FOOTLOOSE IN HISTORIC TUCSON

• FOOTLOOSE • IN HISTORIC TUCSON A CASUAL WALKING TOUR THROUGH YESTERDAY

There's so much love in this neighborhood," explains Gladys Carroll. "It's completely unpretentious, and, well...real!" Mrs. Carroll's turn-of-the-century California-style bungalow nestled in the historic El Presidio section of downtown Tucson has served as her family's home for three generations. Nowhere is the Carroll family history better recorded than within the nooks and crannies of this comfortable home that is part of a neighborhood in transitionand the current darling of preservationists and tourists. The house has sheltered Gladys Franklin Carroll since her birth in 1901, her par-ents since 1898, when they moved into their proud new residence on Franklin Avenue after returning from their wedding trip. Mrs. Carroll's grandfather, an Arizona territorial attorney general, lived next door. Their garden hosted many a family wedding: Mrs. Carroll's, her brother's, her youngest son's. Young Gladys avoided crossing the street when the Mexican-American children-school chums and companionssuffered smallpox. She says today their harmonious mixed neighborhood never earned its nickname of "Snob Hollow." "My mother detested that name!" she exclaims in mild frustration. "Somehow the name caught on. We supposed it was because established families lived here."

HISTORIC DOWNTOWN TUCSON LEGEND

BE SURE TO SEE... 1. Tucson Museum of Art Free tours of historic Tucson, by reservation only. 2. The Fish and Stevens Houses Built in the late 1800s by local merchants. 3. La Casa Cordova - Believed to be the oldest surviving building in Tucson, now an excellent museum interpreting the lifestyle of early Tucson. 4. Hughes House - Home of early settler Sam Hughes, his bride, and fifteen children. Built in 1864. 5. Steinfeld House - Spanish Mission style designed by Henry Trost in 1900. 6. El Charro Stone house constructed by French stonemason, Jules le Flein, who carved the stone facade and rose window of the first Cathedral de San Agustín. 7. Cushing Street Bar and Restaurant - One hundred years ago, this charming building was both the home and country store of Joseph Ferrin. 8. American West Gallery An 1860s townhome of rancher Francisco Carillo. 9. El Tiradito A wishing shrine dedicated to a young herder killed in a lovers' triangle. 10. John C. Frémont House - Built in the 1850s and temporary residence of the territorial governor. Now restored as a period museum.

TOURS

Indeed, Tucson's proudest homes are the topic of a popular tour of the El Presidio Historic District. But unlike many historic attractions where visitors must be content with viewing artifacts from a cordoned area, this provides a rare look into the past because El Presidio is no museum. This is a vital neighborhood that lives much as it did 100 years ago.

El Presidio is where the original walled settlement of the Presidio of San Agustín de Tucson was founded in 1775. An Irish lieutenant colonel in the Royal Spanish Army, Hugh O'Connor, chose the site for the 750-square-foot fort that was built with thick adobe walls twelve feet high and housed soldiers and their families. Settlers farmed the valley to the west beyond Sentinel Peak, where Pima Indian scouts kept watch alongside the Spanish for warring Apaches.

As Tucson mellowed, citizens felt safer venturing beyond the presidio walls. Using volcanic rock from Sentinel Peak in foundations for structures that added Victorian touches - fretwork, gables, and porches to basic Sonoran style "boxes," a community of fine houses rose in Snob Hollow.

WALKING TOUR

Attracted to the neighborhood some fifteen years ago when she decided to rent space for a studio, ceramic sculptor Barbara Grygutis bought a double-brick, firfloored house in the heart of El Presidio. She works from a carriage house-turnedstudio behind her home, and is raising an infant son amid adobe.

"I feel strongly about the buildings," she says. "They've been lived in such a long time and have so much character. Some of the adobes have fourteen-foot ceilings! It's a small neighborhood. I know all my neighbors-that's what makes for such high quality living here. I love it."

Grygutis contributes much to that character. She designed a ceramic plaque for each structure on the tour, incorporating the El Presidio logo and a numeral that matches map identifications. She recently finished five years' work on the Alene Smith Memorial Park, a sculpture garden tribute to a neighbor who spurred the community toward winning El Presidio's historic status: Grygutis' gift to her neighbors. On the tour, you'll learn about Sam Hughes, who came to America from Wales to seek his fortune as a '49er and was sidetracked to the warm clime of Tucson to combat his tuberculosis. He and his twelve-year-old Mexican bride moved into a small adobe home that eventually grew to encompass an entire block to accommodate their fifteen children.

The Leonardo Romero house, built in 1868 over part of the original presidio wall, now houses the Tucson Museum of Art School. Romero was the town's first carpenter; last year some 250 descendants gathered for a reunion.

Many more historic tidbits help to paint the picture.

If anyone belongs in Snob Hollow today, it's David Duval. Not because the man is a snob; he is the president of a Tucson advertising agency who believes in downtown and just happens to be looking for "funky" space for his operation.

"I'm an eclectic person who enjoys lots of different flavors," smiles the University of Arizona-educated Duval, who came to Tucson in his teens. "There's something great about pumping new blood into anything. And downtown is coming back around. The community has shown it

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(CLOCKWISE, FROM LEFT) Tucsonan Susan Morris Gabriel, at the Albert Steinfeld House, a restored residence dating from 1900. DAVID BURCKHALTER Courtyard of the Steinfeld House, at 300 North Main. P. K. WEIS Interior of Casa del Gobernador. Built in the 1850s, it once served as a temporary residence for Arizona Territory's fifth governor, John C. Fremont. JACK DYKINGA La Casa Cordova, one of the oldest surviving structures in Tucson, was recently restored as a Mexican Heritage Museum. ALAN MANLEY El Tiradito, or the Wishing Shrine, in the Barrio Historico District. In the 1940s, the folk shrine to a legendary 1880s sheepherder killed in a love triangle became a popular local monument. P. K. WEIS

WALKING TOUR

It doesn't want sprawl by turning down the [Rillito] parkway. Developers should now work on the interior.

Under way are plans to renovate 338 West Franklin Avenue, a 2000-square-foot house built in 1900, as the new home of DuVal and Franceschi. Architects expect to preserve the integrity of the house while allowing for contemporary use of the space.

Neighbors welcome commercial endeavors, by and large. There is a feeling the area should remain mostly residential, but, as Mrs. Carroll puts it, "as long as they fix the places up, they're okay."

DuVal's proposed office is two doors away from the Steinfeld House, a 15,000square-foot Spanish Mission-style beauty that stands as proud testimony to Tucson's elite. Commissioned by General Levi Howell Manning and designed by the nationally-prominent architect Henry Trost, the house cost $10,000 in 1899.

Manning built it as a clubhouse for The Owls, a group of thirteen well-to-do bachelorels who wanted a place to meet, dine, and entertain the "nice young ladies" of Tucson. In 1904, with all The Owls (including Mrs. Carroll's father) married off to those nice young ladies, the club folded and Albert Steinfeld, a merchant from New Mexico, purchased the mansion. Mrs. Carroll shopped at the downtown Steinfeld's until it closed in 1973.Where once a Chinese market thrived, now a young photographer's studio prospers, and the residents of El Presidio must leave their neighborhood to shop. But despite the inconveniences, it's still a fascinating place to live.

Dana Cooper is a Phoenix-based freelance writer whose work has appeared inArizona Living, Arizona Business Gazette, and Phoenix Home & Garden.

Selected Reading

Tucson, the Complete Guidebook, by Anne Christensen and Diane Sikes. Valley Publishing Co., Phoenix, 1984.

This is Tucson: Guidebook to the Old Pueblo, by Peggy Hamilton Lockard. Pepper Publishing, Tucson, 1983.

Tucson, Portrait of a Desert Pueblo, by John Bret Harte. Windsor, Woodland Hills, 1980.