I had been wanting to see this old Spanish mission since starting my Anthro course.
Kevin did not want to go since he doesn't care for walking much anymore, and doesn't have an interest in looking at missions.
Eight miles north of Nogales, AZ I got a text message. It was from Sprint: "Welcome to Mexico!" and gave me the prefix to dial back to the United States. That was all good information, but how could I tell Sprint that I was not heading to Mexico, but rather to a small town 30 miles north of the border?
The Mission was established by Jesuit Father Esuebio Kino in 1691. The builders of this mission were of course the Indigenous Peoples of the area at the time, mostly Pima Natives who were forced to convert to Catholicism (always a favorite topic of mine) if they wanted protection by the Spaniards against the nearby Apache. I went to this mission to learn more about the Natives here but was inundated with great displays on the Spaniards and the Catholic church instead.
The mission was manned until Apache raids from the Santa Rita became too intense and the mission was abandoned in 1776-1777 by the Spaniards. A new one built further north in Tucson for better protection. By 1848 the mission was completely abandoned by the remaining inhabitants.
The only mention of any Natives was in the small book store at the main entrance. The Natives otherwise were referred to as "converts" on all the NPS educational signs.
Still, I had a good time and ended up staying longer at the mission than planned because I went to all the sites, read all the educational signs, and even listened to a spunky park volunteer, retired school teacher JoAnn from Rochester, IN who now lives here in Green Valley. Her green NPS shirt contrasted with her light chestnut brown hair. She had us all introduce ourselves to the small group of about 15. One woman was from Denver, another from New Jersey, an older woman and her granddaughter were from Green Valley and the rest were from around Arizona.
"I'm a former Hoosier who moved down here years ago. Now I'm an Arizonian" she said. Arizonian?! People who live in Arizona are referred to as Arizonans, so her little slip was pardonable, of course, but a common-enough mistake I hear from Transplanters to this beautiful state.
"All I ask of you is to laugh at my jokes" she started out telling us. So we were warned.
"What do old men do when they can no longer drive?" she went on. "They buy a mobile home and tow their cars behind them!" Har har har. She did, however, know her stuff about the area's history and gave a pretty good presentation although the half-hour tour was all about the mission itself.
She explained the insides of the mission, showed us unique cracks in the wall, talked about the smelly mortuary behind the church and the graveyard behind that. The last person burried in the church compound was a little girl, Juanita, who died in 1916. Until a few years ago her sister had come annually to place paper wreathes at Juanita's grave, but when the aging sister died the sister's son vowed to continue the tradition. Juanita's grave stood out from the rest: all the graves were mere piles of rocks and aging wooden crosses. Juanita's grave was a small burned orange adobe tombstone.
Graffitti from the 1800s adorned some of the walls in the mission and around the mission walls. But otherwise the compound was nicely restored as a ruin. The old irrigation ditch that ran into the compound was barely visible. The old adobe hut where the Pimas lived was the smallest building on the compound.
It was a beautifully warm day that got downright hot by the time I left the mission. I never needed to put on a jacket. I kept drinking water and wished I had brought more. The skies were blue at first but became overcast a few hours later. I wore my Gortex hiking boots because I thought I was going to walk the Anza Trail out and back to Tubac, but then abandoned that idea when I realized I was spending more time reading about the local history than I was looking at the scenery.
The cottonwoods along the nearby Santa Cruz River were already budding new leaves. The fresh new leaves left a slight light green hue over the canopies. The new buds near Tucson mean that the trees here at the San Pedro should start budding in two weeks.
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