History Preserved: Tumacacori

Tumacacori Mission

  
In my post, "White Dove of the Desert," dated August 15, 2012, I write about a mission founded in 1692 by Jesuit priest Father Eusebio Kino.  Father Kino helped establish many other missions between Nogales and Tucson during his quest to convert native people to Catholicism, and San Xavier de Bac (the White Dover of the Desert) is one of the few that remains an active parish.  Many others have fallen into ruin.  The National Park Service protects three of these ruins as Tumacacori National Historic Park, located about 18 miles north of the Mexican border and 50 miles south of Tucson.  If you visit between January and March, you can reserve a tour of all three missions--Tumacacori, Guevavi, and Calabazas--through www.recreation.gov.  At any other time, however, visitors can only visit the Tumacacori structures.



Not much ornamentation remains.

The Park Service has done an excellent job of preserving Tumacacori.  The mission was attacked by Apaches several times and had to be rebuilt.  Unfortunately, the resident Padre was unable to fund full restoration of the church from damage brought by attacks after the 1800's.  Researchers believe the mission was abandoned some time around 1824.

We explored the church itself as well as the cemetery, which contains several graves and is still regarded by the Tohono O'odom people as sacred.   Walls, once surrounding the orchards, gardens, and field which supplied food for the mission, can still be traced.  The mission grew apples, pomegranates, peaches, pears, and monk's pepper, and some trees have been replanted by the Park Service.  Irrigation ditches are still visible, as is the remains of a kiln once used in building the mission structures.

Looking at the courtyard.

As we explored the park, it was easy for me to imagine life here as it once was.  The park is a quiet place with a feeling of peacefulness that made me want to sit and visualize.  It is good to remind ourselves that life was not always as busy, as easy, nor as safe as it can be today, and that if not for those who came before us, our lives may be different.




The cemetery.

Inside Tumacacori Mission