98 Fun Facts About Tucson

Tucson was founded in 1775 as which kind of Spanish outpost?

A military fort: Irish-born Spanish officer Hugo O'Conor picked the site for the Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón in 1775, and soldiers marched north from Tubac the next year to build it.

A giant whitewashed 'A' for the University of Arizona sits on which landmark west of downtown?

Sentinel Peak earned its everyday name, 'A' Mountain, after students built the 160-foot basalt 'A' in 1916 following a football win over Pomona College.

Tucson is commonly known by which nickname?

'The Old Pueblo' is commonly traced to an 1880 mayoral telegram announcing that the 'ancient and honorable pueblo' had a railroad, a phrase newspaper writers then shortened.

Tucson served as capital of the Arizona Territory during which years?

Tucson was territorial capital from 1867 to 1877; Prescott held it before and after, and Phoenix took over for good in 1889.

Tucson became part of the United States in 1854 through which land deal?

The Gadsden Purchase bought the land south of the Gila River for $10 million; the U.S. Army did not formally take control of Tucson until March 1856.

Tucson is the seat of which Arizona county?

Pima County, one of Arizona's four original counties, once took in nearly all of the territory south of the Gila River; Cochise and Graham counties were later carved out of it.

The University of Arizona, the first university in the Arizona Territory, was founded in which year?

The 1885 territorial legislature gave Tucson the university with a $25,000 allocation; the city had hoped for the mental hospital, which came with $100,000.

Arizona became the Wildcats after a 1914 football loss to which California college?

After Arizona's hard-fought 1914 loss to Occidental College in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times wrote that the Arizona men 'showed the fight of wildcats'.

Which Arizona Wildcats motto comes from the last message of quarterback John 'Button' Salmon, who died in 1926?

Bear Down: after a car crash, Salmon, who was also student body president, asked coach Pop McKale to 'tell the team to bear down', and the phrase became the university's slogan and fight song.

The University of Arizona's giant-telescope mirror lab is tucked beneath which campus structure?

The Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab sits under the east stands of Arizona Stadium, the football stadium, spin-casting honeycomb mirrors such as the 8.4-meter mirror for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

Which of Saguaro National Park's two units lies east of Tucson?

The Rincon Mountain District is the original 1933 monument; President Kennedy added the western Tucson Mountain District in 1961, and Congress joined the two as a national park in 1994.

Which outgoing president created Saguaro National Monument in March 1933, days before leaving office?

Herbert Hoover signed the proclamation on March 1, 1933, in his last week in office, after University of Arizona president Homer Shantz had pushed for years to protect the cactus forest.

Which of these does a saguaro, the cactus of Tucson's national park, usually grow last?

Arm: a saguaro flowers and fruits for years before its first arm appears, usually at 50 to 100 years of age, and each arm lets it carry more flowers and fruit.

Mission San Xavier del Bac, about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, is known by what nickname?

The 'White Dove of the Desert' takes its name from the gleaming white church that Franciscans completed in 1797, the oldest European structure in Arizona.

Which Jesuit missionary founded Mission San Xavier del Bac, south of Tucson?

Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit explorer and mapmaker, chose the site in the 1690s, but the church seen today was finished by Franciscans in 1797, after Spain expelled the Jesuits in 1767.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is named after two Tucson men who died how?

In military air crashes, separately: Samuel Davis died in 1921 and Oscar Monthan in 1924, both Army fliers from Tucson families, though Davis was born in Tennessee and Monthan in England.

Which famous aviator flew into Tucson in 1927 to dedicate Davis-Monthan airfield?

Charles Lindbergh stopped in Tucson on the 48-state tour he flew for the Guggenheim fund to promote aviation, months after his solo Atlantic crossing, and dedicated the city's new airfield.

A museum in Sahuarita, south of Tucson, preserves the last intact launch complex of which ICBM?

Titan II complex 571-7 came off alert in 1982 and became a museum; its silo door is fixed half open, as an arms agreement required, so satellites could confirm the missile can't launch.

Kitt Peak National Observatory, west of Tucson, sits on land leased from which Native nation?

The Tohono O'odham Nation leased the mountain for the observatory in 1958; in 2005 it sued to stop a new telescope array there, calling the peak sacred, and the National Science Foundation halted the work.

Biosphere 2, the giant sealed glass research facility north of Tucson, is located in which community?

Oracle is home to the 3.14-acre glasshouse, built in the late 1980s to test whether people could live sealed off as in a space colony; the University of Arizona has owned it since 2011.

What was draining the oxygen that ran low inside Biosphere 2 during its sealed 1991–93 mission?

Soil microbes were using the oxygen up as they broke down the over-rich soil, and the carbon dioxide they gave off was locked away by the building's concrete, so it never showed up in the air.

Which Tucson event, long held at the convention center, began in 1955 at an elementary school?

The Gem and Mineral Show began as a mineral society's exhibit in an elementary school, soon moved to a Quonset hut at the fairgrounds, and reached the convention center in 1973.

El Tour de Tucson, first held in 1983, is a mass-participation event for which activity?

El Tour de Tucson is a road cycling ride that Richard DeBernardis started in 1983 with fewer than 200 riders; it has since drawn thousands each November and raises money for local charities.

Tucson schools close on a Thursday and Friday each February so families can attend which event?

The Tucson Rodeo, La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, dates to 1925; schools shut so families can watch its parade of horses and wagons, billed as the nation's largest non-motorized parade.

Sun Link, opened in 2014, is what kind of Tucson transit line?

A streetcar: Sun Link returned regular service to a city whose last electric streetcars gave way to buses on December 31, 1930.

In 2015 UNESCO named Tucson the first US City of what?

City of Gastronomy: UNESCO pointed to the longest agricultural history of any US city, with food crops grown in the Tucson valley for some 4,000 years.

A Sonoran hot dog, a Tucson street-food staple, is wrapped in what before it hits the grill?

Bacon wraps the frank, which is grilled and tucked into a soft bolillo-style bun under beans, onions and tomatoes; the style came north from Hermosillo, Sonora, sold from street carts by vendors called dogueros.

Monica Flin of which Tucson restaurant is credited with accidentally inventing the chimichanga?

At El Charro Café, Flin reportedly began to swear with a word starting 'chi-' but, with children nearby, switched to 'chimichanga', Spanish for thingamajig.

Which Tucson restaurant won a 2018 James Beard America's Classics award for its Sonoran hot dogs?

El Güero Canelo began in 1993 as a food cart run by Sonora native Daniel Contreras and grew into full restaurants before the James Beard Foundation named it an America's Classic in 2018.

A 1934 fire at Tucson's Hotel Congress led to the capture of which bank robber's gang?

John Dillinger and his gang were hiding at the hotel under aliases; firemen who carried out their luggage identified them, and police arrested the gang in Tucson on January 25, 1934.

Old Tucson Studios, the Western movie set turned theme park, was largely destroyed in 1995 by what?

A fire in April 1995 destroyed 25 buildings on the set built for the 1940 film Arizona, along with the Little House on the Prairie wardrobe; the park reopened in January 1997.

What job did Linda Ronstadt's brother Peter hold in Tucson from 1981 to 1991?

Chief of police Peter Ronstadt came from a pioneer Tucson family: in 1991 the city dedicated its downtown transit center to his grandfather Federico, a wagon maker and early businessman.

Ski Valley, the southernmost ski destination in the continental US, sits on which peak north of Tucson?

Mount Lemmon is named for botanist Sara Lemmon, who trekked to the top in 1881; its summit, above 9,000 feet, gets enough winter snow to run ski lifts above the desert city.

Tucson's monsoon season officially begins on which date each year?

The National Weather Service fixed the monsoon season at June 15 to September 30 in 2008; the first storms actually arrive around July 3 on average, and Arizona's 'Stupid Motorist Law' fines drivers who bypass flooded-road barricades.

Tucson's record 117 °F came in the June 1990 heat wave that set which city's 122 °F record?

Phoenix reached 122 °F on June 26, 1990, a record that still stood in 2025; Tucson, which sits more than 1,000 feet higher and usually runs a little cooler, peaked at 117 °F in the same heat wave.

Tucson edged out which city as Arizona's second-largest at the 2020 census?

Mesa, a suburb of the state capital, counted about 504,000 residents to Tucson's 543,000; Tucson had been Arizona's largest city until the capital overtook it around 1920.

In the standard English pronunciation of "Tucson," which letter is silent?

The 'c' is silent: Tucson is said TOO-sahn, with stress on the first syllable, which is why the name is so often misspelled 'Tuscon'.

The Rillito, running along Tucson's northern edge, drains into which larger waterway?

The Rillito joins the Santa Cruz River northwest of downtown; once a tree-lined perennial stream, it dried up as groundwater pumping grew and flows only after storms and snowmelt.

Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, northeast of Tucson, is run by which federal agency?

Sabino Canyon lies within the Coronado National Forest, so the US Forest Service manages the recreation area, its tram road and its Depression-era stone bridges.

The 'Boneyard' on Tucson's southeast side is the world's largest storage site for what?

Retired military aircraft are parked by the thousands at Davis-Monthan because the dry air slows corrosion and the hard desert ground holds heavy planes without paving.

When the railroad reached Tucson in 1880, the mayor telegrammed the US president and which other world figure?

Mayor Bob Leatherwood wired the Pope that a railroad now linked Tucson to the outside world; legend adds a joking reply that asked where Tucson was.

What nickname did Tucson, a hub for lens and telescope makers, get from a 1992 Business Week story?

'Optics Valley' stuck after the 1992 story; the cluster grew out of the University of Arizona's observatory and optics research and the instrument needs of nearby mountain observatories.

Which lawman shot Frank Stilwell at the Tucson train depot in March 1882, two days after his brother's murder?

Wyatt Earp blamed Stilwell for the killing of his brother Morgan in Tombstone; the shooting opened a vendetta ride across Arizona, and a statue of Earp and Doc Holliday stands near the depot.

Which force briefly captured Tucson during the Mexican-American War under Philip St. George Cooke?

The Mormon Battalion, volunteers marching from Iowa to California, entered Tucson unopposed on December 16, 1846, after the Mexican garrison withdrew; Cooke's wagon road later became a key route to the 1849 Gold Rush.

Which April 1862 Civil War engagement near Tucson did the Confederates win tactically before withdrawing?

The Battle of Picacho Pass was a skirmish between a Union cavalry patrol from California and Confederate scouts that left three Union men dead; the outnumbered Confederates soon abandoned Tucson without another fight.

Fort Lowell, whose ruins form a Tucson park, was built to protect settlers from which people?

Fort Lowell, moved in 1873 to a site on the Rillito northeast of town, served as a supply base for the Army's campaigns against the Apache until it closed in 1891.

Which Tucson road did Life magazine call 'the ugliest street in America' in the early 1970s?

Life's 1970 article quoted Tucson's own mayor, James Corbett, who had called Speedway Boulevard 'the ugliest street in America'; the label stuck to the road for decades.

Rillito Downs claims to have hosted the world's first organized races of which kind?

Quarter horse racing got its first formal rules at Rillito Downs: the specifications of the modern sport were worked out in the 1940s on the track's straight 3/8-mile chute.

Which Beatle owned a ranch near Tucson, where his wife died in 1998?

Paul McCartney's wife Linda, a photographer who had gone to college in Arizona, died of breast cancer at the family's Tanque Verde ranch in April 1998.

Which 1984 college comedy was shot mostly on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson?

Revenge of the Nerds used the University of Arizona as its fictional campus, and the crew also shot scenes at Old Tucson Studios.

Which interstate, running south from Tucson to the Mexican border, is the only one signed in kilometers?

I-19 was given metric signs under a 1980 contract, at a time when the United States was pushing toward the metric system.

What nickname is given to the vast storage site for retired warplanes at Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base?

The Boneyard sits in Tucson because low humidity and scant rain slow corrosion, and the hard alkaline soil lets crews park planes without paving.

Which 1989 baseball comedy shot many of its spring-training scenes at Tucson's Hi Corbett Field?

Major League follows a hapless Cleveland Indians roster, and the real Indians had held spring training at Hi Corbett Field every year since 1947.

Which gymnast from Tucson landed a vault on an injured ankle as the US women won 1996 Olympic team gold?

Kerri Strug fell on her first attempt, limped back down the runway, landed the second vault and hopped onto her good foot before collapsing.

Which Arizona Wildcats guard later won NBA titles as a Chicago Bulls player and as Golden State's head coach?

Steve Kerr was barely recruited out of high school, yet after Arizona he won five championships as a player, three with the Bulls and two with the Spurs.

The land for the University of Arizona's first campus was donated by a saloon keeper and two what?

Gamblers came to the rescue after no one else would offer land and Tucson's residents were preparing to send the money back to the legislature.

An astronomer chasing sunspot cycles founded a University of Arizona lab that dates the past using what?

Tree rings became a calendar thanks to A. E. Douglass, who noticed their widths tracked the sunspot cycle and set up the Tucson laboratory in 1937.

The Spanish army officer who founded Tucson's presidio was born in which country?

Ireland produced Hugo O'Conor, a Dublin-born redhead nicknamed the Red Captain, who joined Spain's army and later governed Yucatán.

Which Arizona city both preceded and followed Tucson as capital of the Arizona Territory?

Prescott was the first capital, lost the seat to Tucson for about a decade, won it back, and then surrendered it for good to Phoenix in 1889.

Which ancient people farmed the Tucson basin with canals and made red-on-brown pottery until about 1450?

Hohokam engineers also dug the canal network beneath modern Phoenix, and parts of it were later rebuilt, so some of those ancient routes carry water again.

Which 1959 John Wayne western, co-starring Angie Dickinson and Ricky Nelson, was filmed at Old Tucson Studios?

Rio Bravo shot its exteriors on the Old Tucson town set, which had been built in 1939 as a replica of 1860s Tucson for the film Arizona.

Which director filmed the 1974 drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, about a widowed waitress, in Tucson?

Martin Scorsese cameos as a customer in Mel's diner, and Ellen Burstyn's turn as Alice won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Which coach, hired from Iowa in 1983, led the Arizona Wildcats to the 1997 NCAA men's basketball championship?

Lute Olson's Wildcats upset three top-seeded teams, Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky, and needed overtime to win the final.

Which future Olympic gold-medal pitcher had a perfect 2001 season for the Arizona Wildcats' champion softball team?

Jennie Finch capped the unbeaten year with a 1–0 shutout of UCLA for the national title, then won Olympic gold with Team USA in 2004.

Which photographer helped found Tucson's Center for Creative Photography, which holds his archive?

Ansel Adams was among the founders in 1975, and the University of Arizona center keeps every negative of his known to exist when he died.

In Tucson, a road labeled a 'stravenue' runs in which direction?

Diagonally laid subdivisions follow the railroad tracks that cut across central Tucson, so their roads got a name blending street and avenue.

Arizona's 'stupid motorist law', a monsoon worry for Tucson drivers, bills those who pass barricades and do what?

Enter a flooded road past the barricades and get stranded, and the driver can be billed for the emergency rescue, up to $2,000 per incident.

Which aviation tycoon bought land in Tucson for the Falcon missile plant that Raytheon later took over?

Howard Hughes bought seven square-mile sections for the factory, and the Hughes Aircraft plant eventually passed to Raytheon, which based its missile business in Tucson.

Which Bridesmaids star majored in art at the University of Arizona before an acting class changed her path?

Kristen Wiig took the class only to meet a course requirement, but her teacher urged her to keep acting, and she left for Los Angeles and the Groundlings troupe.

Which 1960s sitcom star was born in Tucson in 1931?

Barbara Eden was born Barbara Jean Morehead, and she later rejoined her Jeannie co-star Larry Hagman for five episodes of the final season of Dallas.

Which six-time MLB All-Star outfielder was a backup point guard on Arizona's 1988 Final Four basketball team?

Kenny Lofton came to Tucson on a basketball scholarship and did not even try out for the Wildcats' baseball team until his junior year.

Which Tucson congressman, once a pro basketball player, lost the 1976 Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter?

Mo Udall lost an eye at age six, yet starred for the Arizona Wildcats, played a season for the Denver Nuggets and held his House seat for 30 years.

Which Dutch-born astronomer moved to Tucson in 1960 to found the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory?

Gerard Kuiper, for whom the belt of icy bodies beyond Neptune is named, directed the laboratory until his death in 1973.

The University of Arizona led NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, which brought back a sample of which asteroid in 2023?

Bennu gave up its sample in a 2020 touchdown, and the capsule parachuted into the Utah Test and Training Range three years later.

Which astronaut and later US senator is married to Gabby Giffords, the Tucson congresswoman shot in 2011?

Mark Kelly was due to command the final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour when his wife was shot that January, and he flew the mission four months later.

The javelina, a common sight in the suburbs of Tucson, is which kind of animal?

A peccary looks like a small pig and is often called one, but peccaries form a family of their own and are no longer classified with true pigs.

A Tucson footbridge over Broadway, designed by artist Simon Donovan, is shaped like which animal?

Rattlesnake eyes on the bridge once lit up at night, and a huge rattle at its south end makes a sound as walkers and cyclists exit.

Which 1993 Western was filmed partly at Old Tucson Studios, the movie set west of Tucson?

Tombstone has the Earp brothers reunite in Tucson before moving on, and the same studio streets had earlier hosted Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Which bird gave its name to the American Hockey League team that began play in Tucson in 2016?

Roadrunners became the name when the Arizona Coyotes bought their Springfield Falcons affiliate and moved it to the Tucson Convention Center.

Which Tucson attraction, founded in 1952, combines a zoo, botanical garden, aquarium and natural history exhibits?

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum interprets a single region, showing its native plants and animals together, and it also works as a publisher and art gallery.

Which tight end, a four-time Super Bowl champion, played his college ball for the Arizona Wildcats?

Rob Gronkowski was an All-American as a Wildcats sophomore in 2008, then spent nine seasons with the New England Patriots and two with Tampa Bay.

The Central Arizona Project canal, which delivers water to Tucson, draws it from which river?

Colorado water is diverted from Lake Havasu near Parker and carried through central Arizona to Phoenix and on to Tucson.

Tucson-born restaurant chain Eegee's, founded in 1971, is best known for which signature item?

A frozen fruit drink called the eegee launched the chain, whose name blends the initials of founders Ed Irving and Bob Greenberg.

Which Swedish golfer, later winner of ten LPGA majors, won the 1991 NCAA title as an Arizona Wildcats freshman?

Annika Sörenstam was spotted by a coach at a college event in Tokyo, moved to Tucson and became the first non-American to win the NCAA individual title.

Which Amtrak train linking New Orleans and Los Angeles stops at Tucson's historic downtown depot?

Sunset Limited service began in 1894, which makes it the oldest continuously operating named train in the United States.

Which Tucson daily, Arizona's oldest continuously published newspaper, printed its last edition in 2009?

Citizen readers got their final print edition on May 16, 2009, after owner Gannett failed to find a buyer for a paper founded in 1870.

Which railroad's arrival in Tucson in 1880 gave the town its first rail link to the outside world?

Southern Pacific also built the downtown depot in 1907; the line later passed to Union Pacific, and the station serves Amtrak passengers.

Which mountain range southeast of Tucson contains Madera Canyon and the area's highest summit, Mount Wrightson?

The Santa Ritas also hold the Smithsonian's Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins, while Madera Canyon ranks among the world's premier birding areas.

What two-word term describes forested ranges like Tucson's Santa Catalinas that rise in isolation above the desert?

Sky islands were cut off from one another and from the woodlands of Mexico's Sierra Madre as the climate warmed and dried after the ice ages.

Which Arizona painter built the Gallery in the Sun in the Santa Catalina foothills north of Tucson?

Ted DeGrazia, protesting inheritance taxes in 1976, rode on horseback into the Superstition Mountains and burned about 100 of his own paintings.

Which dry cavern near Vail, southeast of Tucson, is believed to have been a hideout for train robbers?

Colossal Cave is called dry because its formations have stopped growing; the bandits are said to have held up the same express train twice.

Which stagecoach mail line between St. Louis and San Francisco made Tucson a division headquarters in 1858?

Butterfield Overland Mail coaches ran for less than three years, and the line through Tucson was shut down in March 1861 on the eve of the Civil War.

Which founder of Tucson's Arizona Inn became the first congresswoman in her state's history?

Isabella Greenway had been a bridesmaid at the wedding of Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and she opened the pink-stuccoed hotel in 1930.

Which Tucson-born singer, awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996, is known as the father of Chicano music?

Lalo Guerrero scored his first American hit with Pancho López, a parody of The Ballad of Davy Crockett, and he was also a farm labor activist.

Which organization set up the Desert Laboratory on Tucson's Tumamoc Hill in 1903?

Carnegie Institution money created the laboratory beside what was then a small mining and ranching town, and the site became a National Historic Landmark.

Which tribe, descended from refugees from Mexico, has a reservation southwest of Tucson and runs Casino del Sol?

Pascua Yaqui takes its first word from the Spanish for Easter, a nod to the Lenten ceremonies and deer dancer; federal recognition came in 1978.

The annual Arizona–Arizona State rivalry game is played for which trophy, first awarded in 1899?

Territorial Cup history began with a Thanksgiving Day game in Tucson, and the NCAA has certified it as the oldest rivalry trophy in the college game.

Which debut novel by Barbara Kingsolver follows Taylor Greer from Kentucky to a new life in Tucson?

The Bean Trees has Taylor adopt a girl left with her in Oklahoma, whom she names Turtle for her tenacious nature.