This park came up as an option as we were looking for points of interest in the Tucson area. The park has a museum and gift shop and the grounds include a preserved Spanish mission building, cemetery, and the remnants of several other buildings from the era.
The America the Beautiful Annual National Parks Pass has allowed us to enjoy many gorgeous and interesting places. Beside the opportunity to visit many awesome and diverse scenic areas, we really appreciate the opportunity to learn about some of our country’s heritage at locations like Tumacácori. It is neat to see how local history at seemingly remote locations has had national impact in many ways.
We learned just as much about the National Park Service’s preservation efforts as we did about the efforts of the Spanish missionaries and indigenous people that are significant to this location. The NPS has a policy of preservation, not restoration. All restorations that were done to this structure were done prior to NPS management of the property.
The earliest inhabitants of this area had the utmost respect for the land and made the most of the natural resources that were available. The missionaries and early settlers followed that example, but also introduced a European and even a Mediterranean influence to the area. This could be seen in the building techniques, architecture, and the crops that were grown. There is an orchard at Tumacácori that has been recreated to represent what missionaries would have been growing at the time. Some of these were native plants that were cultivated, and some were non-native species that were brought from Spain. Trees such as the Quince would not survive on their own, but with cultivation and irrigation they produced regular harvest at the mission.
