[86]The climate is noted for its mildness and salubrity. There is a local saying, “If a man wants to die in San Antonio, he must go somewhere else!”
[87]Pronounced ah´la-mo, Spanish for cottonwood. The name was probably given from cottonwoods growing near by. The Church of the Alamo was erected in 1744.
[88]The reader, curious for details of the San Antonio Missions, as well as items of local secular history, is referred to Wm. Corner’s “San Antonio de Béxar.” He will also be interested in a picturesque sketch of San Antonio as it was nearly half a century ago, by the Southern poet Sidney Lanier, who in quest of health passed the winter of 1872-3 here, and here made his resolve, faithfully carried out, to devote the remainder of his life to music and poetry. The sketch is printed in a collection of Lanier’s essays entitled “Retrospects and Prospects.”
[89]These three Missions were originally located about 15 years earlier on sites some distance from San Antonio. Scarcity of irrigation water is given as one important cause of their removal in 1731 to the banks of the San Antonio River.
[90]Silver and gold gave it its start. Its name is believed to be due to a huge bowlder or globe of silver weighing 300 pounds, found there in 1876.
[91]Pronounced Too-son´. It is the name applied by the neighboring Papago Indians to a mountain at the west of the present town, and according to Dr. W. J. McGee, means “black base.” Tucson’s first appearance in history seems to have been in 1763, as an Indian village whose spiritual needs were served by the missionaries of San Xavier del Bac. In 1776 a Spanish presídio was established here, and the little pueblo became San Agustin de Tucson. An edifice, originally a church dedicated to St. Augustine but now a lodging house, still faces the old Spanish plaza of the town.
[92]“An escutcheon with a white ground filed in with a twisted cord ... and a cross on which are nailed one arm of Our Saviour and one of St. Francis, representing the union of the disciple and the divine Master in charity and love. The arm of our Lord is bare while that of St. Francis is covered.” (Salpointe, “Soldiers of the Cross.”)
[93]Engelhardt, “The Franciscans in Arizona.” The diaries of Garcés are marked by naïve charm and simplicity. One, translated and elaborately annotated by the late Dr. Elliott Coues, has been published under the title “On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer.”
[94]It stands on the west (opposite) side of the river from the railway, a fact that may be fraught with trouble; for the river, which is ordinarily insignificant enough to be crossed on a plank, is capable of becoming after storms a raging flood 200 feet wide and 20 deep. Under such circumstances, it is the part of wisdom to motor from Tucson.
[95]In the sanctuary were interred, and I suppose still repose, the bones of the Franciscan Padres Baltasar Carillo and Narciso Gutierres, whom Archbishop Salpointe in his “Soldiers of the Cross,” credits with being the supervising builders both of the present church of Tumacácori and that of San Xavier.