old wagons-surreys, sleighs, coaches, carriages, even a hearse, and a number of Western paintings.

The moving force behind the Museum of the Horse was Anne Stradling, herself an Easterner. But she grew up loving horses, and after coming out to Arizona, did something about it. There's an admission charge.

One of the favorite spots in the state for bird-watching lies just west of Patagonia, amidst quantities of cottonwood trees that stand along Sonoita Creek. It's the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Sanctuary, a meeting place for cold-weather birds migrating from the north and their warmerblooded brethren flying in from the south.

Head north out of Patagonia from here. State Route 82 joins State Route 83 at Sonoita, which takes you to I-10. Twenty miles later you're in Tucson.