Calabasas
About this property
Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas, also known as Calabasas, is a Spanish Mission in the Sonoran Desert, located near present-day Tumacacori, Arizona, United States. The original San Cayetano mission at Tumacacori was founded by Eusebio Kino in 1691, on Kino's first major exploration trip into the Pimeria Alta. During the O'odham rebellion of 1751, this mission was destroyed. In 1756, Francisco Xavier Pauer re-established the mission, taking at least seventy-eight O'odham from their village of Toacuquita near the Santa Cruz River. He performed the mission's first baptism on April 20, 1756. On November 1 of the same year, Pauer relocated the mission to the south, putting it on the bluffs to the east of the Santa Cruz, upstream of the confluence with Sonoita Creek. By May 1761, a report said the mission had a house with a lock and a half-built church. A church report in 1772 described the mission as having a population 64: 21 men, 24 women and 19 children. It described the location as being on an open plain with good lands, but that the Indians do little or no farming, and that there was no church or house for the missionary. However by 1773 the church was functional and in 1775, Pedro Font said mass there during the first Juan Bautista de Anza expedition to the upper part of Las Californias. In 1777, the mission church, houses and the granary filled with maize, were sacked and set afire during a raid by part of a band of Apache, apostate O’odham, and Seris that had similarly attacked Magdalena and other Pimería Alta communities during 1776. The mission O’odham killed 14 of the raiders but lost 7 of their own. The Mission was abandoned in 1786 when the last of the O'odham left because of continuing hostilities by the Apaches. Between 1807 and 1830 the settlement area was used as an estancia (farm) for nearby Mission San José de Tumacácori. In 1808, Spanish settlers and Christian Indians moved into the Calabazas area and restored the chapel. In response, the Apaches again attacked in 1830, setting fire to the buildings and carrying off sacred vessels and vestments in the process. This discouraged anyone from living there for more than two decades, but vaqueros from Tumacácori continued to run cattle in the vicinity. In 1837, the Mexican government built Presidio de Calabasas to protect the area. In 1844, Mission Calabasas and its lands were sold at auction to the brother-in-law of Sonoran governor Manuel María Gándara. Gandara established a rancho at the old mission stocked with 6,000 cattle. The 1854 Gadsden Purchase, of land by the U.S. from México, included this area in New Mexico Territory. Mexican Army soldiers, in the Tucson garrison to protect the citizens from Apaches, withdrew from the Gadsden Purchase territory early in 1856. With their withdrawal the Gándara ranch came to an end.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Calabasas listed on the National Register?
Calabasas was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 2, 1971.
What type of historic resource is Calabasas?
Calabasas is classified as a site in the National Register of Historic Places.
Is Calabasas a National Historic Landmark?
Yes. Calabasas has been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL), the highest level of federal recognition for historic properties in the United States.
What is the period of significance for Calabasas?
The period of significance for Calabasas is recorded as the listed era.
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