Tucson's History

Tucson sits on some of the longest continuously inhabited land in North America. Paleo-Indian hunters camped along the Santa Cruz River thousands of years ago, and by around 2100 BC early farmers were growing corn here, making the valley one of the oldest known agricultural sites in the United States.

The Hohokam built villages and sophisticated irrigation canals in the valley for centuries. Their descendants include the Tohono O'odham, whose name for the village at the base of Sentinel Peak, Cuk Son, meaning "at the base of the black hill," gave Tucson its name. The Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui peoples remain central to the region today.

Spanish missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino reached the valley in the 1690s and founded Mission San Xavier del Bac, whose gleaming white church, finished in 1797, still stands south of town and is known as the White Dove of the Desert.

In 1775 the Spanish established the Presidio San Agustin del Tucson, a walled fort that marks the official founding of the city. Tucson spent decades as a remote frontier outpost of New Spain, then became part of Mexico when it won independence in 1821.

The Gadsden Purchase of 1854 brought Tucson into the United States, and from 1867 to 1877 it served as the capital of the Arizona Territory. It was a classic Old West town of adobe buildings, freight wagons, saloons, and merchants from Mexico, Europe, and Asia.

The Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in 1880 and changed everything, connecting Tucson to the rest of the country. The University of Arizona was founded in 1885 on donated desert land east of town, and Arizona became the 48th state in 1912.

In the early twentieth century Tucson's dry air made it a destination for health seekers, and dude ranches and resorts introduced the country to desert living. Davis-Monthan Field, dedicated in 1927, grew into a major Air Force base and helped drive decades of growth.

After World War II the city boomed as air conditioning, aerospace jobs, and the university drew waves of newcomers. Neighborhoods spread across the valley, and Tucson grew from a dusty territorial town into a modern southwestern city while holding on to its adobe heart.

Today Tucson is a city of more than half a million people known for astronomy and optics, aerospace, and the University of Arizona, which has helped send missions to asteroids and Mars. Kitt Peak and Mount Lemmon observatories take advantage of some of the clearest skies in the country.

In 2015 UNESCO named Tucson the first City of Gastronomy in the United States, honoring 4,000 years of continuous food culture, from ancient native crops to the beloved Sonoran hot dog. The Old Pueblo remains what it has always been: a desert crossroads where cultures meet.