Some of you may be familiar with our Downtown History & Libation Tour that we use to host once a month.
NOW AVAILABLE is our Self-Guided Tucson History and Dining Tour: A Walkabout the Old Pueblo in Search of Saloonkeeper George Hand’s 1870’s Tucson. Just in case you cannot make one of our tours or prefer to explore yourself.
In the book you will join us for a grand tour of downtown Tucson where you will hop on the streetcar and see the site of the original Convento, a Spanish-era administrative building located along the perennially flowing Santa Cruz River; and the Barrio Viejo, the old neighborhood before it was bulldozed to make way for the Convention Center and Music Hall. Then proceed to the Sosa-Carrillo-Fremont House where you will meet Señor Carrillo and his family and learn about his magnificent Carrillo Gardens a few blocks to the south. And about Camino Real, the Royal Road that passed this way in the Spanish era and became Main Street.
This tour leads you past La Plaza de la Mesilla or Church Plaza and lets you visualize the first Catholic Church that became a bordello. And to the 2nd County Courthouse where George Hand spent his last days and wrote about four lynchings that took place here. Here you can read the story of the old whipping post, see the monument to the Mormon Battalion, and read about what happened on their 2000-mile trek from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California when they came to the little Mexican village of Tucson. Then proceed past the site of the first Presbyterian Church to the monument for Father Kino and read about the gifts he had for the Natives he encountered here.
Learn how Edward Fish, a prominent mercantile proprietor in early Tucson made his fortune, the death of Hiram Stevens, a prominent Tucson politician, and about the mob that gathered at the home of Sam Hughes, a local businessman before it marched to Aravaipa Canyon to massacre a peaceful group of Apaches.
Enjoy a cold brew at LaCo and shop at Old Town Artisans. Then visit El Presidio del Tucson, the historical reproduction of the early Spanish fort that protected Tucsonans from marauding Apaches.
You can visit the 3rd Pima County Courthouse. Then proceed to the once opulent Pioneer Hotel and read the story of its demise in the fire of 1970.
Take the streetcar to the old Southern Pacific Railroad Depot and enjoy refreshments at Maynards Market & Kitchen. At the north end of the Depot, visit the Transportation Museum, see the locomotive that starred in the musical Oklahoma and take a photograph with the statues of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Read their Tucson story before heading to the Hotel Congress and reading about the capture of the Dillinger Gang in 1934, perhaps having lunch at the Cup Cafe.
This is an engaging History Tour, fun and educational, one to tell your friends about.
You can purchase the online version here for $20, or we will send you a hard copy with a link to the online version for just $5 more. Just send us a note for more information.
