New book shows how 1887 Sonora quake changed Southern Arizona

For Tucson, the 1887 Sonoran earthquake was not simply a distant disaster across the international border. Within days, El Ojito Spring, a longtime water source in the city’s old barrio, stopped flowing. By the end of that year, the Rillito River had ceased running past Fort Lowell and had become a sandy channel. The quake altered springs, rivers, wells and aquifers across Southern Arizona, leaving a legacy that Mary Elizabeth Reynolds examines in her new book, “The Quake That Drained the Desert.”

The earthquake struck at about 3 p.m. on May 3, 1887, near Bavispe, Sonora, along the Pitayacachi fault in the San Bernardino Valley, about 40 miles south of Douglas. Modern estimates place its magnitude between 7.2 and 7.5, with Reynolds using 7.4. Shaking lasted as long as 10 minutes in some accounts, and the ground rupture extended roughly 30 miles, with displacements reaching 15 feet. Tremors were felt from Southern Arizona to El Paso and Santa Fe, and reports say church bells rang as far away as Mexico City.

Bavispe, a rural community of about 700 people, suffered the worst destruction. Its adobe homes and other buildings collapsed, including the Church of San Miguel, whose bell continued ringing as the structure crumbled. Reynolds’ account describes every building in town as destroyed. Death totals differ among historical accounts. One account records 53 deaths, more than half of them children, while another counts 41 people killed in Bavispe and nine elsewhere in Mexico. No deaths were reported in Arizona, although the damage and fear reached far into the state.

Tucson residents experienced the ground moving beneath them as if the city were on a ship. People ran from buildings, some becoming nauseated in the streets. Dust rose from the Santa Catalina Mountains, and fires appeared there after falling rocks struck one another and ignited dry vegetation. Some residents reportedly believed the mountains were volcanic. In St. David, the earthquake destroyed the stone bell tower at the church and school. At Mission San Xavier del Bac, it cracked the arch in front of the chapel and brought down the cemetery wall.

The most consequential changes, however, happened in the region’s water system. In Tucson, El Ojito Spring dried up, as did a well at the McKay house and the spring at San Xavier Mission. The earthquake redirected underground water, closing some springs and wells while creating new artesian springs, temporary lakes and other water sources elsewhere. Near San Xavier, Tohono O’odham farmers benefited when another spring opened. In St. David, the San Pedro River surged, washing away pools where mosquitoes bred and helping end a severe malaria problem. New artesian springs later continued to support walnut groves and pistachio trees.

That sudden river surge also became part of St. David’s local history. The community’s Mormon residents had considered leaving because malaria was so serious, but the flood cleared the stagnant pools that supported mosquitoes. Reynolds first learned about the earthquake while working for Sahuarita on a West Nile virus task force. A state health official mentioned the old malaria problem and explained how the 1887 earthquake had changed conditions in St. David. The story prompted Reynolds to investigate an event she had never heard discussed while growing up in Tucson.

Her research became a 15 year project conducted alongside her work as publicity manager for the University of Arizona Press. Reynolds holds a history degree and a master’s degree in urban planning, and she had also encountered earthquake science while living in California. At the University of Arizona’s Science and Engineering Library, she found an original draft of a report by José Guadalupe Aguilera Serrano, a Mexican engineer sent to investigate the disaster. She also studied reports by naturalist George Goodfellow, photographs by C.S. Fly and the work of Max Suter, a geophysicist and seismologist who spent years examining the quake. Her research included about 20 books and interviews with descendants of Bavispe residents.

Those family stories preserve details that official reports cannot. Victorio Ochoa Olivas told Reynolds that his grandmother, who was a child during the earthquake, saw the Bavispe River dry up within minutes as the earth opened and swallowed the water. Antonio Borquez Renteria shared his grandfather’s account of seeing red, muddy water shoot from newly opened springs. Another story concerns a man who entered the collapsing church and escaped with a statue of Bavispe’s patron saint. The statue remains in the replacement church, built in 1945.

Reynolds connects the quake’s hydrological changes to Southern Arizona’s later development and present water concerns. After the disaster, Tucson had to find ways to tap the Santa Cruz River upstream to replace lost water. At the same time, the region was being promoted as an agricultural and commercial opportunity, with rail access, cattle shipments and claims that farmers could grow multiple wheat crops each year. Cotton and other water intensive agriculture increased pressure on groundwater. Today, as Arizona and other Colorado River states face difficult decisions about shortages, the book offers a reminder that the region’s water supply has always been shaped by forces both natural and human.

The earthquake also remains relevant because Arizona is not free of seismic risk. The Arizona Geological Survey says moderate earthquakes occur in the state roughly every five to 10 years. Recent examples include a magnitude 4.1 earthquake near Black Canyon City in 2015 and a magnitude 5.3 event near Duncan on the Arizona and New Mexico border in 2014, which some Tucson residents felt. Geological research suggests another earthquake of the same size on the Pitayacachi fault is unlikely, with such events estimated to recur there about once every 10,000 years. Still, Reynolds advises residents to prepare for the possibility of damaging shaking by dropping, covering and holding on, while keeping a disaster kit ready for possible power and water disruptions.