The area of Oro Valley has been inhabited intermittently for nearly two thousand years by various groups of people. The Native American Hohokam tribe lived in the Honeybee Village located in the foothills of the Tortolita Mountains on Oro Valley's far north side around 500 AD. Hohokam artifacts are still being discovered in the Honeybee Village site that the Hohokam inhabited continuously for nearly 700 years.
Early in the 16th century, Native American tribes known as the Apache arrived in the southern Arizona area, including Oro Valley. These tribes inhabited the region only a few decades prior to the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors, including Francisco Coronado. The Spanish established forts in the area, including the Presidio at Tucson (1775) beginning in the late 16th century.
Beginning in the 19th century, Americans increasingly settled in the Arizona Territory, following the Mexican-American War and the subsequent Gadsden Purchase that included the area of southern Arizona. George Pusch, a German immigrant, settled in the area of Oro Valley in 1874 and established a cattle ranch. This ranch was unique because it utilized a steam pump to provide water, eventually popularizing Pusch's property as the Steam Pump Ranch on the Cañada del Oro. The steam pump was one of only two in the Arizona Territory.
Pusch's ranch provided respite for settlers and travelers entering and leaving the Tucson area. Pusch Ridge is named in honor of George Pusch.
Ranching in the area continued to flourish as greater numbers of Americans settled in the Arizona Territory. Large ranching families in the Oro Valley area included the Romeros and the Rooneys.
Gold rushers into the American West also were attracted to southern Arizona, where gold was said to be in abundance in and around the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. Fueled by the legend of the lost Iron Door Gold Mine in the mountains, those in search of gold trekked through the Oro Valley area focusing their attention along the Cañada del Oro washbed.
After World War II, the Tucson area experienced dramatic population growth, impacting Oro Valley as well. In the early 1950s, the Oro Valley Country Club opened at the base of Pusch Ridge, affirming the area's future as an affluent community. Although one tract housing development was built in the area in the early 1950s, the majority of the original homes in the Oro Valley area were built by individual land owners in a large ranch residential style.
The community continued to grow gradually, and area residents increasingly desired local control of the land in the area. In the late 1960s, incorporation became a greater focus in Oro Valley. Tucson Mayor James M. Corbett, Jr. expressed great interest in expanding the Tucson city limits to the far north side of Pima County. Corbett vowed to bring the Oro Valley area into Tucson "kicking and screaming," alluding to the reservations Oro Valley residents expressed about joining Tucson.
A petition to incorporate began to circulate in Oro Valley. The Pima County Board of Supervisors officially refused to allow Oro Valley to incorporate, and litigation followed. Ultimately, in 1974 a group of area residents successfully incorporated the Town of Oro Valley, then only 2.4 square miles in size. Oro Valley was centered primarily around the Oro Valley Country Club and Canyon del Oro High School. The Town began with a population of nearly 1,200.
|
