Papa and I drove about an hour and forty minutes this morning, to the ruins of Presidio Santa Cruz de Terrenate. The Presidio was established on a bluff overlooking the San Pedro River in southeast Arizona, by an Irish-born Spanish Army Colonel, Hugo Oconor, in 1775, for the King of Spain Charles III. It is one of several similar presidios that extended from Louisiana to Southern California. The Presidio was abandoned in 1780 because of continuous attacks by Apache. It was briefly occupied by the United States Army in 1878. We hiked over two miles round trip from the parking area to the Presidio site. There’s not much left, but the views were beautiful. We stood above the San Pedro River, listening to the tinkling of cottonwood leaves.
We drove another forty five minutes to Whitewater Draw. We missed the noon return of the sandhill cranes, but they were there, along the periphery of Whitewater Draw, honking away! We found a nice spot on a viewing platform for a picnic, and listened to thousands of birds for about an hour.
We retraced our trip, and visited Fairbanks, an historic townsite, that was an Old West railroad town, founded in 1882 during the Tombstone silver boom. For over 20 years, Fairbanks was Tombstone’s train depot. The town had an elegant hotel, several businesses, a school and post office. It attracted immigrants from all over the world, who worked on the railroad, in businesses, and on local ranches. The train depot closed in 1966 and the post office closed in 1972, marking the official end of the town. We explored the buildings still standing and walked through an old mesquite forest to the San Pedro River. We had a good day!
