Connection
JUNE 2012 Vol. 29 No. 6 An Open Forum publication allowing all voices to be heard since 1983
ARIVACA YESTERDAYS by Mary Noon Kasulaitis
B
ack in 1896, the Montana Mine had requested the repair or construction of a road over which they could haul ore, and Pima County officially declared the road from Amado through Arivaca to Oro Blanco to be a County Road. Pima County records said: “this road was a public highway before the Territory was ceded to the United States and that said road had been constantly used as a public highway since that time…” (Pima County had designated road districts around 1880.) This road through Arivaca was determined to have less steep grades and thus would be easier and safer for hauling ore than a road over the mountain to Nogales. Then Santa Cruz County was created in 1899 and the road from the county line south came under its jurisdiction, leaving the stretch from what is now the turnoff to the Arivaca Lake north to Arivaca as a Pima County road. In 1914, the road was surveyed and
Roads: Arivaca to Amado
ended up more or less where it is now. All our roads were originally the trails that people had been using for decades, maybe centuries. There were other roads as well that do not now exist. It was only after right-ofways needed to be purchased that roads started being aligned with property boundaries - instead of just going the easiest way around. Property boundaries weren’t seriously enforced until after the homesteading era of the early 1900s-teens. It was in response to the newly popular automobile that Pima County (along with the rest of the country) realized the serious need to fix the roads. This just meant basic construction, not paving. Residents at the far southern end of the roads, most of whom were ranchers or miners, petitioned the County to build roads suitable for automobile travel to Tucson. By 1919, many people, not just the wealthy, had started to buy cars. The price of a Model T Ford car in 1920 was about $260, down from $850 when it first came out in 1908. In 1914 there was a column in the Tucson Citizen
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called “Tucson Motor News” that reported who had purchased what new car. My father remembered seeing his first car, Jack McVey’s 1913 Hudson touring car. It made a huge impression. He also admired the skill with which Carmen Zepeda fixed her own flats on her Model T. People realized that to get good roads they had to act. In 1919, the road petitioners included Arivacans Bernardo Caviglia, Indalecio Aguirre, Teresa Celaya, A.R. Wilbur, B.H. Catlett, Sopori Land and Cattle Company, and others. The notices were posted on the door of the Store and the Post Office building (nothing has changed!). The U.S. Army got involved as well, saying that the army post at Arivaca needed passable roads (see the 1916 photo). The cost to build the Arivaca road was estimated at $45,000 but the bonds were issued for $70,000. Bonds were issued for $1,500,000 in 1920 to fix all the roads in Pima County that had been either petitioned for or determined to be necessary. These were properly graded and drained roads, not
paved. In our area, the roads included one from Robles Junction to the International border at Sasabe; from Arivaca to the Sasabe Road, and from Arivaca Junction to Arivaca. This money came from both bonds and the federal government as well, so even in those days the feds were supporting local highway construction. Besides the cost of grading, these funds covered the purchase of a 100-foot right-of-way from all the private owners of land along the way. (Grading the Arivaca Road from Amado to the county line cost $185 in 1907.) But as it turned out, that was not enough. A year later, the highway commission was back again, asking for more money, and for the Arivaca road, this time they wanted $232,000! Despite the costs, the desire for comfortable automobile travel won out. The road improvements were wholeheartedly approved: the right-of-ways were procured by December of 1920, the surveys were made, and eventually the roads were constructed and graded. The Continued on Page 3
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