hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated I'm Tom mcamera you know we are so lucky to live here in Southern Arizona we're surrounded by Scenic national parks Forest open land there is so much to explore and today on the program we're going to take you on a tour of places that you can drive to within 90 minutes of the Center of Tucson so come along for the ride we'll take you to an oasis in the desert near Patagonia Arizona it's just quiet you know and it's relaxing it's usually a a little bit coo
ler the show never ends at this Westside gem we try to get the most incredible things the most wonderful things you can imagine for people to see as they come in Rich history zip lines and arts in Oracle Arizona surrounded by Nature it's very beautiful quiet but increasingly Rich Community the inspiring story of a man behind the name of a local Campground Gordon hirabayashi was one of three Japanese Americans to resist being interned during World War II and get wet at the Sabino Dam just the sou
nd of it when we started walking up to it was enough to draw us in people who want a Dependable source of water to cool off in Southern Arizona don't have to travel to Mexico or to another state Patagonia State Park in Santa Cruz County offers fishing and boating hiking camping and more and it's only about an hour and a half from where I'm sitting right here my name is Chris con Aris and I'm here to have a fun day kayaking on the lake I'm thrilled uh the one thing we don't have in tcon is water
so water sports you often have to travel and to have something less than 90 minutes away from Tucson uh makes it very accessible this is our first trip to the lake and we heard about it from a few friends you know they said if you need water in Arizona that this is the place to come so it's pretty close to SRA Vista so it was an easy drive for us today I love it I'm actually really surprised the pictures online don't do this place Justice it's very pretty the slope from the hill down to the lake
makes it very easy for us to sit up here as parents and you know enjoy the shade while kids can go crazy in the water and it feels very safe you know they're not too far I've got a good view of everything around me good view of the beach it's very well set up the lake itself surface acres is 265 surface acres of of actual surface water the park itself is not too much bigger it's with the campgrounds it's almost 600 acres the park itself we also manage the state trust land which surrounds the pa
rk that's over 2,000 acres and then in the sonota Creek State Natural Area is several thousand acres we have uh camping we have 13 campsites out on the lake uh the real popular ones we have a big island and a smaller Island that people like to use obviously uh skiing wakeboarding we have several different uh species of fish we have largemouth bass we have Channel cat and Flathead cat we also have bluegill crappie in the winter time we stock with trout and there's a lot of wildlife we have everyt
hing from the big Predator the mountain lion to the little renail cats raccoon skunk all your normal stuff one of the biggest draws we have here at the lake is our birding program uh people come from miles and miles in other states and countries to see the elegant trogan it's one of our favorite birds and most famous Birds along with the king fisher KN catchers um over 200 different species of birds are found here at Patagonia Lake so one of the interesting things about the park is that it was b
uilt over top of the New Mexico Patagonia railroad the railroad was constructed in the late 1800s and abandoned in the mid 1900s it uh what started in Benson Arizona traveled through sonoa down through Patagonia into Mexico all the way to wus the railroad was used for transport of cattle for the local ranchers and also the local mines transported their ore to Market I'm a bob rier and my family's had the ranch about a 100 years and I've lived here about 40 years fulltime now Patagonia State Park
was U formed by these men one of them my father and they built a recreational Lake these are the do docents to get the loan they had to prove that the people in the area wanted to do this so they this is signatures of people I mean done in 1966 it's very interesting who lived here then and all of them signing these documents I was about 20 I was at NAU I didn't pay attention now later I was overwhelmed that they did that but at the all these men got together and did that something like that wou
ld never happen now I don't know what they were thinking I mean really they had a different attitude they just let's build it you know we can do it but one of the big problems they had that road was dirt and they realized they could never probably afford to pave that whole Road and that's one of the reasons I think they made the deal with the state to have a state park I got this little boat a few months ago and um um it's just it's quiet you know and it's relaxing and uh you know it's close to
Tucson it's not that far away and it's and it's definitely a totally different climate it's usually a a little bit cooler it's fun place to escape for a while and feel like you're maybe not in a desert Southern Arizona hosts the world's largest Gem and Mineral show each February but there's a store West of the Tucson mountains that keeps the tradition going 365 days a year Tucson mineral and gem world has been selling delightful Oddities for 60 years in counting even during the hottest time of t
he year and on holidays we've got over 10,000 different items on display and we have a warehouse full of about the same amount or more we try to get the most incredible things the most wonderful things you can imagine for people to see as they come in let me show you this this this is a human skull up here and it's a medical skull but uh it's really a great item these are vampire bats you can see on top here this this is something we sell a fair amount of these are goldplated packrats that my br
other puts together they mummify in our buildings in the back and uh people buy these to get something for someone who has everything pretty bizarre but we do have them this is called Spirit quartz or Cactus quartz this is gypsum this is one that the holistic folks buy a lot it just has for them has very special properties it's then it's pretty for just a collector in these cases in our back Gallery we have things like like Mammoth hair this is hair from the woolly mammoth that's from the last i
ce age we have artifacts from ancient Greece like this lion's head sabertooth tiger skull up here these are ancient Egyptian artifacts these are called usaps or mummy mummy helpers my field is in invertebrate paleontology I studied the ancient mammals that lived during the age of the dinosaurs and I did that all of my career and ended up being the paleontologist at the desert museum having been a both an archaeologist and a paleontologist in my profession I only accept things that are both legal
and morally right to have to own it's a go-to place I knew you'd have it I wanted to get some stones to do the chakras and to bounce in the thing whether it works or not who knows you know but there's vibrations and everything Einstein proved that they helped me get the different Stones I wanted and well this is what you need and you know just weird stuff like that I always bring family here and they're wonderful with children they spark their imagination we treat the kids like royalty here it'
s a hoot being here mostly because of the people that we get to meet from all over the world celebrities had Vincent Price come in early on we had John Wayne come in Chris kristopherson filmed a movie here they rented our building changed the front of the building Richard Gear came in and he invited me to have breakfast with him across the street I'm just fascinated by artifacts because because they they fill in the blanks for what we know about ancient history these are the threads in the fabri
c of time sometimes if you hold these you can actually feel like you're pulled back into ancient times what was it like who was he what did he see this is part of his world and now it's part of my world thank you thank you and passing along will become part of somebody else's world Oracle is a small community North of Tucson that's full of character and history yet people in many parts of Arizona haven't taken time to visit there it's known for its artist for Arizona's longest zipline EC tour it
s active historical society and a growing number of restaurants and other attractions if people have driven up Highway 77 and really thought there was nothing here I think all they have to do is Veer off the highway a little there's a little bit of something for everyone well we started out doing yard sales when we were younger and we loved it we made like $500 one weekend and so we we thought wow so we came in opened all the boxes sold and it was junk oh it was junk junk it started out is just
a little junk shop and it's evolved in the last 31 years to an antique store an art gallery and a consignment shop oh my gosh it's like for a European type pillow mhm I came here uh in 1970 I was very young and I've lived here all my life I've raised two boys here me and my husband Jerry been married 43 years Oracle is unique it's very eclectic little down three 2 one woohoo All Began uh when my business partner Brandon Luffy approached uh my father and I with the idea of building something amaz
ing out here to bring people outside uh to experience this area right all you got to do is take a seat and lift those feet you'll get rolling have fun all right and with my history in the ropes horse industry and my father's land we all just kind of came together and made it happen it's kind of exciting exhilarating it was fun it was it was definitely an adventure the way that everyone comes together is pretty incredible and when we were building this we felt a ton of support from our town and o
ur community and that's something that drove us to building this business kind of reignite our community and bring a little bit more life into it I wonderful it's a really a um symbiotic relationship between us and the community we're there to support anything that the community is doing and in return you know the community's really supported us I have two small kids and I'm home with them with dinner every night and I'm involved in their lives and I I have the opportunity to practice my art the
way I want to and and still have a good family life this building uh came into the picture they homesteaded in 1880 and this was probably built out around 1885 a as a boarding house for either for people that came out from Tucson to escape the Heat or for people that were working in the mines the mining was what brought people up here originally and then at just about the same time some people just went into cattle ranching and then the health resort industry started around 1890 and then around
1900 is when the cattle ranching became much larger it is a Guest Ranch that was built between uh 1917 and 19 1930 and it was always meant for rest and relaxation it was never a working cattle ranch in fact the man who built it had fruit Fields where Scottdale and Arcadia are now and this was built as this high mountain getaway for him and his wife and all of his friends from Back East to come and enjoy horses and lays around uh you know in the sun I've had a lot of different spiritual people c
ome through here Buddhists shamanic order Christians and they all say that it has a real positive feeling this is ranchel Linda Vista in Oracle Arizona and um it has been um long history first as a cattle ranch then a Guest Ranch and in 1968 it was bought by a group of artists mostly from the University of Arizona art department and set up as a um a trust and a corporation uh people could become part of it and live here and do art here and enjoy a community of like-minded people we can see the b
ack of Mount Lemon from here and we can judge the snow by the uh ski slope we can see it from here so we feel very um surrounded by Nature it's very beautiful quiet um but increasingly Rich Community I think the biggest draw for me being an Arizona native is that it rarely gets above 100° you know at 4700 ft 37 Mi away from where I grew up in Tucson um you know I can invite my family to get up and out of that heat and come here on the backside of the Santa catalinas and um almost be a world away
we couldn't ask for a better staff and the people that come out are just as amazing as they are everyone that comes out is excited to try something new and have fun and really push themselves and and that's why we continue to do this I have one person told me early on that Oracle chooses its residence and there seems to be some some little fate that works in that regard I would tell people explore a little don't be afraid to explore because there's more than meets the eye when you come to Oracl
e today we see acts of Civil Disobedience along with all kinds of protests calling for justice and equality but back in 19 42 when the US government forcibly intered nearly 70,000 American citizens of Japanese descent along with about 50,000 Japanese immigrants into harsh and isolated detention centers there were very few cries for justice one American losing his freedom did fight for it next we take you to a campground named in his honor a short drive up the Mount Lemon Highway driving up the M
ount Lemon highway just outside of Tucson I had seen the sign that reads Gordon Hera bayashi several times it always pequ my curiosity and I finally looked up the name I learned there was a prison camp on that spot and how Gordon hiashi's story intersected with that prison you know I read in an article that when you first arrived at the camp um that the hopie it was H Indians um that invited you to their yeah Rada they built the Ramada on the side of the Hill mhm and uh I didn't know anything ab
out I'm just new in the camp and uh and there was a group of hopes there and they said well we know you guys are engaged in a white man's War Europe and so on we we have no interest in fighting in Year War so they were a category of objectors that were sent to prison any rate they took a real warm interest gave me a hair wash with uh soap weeds they grewed some tea and gave it to me and and just treated me like a brother when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor our West Coast became a potential c
ombat zone living in that zone were more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry 2/3 of them American citizens 1/3 aliens we knew that some among them were potentially dangerous most were loyal but no one knew what would happen among this concentrated population if Japanese forces should try to invade our Shores military authorities therefore determined that all of them citizens and Aliens alike would have to move they expected Injustice and discrimination one way or another so when this order
came this was another thing that they had to cope with you know even though they felt it was totally unnecessary and totally wrong and it's a discrimination it wasn't their first line thought to you know I'm going to confront this battle it MH you ever review uh the story of Columbus Columbus and his men came ashore dark skinn people hovered around with curiosity and later brought them food and so on Columbus discovered America CU they weren't humans that counted and so uh they're ignored and u
h this this Viewpoint sort of psychologically continues Gordon bayashi was one of three Japanese Americans to resist being interned during World War II he lost his 1943 Supreme Court case herab bayashi vers the United States and was sent to that prison camp on Mount Lemon for a while I thought the the Constitution uh failed me then it occurred to me that uh it wasn't necessarily the Constitution that failed me it was the people who were placed in the responsibility of upholding the Constitution
prisoners at the camp helped build what would become the Catalina Highway the camp was closed when the road was completed in 1951 in 1999 the area where the camp stood was renamed to honor Gordon her bayashi in 2012 he was poisly awarded the presidential medal of freedom water is a precious resource in the desert and though it's rare there are occasional oases that attract both people and animals and you can find one of them Sabino Dam by walking just a mile from the visitor center at Sabino Can
yon Recreation Area I come to Sabino Canyon area because it's just one of the nicest places I think in the United States I was visiting Tucson since the late 80s where I have a an aunt who's passed away but I would come every winter and she lived just about a mile from here and I'd walk here almost every day and do the Seven Falls and just go up the trail and it's just there's so many different spots with so many different kinds of of terrain and environment and uh so peaceful it's just a remark
able remarkable place we live in Los crusis New Mexico and we love Tucson cuz it's a beautiful area so we're always trying to explore and find new places in Tucson and then we discovered the trail it said to go out to the dam and here we are and it is spectacular I have been coming here since I was literally like before off the womb my dad used to always take us when we were little and so I just always came here and so like now that I know the trail by myself I can take myself so it's kind of ni
ce but I always love this place I like how it's just always love the water I think everybody should check this place out it's worth the experience coming out of anywhere than Arizona and it's something different for sure and I will remember this moment with you guys and with her it's 10 out of 10 experience this is my boyfriend and he lives in California and I just always told him about hiking and like always wanted to take him here so now he's here he's with me so I took him it's a lot of stuff
a lot of trails to go to a lot of people always in a good mood and just a lot of stuff to like look at and everything just really good experience prettyy cool something we don't have out there it's a really good it's really different we do have the Rio Grand but I'm sorry to say that it spins a large portion of the Year actually dry so we're south uh of where the control of the water flow is up in Northern New Mexico so we don't really get a lot of water down there so this is a great pleasure t
o see this flowing water it was just the sound of it when we started walking up to it was enough to draw Us in it's just such a unique environment and the Sonoran Desert is just so beautiful there's something so powerful about the sarro cactus that you just don't see anywhere else in the midwest or something you got lots of trees and you can't see the distances here it's just you can just see forever birds and and uh of course the many different species of cactus and people are very friendly her
e too I should mention that I've never met unfriendly people here so another reason I keep coming back thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated I'm Tom mcnamer we'll see you again next week hi I'm Tom mcamera host of Arizona Illustrated and thanks for watching our entire show here on YouTube and if you liked it well here are some stories from other episodes that we think you'll like
Comments