"hold my hand a little longer/ take one last look out over the fields/ to the reds and the browns"

[larryhammer]

From a 1918 guidebook to Arizona and New Mexico:

[O]ne of the most interesting little cities of the Southwest—Tucson. It may be that not all will find this oasis town, lapped in the desert and girt about with low mountains, as much to their liking as I do, but I believe it possesses features worth going back on one’s tracks to see; for it has a decided character of its own. With an out-and-out modern American side, there is the grace of an historic past, whose outward and visible sign is a picturesque Spanish quarter in adobe, pink, blue and glaring white, clustering about a sleepy old plaza and trailing off through a fringe of Indian ranchería to the blazing desert.

The only local sight it then points up is the mission of San Xavier del Bac, which is actually a few miles south of town, on the reservation.

---L.

Subject quote from "Diamond Mountain," Luka Bloom.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Where was the plaza?

[larryhammer]

I'm not sure whether what's meant is now El Presidio Park in the heart of downtown or someplace south/west of that. A local map from the time might help.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Okay, the Plaza shows up in image two of this official map from 1918. El Presidio Park covers the eastern half of the Plaza, while the western half is now occupied by City Hall.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Interesting! So it remained largely unbuilt.

[larryhammer]

Well, aside from an underground parking garage, a couple fountains, and the accouterments of a modern civil park.