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JULY/AUGUST 2012 Vol. 29 No. 7 An Open Forum publication allowing all voices to be heard since 1983
ARIVACA YESTERDAYS Roads: Sasabe Road, Arivaca-Sasabe Road & Fraguita Road
by Mary Noon Kasulaitis
W
hen automobiles began to be produced so that people could buy them, some of the more well-off ranchers in the Altar Valley began petitioning for an improved road from Robles Ranch (now Three Points) to Sasabe. La Osa, Sturges, Ronstadt, Anvil and Coberley ranches found themselves far away from civilization, but not too far if they just had a passable road to Tucson. In addition, a good road to the port-of-entry at Sasabe would increase Mexican business. The Escalante family’s Sasabe Mercantile also would benefit. Anyone who drives that way has noticed the size of the Altar Wash by the time it gets to the King’s Anvil Ranch. You can attribute this to an early wagon road that went down the valley and eventually eroded out. A good road was necessary. When the road bonds were approved in 1919, they included “a properly graded and drained road, with permanent waterways, from a point
near Robles ranch, in a southerly direction to the International Boundary line.” At this point, they were asking for $110,000 for the Sasabe Road, but as we saw last month, it wouldn’t be enough, and the asking amount eventually became $315,000 which would provide a gravel surface. Once the approval had been voted on, the ranchers and mining companies started chomping at the bit to get the road done and done right! A number of ranchers and mining companies did not like the “mud flat” route chosen by the Highway Commission, and hired a surveyor of their own. They preferred an upland route closer to the foothills of the Sierrita Mountains, which they said would be the same cost, in the long run, and even shorter. However, the Commission went the less expensive way, ignoring the 28 petitioners, and chose the “mud flat” route, finishing the survey by May of 1920. Too bad they can’t see how close the Altar Wash is now to the road as it goes by the Palo Alto Ranch.
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The interested parties included a number of companies in the Altar Valley in Mexico, as reported by the Tucson Citizen. Who would have thought that almost a hundred years later the road from Sasabe to Altar would still be unpaved! Although it is officially called the Sasabe Road, at one point it was referred to as the San FernandoTucson Road. Tucson’s Fronterizo newspaper described the construction of the Sasabe road: in May of 1921: three camps were established on the different sections between the Palo Alto Ranch and King’s. Great groups of workers were trying to keep ahead of the summer rainy season. A new bridge crossing Arivaca Creek was almost finished. Their worries were warranted, because in August it washed out and had to be repaired. Construction of the highway did not make it an official County road. After more petitions and paperwork was filed, the Sasabe Road became a County Highway in Dec of 1927.
The Arivaca-Sasabe Road was not part of the initial road building projects of 1919-21. It existed, however, as an old road that had once been a trail going from the Arivaca store towards the Buenos Aires Ranch and Sasabe, past the Wilbur Ranch and the Figueroa Ranch. Once it passed the Arivaca Creek and went up on the foothills, it was easy for it to be extended straight (more or less) to the newly created Sasabe Road. Petitioners in 1928 included the Bogans, Bernardo Caviglia, Arthur Noon, Demetrio Amado, AR Wilbur, Manuel Gonzales and Matildo Campas. On an early map it was called Wilbur Highway, but since any number of people lived along this road, not just Wilburs, it was designated Arivaca-Sasabe Road and officially established in 1928. You would think that this County action would be the end of things, but we find in the record a letter and petition of 1937 asking for a road to be constructed. A whole new list of petitioners signed on, including the Brouses, the Continued on Page 2
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