TUMACACORI Historic Resource Study

¹Official adoption of the gold standard did not occur until 1900.

²New York Daily News, December 27, 1845.

³There were twenty-panics in the United States between 1790 and 1907—about one every six years (Moore 1980).

⁴In 1800, the minimum cost of federal land was set at $2 per acre. In 1820, the price was lowered to $1.25 per acre. Sales were by auction, which often had raucous and occasionally violent atmospheres.

⁵After the British crown ordered colonial governors to stop granting patents to lands beyond the sources of rivers flowing into the Atlantic, Washington wrote Crawford, "I can never look upon that proclamation in any other light (but this I say between ourselves) than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians. It must fall, of course, in a few years, especially when those Indians consent to our occupying the lands. Any person, therefore who neglects the present opportunity of hunting out good lands, and in some measure marking and distinguishing them for his own, in order to keep others from settling them, will never regain it" (quoted in Sakolski 1932:5-7).

⁶Critics contended that speculation in land warrants led to the monopoly of lands and high rates of tenancy. More recent historical and economic analysis suggests that monopoly did not occur, that land remained relatively cheap for the settlers who eventually purchased it, and that tenancy was one rung in an "economic ladder," giving younger farmers the experience they needed to become successful independent farmers later in life (Oberly 1990).

⁷Railroad Record, April 19, 1857:107.

⁸Affidavits of Fritz Conden, January 1900, Peter Brady, January 1900, Sabino Otero, November 13, 1905, Charles Poston, January 13, 1900. Papers in Case of Baca Float No. 5 (and No. 3), National Archives, Pacific Region, Laguna Niguel Office.

⁹From an article in the German Democrat, republished in translation in the San Francisco Weekly Chronicle, August 11, 1855. Quoted in Fontana 1971:79.

¹⁰Joseph King settled "within a few hundred yards of the old Spanish Mission of Tumacácori" in 1865 when he was twenty-eight years old. He had reached the Santa Cruz Valley the year before, performing a survey for a sheep ranch William Wrightson wanted to establish at Salero east of Tumacácori. Affidavit of Joseph King, Pima County, January 24, 1900. Papers in Case of Baca Float Nos. 3 + 5, National Archives, Pacific Region, Laguna Niguel Office.

¹¹C.P. Sykes, Pacific Coast Annual Mining Review and Stock Ledger. San Francisco: Francis & Valentine.

¹²On March 9, 1869, Francisco A. Aguilar formally sold the "lands of Tumacácori, Calabazas, and Guevavi" to Miguel Gándara, who represented his father, for the original sum of $499. Sykes purchased the grant for $12,500 in gold. Translation from the original document by R.C. Hopkins, San Francisco, November 8, 1875. List of Papers in Case of Baca Float No. 5 (and No. 3), National Archives, Pacific Region, Laguna Niguel Office.

¹³C.P. Sykes, op cit., The Daily Graphic, October 18, 1878.

¹⁴Ibid.

¹⁵Copied from the lithograph by Britton, Rey & Co., S. F. [San Francisco] in Hinton 1878, opposite pg.224.

¹⁶Ibid., opposite pg. 194.

¹⁷Copied from a lithograph by Britton & Rey, S.F., in the prospectus of the Calabasas Land and Mining Company. The same prospectus quotes a letter written on April 21, 1877, by A.P.K. Safford, the ex-governor of the Territory of Arizona, who wrote Sykes, "Learning that you are interested in the Calabasas ranch, and about leaving for San Francisco, I desire to present to you an ear of corn that was raised by George Allison on said ranch, without irrigation. I took the ear from a pile of corn where he was harvesting, without any effort to select." The Munk Library of Arizoniana, Southwest Museum.

¹⁸Based on the lithograph in J. Ross Browne (1864:143), which shows the log cabin in the right foreground. The rest of the foreground, as well as details of the church, are significantly different from either Browne's illustration or the illustration in Hinton (1878:219).

¹⁹The microfilm copy of the August 12, 1882 edition of the Tombstone Epitaph at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson is poorly filmed and it is difficult to make out words on the left margin of the column in which the article "Calabasas Classics" appeared. The article is misquoted in Ellinwood (1964), who leaves out phrases and sentences.

²⁰Some people in southern Arizona still believe that the Santa Cruz was navigable before downcutting and groundwater pumping reduced its surface flow. At a meeting of the Pima County Board of Supervisors in 2000, two members of the radical environmental group Earth First! and one representative from the Center for Biological Diversity stood up and issued passionate denunciations of the river's destruction, proclaiming that there used to be ferry service between Tucson and Nogales.

²¹Prospectus of the Calabasas, Tucson and North Western Railroad Company, and the Arizona Cattle and Improvement Company. New York: Martin B. Brown, Printer and Stationer. Arizona Historical Society, Tucson, AZ.

²²Ibid., pg.7.

²³Ibid., pg.7.

²⁴Ibid., pg.8.

²⁵Ibid., pg.7.

²⁶Ibid., pg.9.

²⁷Ibid., pg.12.

²⁸R.C. Hopkins, December 30, 1879. U.S. Senate, 46th Congress, 2d Session, Ex. Doc. No. 207, pg. 35.

²⁹John Wasson, January 7, 1880, Ibid., pg. 39.

³⁰Ibid., pg. 40.

³¹Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, May 8, 1893. Vol. 12, No. 235. National Archives, Pacific Region, Laguna Niguel Office.

³²US Court of Private Land Claims, Case Nos. 8, 9, & 162 Consolidated, Tumacacori, Calabasas & Huebabi Grant, U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of land Management, Phoenix Arizona. MS 312, Reel 23, Special Collections, University of Arizona Main Library.

³³Amended Petition, George Hill Howard vs. The United States, op. cit.

³⁴The petitioners were Dolores Astiazarán, Jesús A. de Oceguera, Francisco Oceguera, Carmen O. de Espíritu, Augustina O. de Robinson, Francisco Gándara, Miguel Gándara, Ana Gándara, Trinidad Aguilar, Fernando Aguilar, Anita Aguilar, Jesús Aguilar, Carmen Aguilar, Victor Aguilar, and Santiago Ainsa, administrator with the will annexed of Frank Ely, deceased. See Aguilar Family Tree. Op. cit.

³⁵Ibid.

³⁶Smith to Commissioner, May 8, 1893, op. cit., pg. 2.

³⁷Ibid.

³⁸Mattison is in error when he states that the Secretary of the Interior "sustained the Commissioner" (Mattison 1967:84).

³⁹Schurz to Conunissioner, op. cit., pg. 35.

⁴⁰Defendants included: "George W. Atkinson, Francisco Q. Acebedo, Francisco S. Acebedo, Gerardo Acebedo, John Doe Arenas, Fidel Aguayo, Lorenzo Aguayo, Leon Aguayo, Jesus Arviso, Charles Altschul, Claudio Acebedo, Inez Andrado, Demetrio Barrios, Charles Beck, J.F. Black, Unknown heirs of William Bennett, deceased, James Breen, George Beckwith, Frederick Beckwith, Beckwith Brothers, Fernando Carranza, Pedro Cordova, Thomas D. Casanega, Tomas Cota, Francisco Castillo, W.C. Davis, Edwin Egan, Mateo Estrada, Benito Estrada, Bartolo Figueroa, John W. Fuqua, Fierras Brothers, Timoteo Fierras, Antonio Fierras, W.H. Good, Unknown heirs of Henry Guinn, deceased, R.H. James Good, W. Goodman, Charles Gullman, W.J. Glenn, John Doe Henderson, Samuel Hughes, Pauline Jones, R.E. Key, William E. Key, Joseph King, Henry W. Low, Domingo Laguna, John A. Lucas, William Thomas Linnville, Samuel G. Lewis, Thomas Lewis, Juan M. Montano, William Morgan, Theodore Martinez, T. Lillie Mercer, S.B. McCorkle, Unknown heirs of S.B. McCorkle, G.R. McCorkle, Francisco Moreno, D.B. McCullough, Joseph Piskorski, James Peters, Antonio Proto, Louis Proto, Proto Brothers, Benjamin H. Page, Zada Fey Reagan, Bernardo Romero, Manuel Ronquillo, Timoteo Ramirez, Eugene K. Sykes, administrator of the estate of of George W. Reagan, deceased, Juan Saldate, John Doe Saldate, Ramon Sardina, the Santa Cruz Valley Water Storage Company, a corporation, Ramon Saavedra, Saavedra Brothers, Eugene K. Sykes, C.P. Sykes, Don A. Sanford, L.J. Sanford, Sonointa and Santa Cruz Land and Water Company, a corporation, Salero Land and Cattle Company, a corporation, Tomas Tapia, F.M. Vernon, Mariano Valdez, Zenobia Villa and Sons, The New Mexico and Arizona Railroad Company, a corporation, Morgan B. Wise, Joseph E. Wise, Solomon B. Wise, William H. Walker, Jose Maria Valdez, Rafael N. Vasquez, Harvey S. Walker, Andrew Roe, Alexander Roe, Abraham Roe, Benjamin Roe, Bernard Roe, Charles Roe, David Roe, Daniel Roe, Edwin Roe, Eugene Roe, Edward Roe, Fred Roe, Frank Roe, George Roe, Henry Roe, Howard Roe, Isaac Roe, Lemuel Roe, James Roe, John Roe, Jacob Roe, Nathan Roe, Philip Roe, Robert Roe, Richard Roe, Samuel Roe, Thomas Roe and William Roe (whose true names are to plaintiffs unknown)." William Faxon, Junior, Trustee, et al vs. The United States of America, George Atkinson, et al., op. cit.

⁴¹Decree, U.S. Court of Private Land Claims, Arizona District, 1895, op. cit.

⁴²Opinion of Mr. Justice Murray, Ibid.

⁴³Decree, op. cit.

⁴⁴U.S. Supreme Court, Faxon v U S, 171, U.S. 244 (1898).

⁴⁵Ibid.

⁴⁶Answer, U.S. Court of Private Land Claims, op. cit.