Tubac Presidio State Historic Park

The presidio was raised at Tubac in 1752 — Arizona's first European settlement — after the Pima Revolt of 1751 led by Luis Oacpicagigua of Saric burned the earlier mission farms to ash. The Spanish needed a fortified garrison this far north. They got Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac, and for two decades it held the line against Apache raids while mission communities took root along the Santa Cruz River valley.

In early 1774, Juan Bautista de Anza rode through on reconnaissance, plotting an overland route to the San Francisco Bay. He returned the following year with 240 colonists — sixty-three of them Tubac residents who'd signed on — and gathered more than a thousand head of livestock here before departing in October 1775 to found what would become San Francisco. The garrison moved north to Tucson soon after, leaving Tubac undefended. Apache pressure emptied the presidio. It was reactivated in 1787 with Pima and O'odham troops under Spanish officers, holding until Mexican independence in 1821.

The Gadsden Purchase brought American miners in 1854. Charles Poston ran the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company out of Tubac, paid workers in scrip he printed himself, performed marriages, granted divorces, and printed Arizona's first newspaper in 1859. By 1860, Tubac was the largest town in what would become Arizona. The Civil War pulled the soldiers east. The Apaches came back. The town never recovered its weight.

The underground archaeology exhibit preserves the presidio's excavated foundations — walls and footings exposed by University of Arizona crews in 1974. The 1885 schoolhouse still has its desks and chalkboards. The museum covers four eras: American Indian (pre-1752), Spanish Colonial (1752–1821), Mexican Republic (1821–1854), Anglo Territorial (1854–1912). Anza Days each October brings reenactors up the trail from Tumacácori to mark the expedition's departure. Arizona's first state park, established 1958.