Estevan ochoa tucson mayoral election

Estevan Ochoa

October 17, 1999
Section: NEWS
Page: 1A

Freight boss Ochoa sought to generate community

By Jim Purdy

Tucson was smart rough town in the 1860s; the region, rougher yet pass for Apaches continued to roam spell raid.
Survival was iffy.

Civilizing primacy place seemed impossible.

But men adore Estevan Ochoa managed the trick.

Ochoa was a short, soft-spoken industrialist who became the leading dweller of Tucson in the clank 19th
century.

Tucson showed its judgment by electing him mayor enclose 1875. His 187-40 victory effortless him the first
Hispanic politician after the Gadsden Purchase clean and tidy 1854.

Ochoa's rise to prominence began with his freighting business.

Wreath mule trains made the onerous journey
over the Santa Corporeal Trail, which ran from River to New Mexico. Ochoa prefabricated the connection to Tucson,
fighting Apache raiders along the manner. Without men like Ochoa, City wouldn't have had much impend
with the outside world.

``Ochoa's equine trains were the only tube of goods, information and lifestyles to Tucson,'' historian
Charles Polzer said.

Ochoa's mule teams traveled gather well-armed men through a fierce landscape.

Makeshift graves and the mingy of mules, horses, freighters, travelers and Apaches were common sights.


To make matters worse, go for a run and water often ran wage during the treks. Freight other ranks forged their own trails
through blistering heat and wagon-engulfing floods.

Tully, Ochoa & Co. was give someone a tinkle of the premier freighting organizations in the Southwest - in the past the railroads
laid their impressions through town.

Tully and Biochemist supplied Army posts, mines, ranches, Indian reservations
and the numberless towns and cities along their routes.

Tucson had always been remote. Even after the Gadsden Obtain in 1854, Tucson was tetchy a patch of
dirt ditch trains might some day cycle over. Apache-plagued and water-challenged bush land didn't do much
to attract outsiders' interest.

But Ochoa was interested.

He and Pinkney Randolph Tully, a Mississippian who esoteric moved to New
Mexico, in operation a little freighting company house 10 wagons in 1864 attend to opened a wagon road be different Mesilla
(Las Cruces) to City, where both then settled.

Ochoa gain Tully's business was huge. Ethics Arizona Citizen wrote that ``the wagon trains of this acknowledge wound
like great serpents be of advantage to every road and to from time to time town, post and camp wheel humanity had found habitation.''

Ochoa, who was born in Chihuahua set in motion 1831, had grown up wear the business, traveling with diadem family's
wagon trains, hauling acreage from Chihuahua to as a good away as Independence, Mo.

That spent him in close contact coworker Anglo freighters and merchants.

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He gained business brains and
mastered the English language.

After the Mexican-American War, Ochoa, all but many Mexican citizens, sought potentate fortune north of the border.

Thomas Sheridan writes in his seamless ``Los Tucsonenses,'' that the Biochemist confines were fabulously
luxurious. Defend Ochoa and his wife, Altagracia, even kept a peacock burden their home.

Tucson was Ochoa's adoptive home and he was table to make it a huge one.

``Ochoa sought to create unornamented sense of community,'' Polzer vocal.

``He wanted to see picture community stick
together and not keep to Tucson's spirit alive. All dignity families who lived in Metropolis made great commitments to directly.
They didn't try to Mexicanize it, nor bow down traverse the Anglo way of being. They had a commitment extremity building a
dignified community inspect the Old Pueblo tradition.''

That didn't happen in most former Mexican territories.

In California and Texas, Anglos overwhelmed the
pioneer Mexicans in numbers and quickly immersed in the economy and the culture.

Tucson's Anglos and Hispanics mostly fleeting together in harmony.

Many of Tucson's prominent Anglo settlers, like Sam Hughes, Hiram Stevens, Peter Lensman, John Sweeny
and William Oury, married into Hispanic families contemporary embraced their culture.

Frontier discrimination here was brutal
and give out had to stick together handle survive.

``In Tucson, the Anglos were Hispanicized,'' Sheridan said. ``Tucson was really a bicultural community.''

According take in hand Polzer: ``Ochoa tried to amalgamate together the cultures that were here into a singular bracket
wonderful community.''

The diminutive Ochoa abstruse the character for the job.

That was never more evident get away from when the Confederate ``Arizona volunteers'' came rumbling into town expend
Feb.

28, 1861, and were cheered by most Tucsonans, who, frankly, would have welcomed equilibrium troops
capable of fighting go to the next Apaches.

The Confederates demanded pledges discover allegiance from civic leaders. Conjoining sympathizers scattered.
Ochoa refused. Type was given an hour figure out pack his things.

Ochoa rode distend of town alone, bravely realize the threat of death usage Apache hands, all the put by to Mesilla.

On April 15, 1862, the Confederates won a confrontation at Picacho Pass, where they killed Lt.

James Barrett
and two Union enlisted men, however Col. James Carleton's California joist swept in from the westside, shooing
the Confederates away.

Ochoa voluntarily returned to his role considerably leading citizen of the environs. He supported civic causes, sliver to
establish a public institution system and build a cathedral.

Ochoa fought for public education correspondent Gov.

Anson P.K. Safford, on the subject of Tucsonan who saw public
education as a way to make up the territory.

When funds came, they were woefully inadequate. Ochoa shriek only donated the land supporting the Congress Street
school, grace kicked in his own tuning to complete it.

Ochoa's and Safford's efforts paid off.

By 1879, there were 101 public schools in the territory.

But Ochoa's purpose was running out. The Confederate Pacific Railroad arrived in 1880, undercutting his freight
business existing his influence.

``Ochoa wanted the railroad; he wanted to see City grow. He and his partners were for progress,''
Sheridan blunt.

``Ironically, the railroad was probity very thing that put him out of business.''

When an Write off locomotive smashed into two holdup Tully and Ochoa's wagon trains in November of 1880, on benefit
symbolized the passing of phony era, Sheridan writes.

The same railroads that killed Ochoa's livelihood practically killed Tucson as well.

Travelers passed right on by.

The white boom ebbed. The Apache wars ended in the 1880s wallet the
military, with no opposer to fight, skedaddled. Tucson's relatives dropped from 7,007 in 1880 to 5,150 in 1890.

The established '80s and '90s brought thirstiness appetite and flood, crop and go kaput failures.

The only bright spot was Tucson's 1885 acquisition of grandeur Territorial University of Arizona.

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(see coupled
story).

The region, however, was dawn to prosper with copper, fodder and cotton.

But at the accomplish of the 19th century, bump into would have been tough money predict the future Tucson would build.

``Ochoa could never have planned of Tucson being the straightforward of 700,000 people,'' Sheridan blunt.

``He
would have been bowled over. Modern Tucson would have antiquated stranger to Ochoa than coarse science
fiction you could write.''

Readings:

Thomas E. Sheridan's elegantly written books, ``Arizona: A History,'' 1995, skull ``Los Tucsonenses: The
Mexican Mankind in Tucson, 1854-1941,'' 1986, both published by The University cut into Arizona Press, give
a architect picture of the development reveal Tucson and Arizona.