Audio tourThe Old Pueblo: Discovering Tucson’s Heritage

Welcome to Tucscon! Tucson is a fascinating mix of Native American cultural heritage, Spanish colonial and Mexican architecture, and the legacy of the Old West, when the town served as a post and railway station. The town itself was founded with the building of the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in 1775, though several Native American peoples had made their home in the area prior to this time. The name of the city comes from the O'odham word Cuk Son, which means “at the base of the black mountain” in the language spoken by the Tohono O'odham people who inhabited the area when the Spanish arrived. After Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, Tucson became part of the state of Sonora and remained under Mexican control until the US took the region over with the 1853 Gadsden Purchase. The town boomed with the expansion of the US westward and experienced a wild period of growth and of stagecoach robberies and wild west debauchery before becoming a state in 1912. The rich multicultural legacies of the city's past and its proximity to the Mexican border just sixty miles south make Tucson one of the most fascinating cities in the region.

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Photo “Tucson, Arizona Sunset” by My Discovery is licensed under CC BY 2.0