According to the National Park Service, NHAs leverage an average of $5.50 for every $1 of federal investment to create jobs, generate local government revenue, and sustain local communities through revitalization and heritage tourism.
The rural economy of the Santa Cruz Valley has long since relied on the use of the land, specifically through ranching and mining. When the region was acquired from Mexico, the military was tasked with protecting these economic interests from Apache attacks. Much of this economic or commercial heritage remains today, with working landscapes an important part of the rural economy and an Air Force base an important part of the urban economy.
The following interpretive themes of the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area further highlight the region’s cultural heritage and include Ranching Traditions, Mining Booms, and U.S. Military Posts on the Mexican Border.
Grasslands habitat near the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. Photo courtesy Pete Gregoire.
Ranching Traditions
Since the introduction by Spaniards of cattle, horses, and other livestock into the Santa Cruz Valley in the late 1600s, ranching and farming have continued to be two mainstays of the rural economy for more than 300 years. Most of the earliest cattle ranches were established at mission communities, but to attract settlers to the area and thereby increase productivity in the region, the Spanish and Mexican governments also offered substantial land grants. Unfortunately, few settlers actually lived on their land grants for long due to the ongoing threat of Apache attacks. Instead, many ranchers lived in military or mission communities for defense, only venturing out occasionally to visit their ranches and check on their livestock.
This pattern of settlement and ranching persisted until the American Territorial period, when American and Mexican ranchers established new ranches and homesteads throughout the region, often sharing labor and mutual assistance. Today, the interplay of Hispanic, American, Mexican, and Native American ranching continues this historical and living tradition, providing a link to the past and to the future.
Deeply rooted in the Spanish Colonial, Mexican, and American Territorial periods, ranching has been the primary land use of the Santa Cruz Valley for 300 years, whether along the actual course of the Santa Cruz River or along its tributaries and mountain uplands. Ranching today persists as testimony to those Spanish missionaries who introduced cattle, horses, and other livestock, Hispanic and Mexican settlers who established land grant ranches, American families who homesteaded lands that continue in family ownership today, and to all those who endured the many hardships of ranching on the frontier in a harsh environment.
Descendants of these explorers, pioneer settlers, adventurers, soldiers, and even the descendants of Spanish horses and cattle, continue a living tradition and a living landscape in the Santa Cruz Valley that is like no other.
To learn more about Ranching Traditions read more here.
Mining Booms and Ghost Towns
Historians have concluded that the legends of lost mines and treasures of early missionaries are nineteenth-century fabrications and that mining was not of major importance on this part of the Spanish and Mexican frontier. Mining took on greater importance after the region became part of the United States in 1854.
Repeated mining rushes for gold and silver created boomtowns that briefly flourished and then were abandoned. Although a few gold discoveries received considerable interest, silver was the main object of mining in the area. At the end of the 1800s, a collapse in the value of silver and the new demand for electrical wire shifted the area’s focus to copper mining. For more than a century, the region has been one of the most important producers of copper in the world.
To learn more about Mining Booms read more here.
U.S. Military Posts on the Mexico Border
The first U.S. Army post was established here in 1856, soon after the region was acquired from Mexico. The post’s first duty was to protect ranches and mines from Apache attacks, which escalated just before troops were withdrawn at the beginning of the Civil War to be redeployed back East. For a few months in 1862, the Confederate flag flew over the region until Union troops arrived from California and recaptured it following the westernmost skirmishes of the Civil War. In 1865, American soldiers were moved closer to the border to defend it against French troops that had invaded Mexico and occupied Sonora. Between 1866 and 1886, several new posts were established, and this region was the frontline of major campaigns to pacify the Apaches.
A new post was established on the border in 1910, when the Mexican Revolution threatened to spill across into the United States. In 1916, this region was a staging area for the Punitive Expedition that crossed into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa after he attacked a town in southern New Mexico. Until the beginning of the United States’ involvement in the First World War, the military presence was increased by National Guard units mobilized from western states to protect the border. From 1918 to 1933, the border was guarded by African American cavalry and infantry regiments known as “Buffalo Soldiers.”
During the Second World War, airfields established in the region were important training bases. Because of the area’s dry climate, thousands of decommissioned aircraft have been stored here since 1945. Bomber groups and intercontinental missiles deployed here were critical parts of the national defense during the Cold War. Today, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base continues to play an important part in supporting and training U.S. forces and participating in the local economy.
To learn more about Military Posts on the Border read more here.
