Downtown Tucson walking tour: 300 years of Spanish history along Main Street

Find out how downtown Tucson transformed from a prehistoric village into an architecturally rich neighborhood where some of the Southwest’s leading architects left their mark. Our walking tour starts outside the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum, once an 11-acre Spanish fort, where you’ll learn what daily life was like for early settlers in the late 1700s. From there, you’ll be transported into something akin to a wild western scene with the tale of how four hundred attacking Apaches were fought off by a handful of Spanish soldiers in 1782.

From the reconstructed walls and lookout tower of the old fort, you’ll walk down streets once traveled by oxcarts and burro (mule) pack trains to Old Town Artisans, a collection of arts and craft shops. Along the way, I’ll point out Sonoran row houses made of adobe bricks like Casa de Cordova, which was restored and dedicated by First Lady Betty Ford in 1974. Just a few blocks and two centuries away, you’ll see what local historians call “The Mansions of Main Street” including the Tucson Museum Of Art and J Knox Corbett House. En route, you’ll learn about the successful pioneers, doctors, lawyers, and mining tycoons who hired the best architects, influenced by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, to build their magnificent homes.

On this Tucson tour, you can also look forward to:

• Finding out about some of the area’s unusual Spanish street names, like Calle de La India Triste (Street of the sad Indian)
• Learning about the Owl’s Club and the exclusive, lavish parties thrown by the unmarried men that formed its membership
• Passing by Café a la C’Arte where you’ll find delicious pastries
• Seeing El Charro Café, the oldest Mexican restaurant in Tucson and home of the chimichanga
• Hearing the story of the Main Avenue lawyer who hid from Wyatt Earp after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral
• Discovering why Franklin Street was named after Albert Banta and why he was known as Buckskin Charley

Join me on this hour-long walk where you’ll see over six of downtown Tucson’s architectural styles built by some of the Southwest’s leading architects, and hear the stories of the people who turned those mansions into homes.