Exclusive Dove Mountain Homes

Interestingly, the Hohokam lived in the desert, but used their ingenuity to create an agricultural community. Building canals to purge water from perennial rivers to their fields. Main canals were miles in length and had short irrigation ditches as offshoots to provide water to the fields. This system funneled water to the fields above the normal flood plain of the perennial rivers. The Hohokam also used a technique of flooding the fields with water to irrigate crops.

Hohokam fabricated homes from sticks and clay. It is estimated the over 5,000 homes during their period of existence.

Findings of artifacts and remenants of their homes provides evidence that a major Hohokam community existed in the Dove Mountain area.

For some unexplainable reason, here is a gap in the history of the Tucson Basin from 1500 A.D to the mid 1700’s. This is when the first Spanish visitors found an Akimel O'odham village, at the base of Sentinel Peak - the hill with the large "A" now painted on it. Spaniards adopted the name as "Tucson" when laying out the Presidio of San Agustín del Tucson in 1775.

Attacks by roving Apache made fortifications necessary, so adobe walls 12 feet high and 750 feet long enclosed the new settlement. Mexico inherited Tucson from Spain after the 1821 revolution, but little changed except the flag.

Tucson joined the United States with the Gadsden Purchase in June 1854, but 21 months of boundary-marking and bureaucratic delays passed before the arrival of American officialdom in the form of the army's First Dragoons.

Although Apache continued to menace settlers and travelers, Americans began to arrive in force, and the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach soon opened service to Tucson. To cope with the desert climate, Anglos adopted much of the food, building techniques, and other customs of the Mexicans. You'll see the results of these practices, as well as of Anglo-Mexican intermarriage, in Tucson's cultural mix.

By 1880, when the first train rolled in, the population had grown to over 7,000. The Arizona Territorial University – now the University of Arizona - opened its doors in 1891. Built on land donated by a saloonkeeper and a pair of gamblers and funded by an award from the 13th Territorial Legislature of $25,000

The scrubby cactus land north of Tucson that butts against the Tortolita Mountains – now known as Dove Mountain - used to be populated mostly by cows and a few ranch hands.

The T Bench Bar was one of those ranches. It was purchased by Eugene "Cush" Cayton in the late 1920’s. “Cush” built a stone house atop one of the smallest peaks so that he and his wife Inez, could watch the red desert sunsets. Inez was a concert pianist, and Cush had a grand piano hauled up that rocky slope so his wife could play in the evenings. Most days, just before sunset, the ranch hands would wander in from their dusty day's labor to put up their horses and listen to Mozart and Brahms wafting down from Inez' piano. The Cayton family maintained the ranch until the mid 1980’s.

With archaeological evidence that suggests the Tucson Basin is the longest continuously inhabited region - over 10,000 years - in the United States it is no suprise that it continues as a "place to be". Whether for a week end, a "winter season" or to put your stake in this historic ground to make it - YOUR HOME!

The Dove Mountain area and the many amenidites it provides offers one of the premier places in the United States to call home.

The Ritz Carlton thinks so, too. Cottonwood Development has just anounced it plans to build on of the largest Ritz Carlton branded resort in the United States. Read the story and view the interview about this exciting project

Then call us to discuss your interests in owning a piece of history and a great place to call home.