The city of Tucson traces its history back to Aug. 20, 1775, when the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson was established.
The Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum will be commemorating the fort’s place in Tucson’s history as well as the area’s 4,000-year legacy during a special “Tucson 250+” anniversary celebration on Saturday, Aug. 23.
The Presidio Museum and the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block are hosting the festivities. A planning committee, made up of representatives from different cultural organizations, have planned the event.
The celebration will pay tribute to the TucSonorense culture and the people who have shaped it.
It will feature live performances from the Waila band Gertie and the T.O. Boyz, Mariachi Innovación, Chinese lion dancers, Ballet Folklorico Tapatio and the African-centered Barbea Williams Performing Company. Community partners will be offering crafts and activities related to Tucson’s history, plants and archeology.
The event will also have musket and lasso demonstrations, rodeo and Mormon battalion wagons on display, food vendors and opening remarks from Mayor Regina Romero and Pima County Supervisor Rex Scott.
Presidio Museum Executive Director Amy Hartmann-Gordon said the museum has hosted a similar type of event in the past, but this year, they are expanding on it.
“We’ve done this for a while but because this is the 250th, we’re really going all out this year. In the past, we’ve had dancers and performers. This year, we’re closing the street, so we’re going to have two stages,” said Hartmann-Gordon, who has worked at the museum for 11 years.
She said in celebrating the city’s history, it was important to include different groups that have been part of it.
“We are highlighting the different people that have made the history, the Native people, the Spanish, the Mexican community and other communities. There’s a big Chinese-American contingent that really helped create Tucson with building our railroads. Then, there was a big Mormon group that came through Tucson and established a community here. The Buffalo Soldiers were another important one. They were stationed in Fort Huachuca,” Hartmann-Gordon explained.
The museum will be open during the event. Guests can see an exhibition detailing Tucson’s timeline and artifacts discovered when the presidio site was excavated.
“It’s really interesting because they span a very long period of time, all the way back to 2,000 years ago up through the Territorial Period, where there’s porcelain, children’s toys, a man’s pipe. We have some things from the Spanish period. We have some buttons from a uniform, all kinds of little objects that were under our feet… We have what we think is one of the bricks from the original presidio, and that was actually donated by a family,” Hartmann-Gordon said.
Located on the northeast corner of the original presidio site, the museum has a re-creation of the adobe-walled fortress. There is also a 1850s Sonoran rowhouse and Early People’s Park on the grounds. The original fortress was used from 1775 to 1856. Over the years, the walls of the fort were torn down, and new buildings were constructed in the area.
“The historic buildings that are in the neighborhood were basically built from the bricks of the presidio. They just took down those walls, and they rebuilt their new homes and their new structures. Over the next couple 100 years, things just kept progressing and changing,” Hartmann-Gordon said.
She said that the museum is situated in the oldest neighborhood in Tucson, where visitors can also find the historic Casa Cordova adobe house, built in the 1840s.
Right across the street from the Presidio Museum, and also located on the site of the fort, is the Old Town Artisans merchant block, which also dates back to the mid-1800s. Businesses on this block will be open during the celebration.
The Presidio Museum took some time to come to fruition.
In 1984, Lewis Hall created a trust with a goal of reconstructing the fortress, but he died before his plans could be realized. In 2007, voters put their support behind the project, and the city of Tucson reconstructed the northeast corner of the presidio as part of the Rio Nuevo redevelopment district.
“We’ve reconnected back to that original history,” Hartmann-Gordon said. “The only reason they were able to even create this little section was because it had been a parking lot. They excavated that parking lot, and then we were able to bring back this structure. Obviously, it’s not the original structure, but it’s cool because it gives you a sense of the location of where this was. We talk a lot about the fort in relation to the Santa Cruz River and how important water was. That’s basically why our city is located where it’s located,”.
She also noted the presidio’s ties to local families.
“I think this history is really important because it gives people a sense of their own families, their own personal history, their own sense of place, their sense of their environment in terms of living in the Sonoran Desert,” Hartmann-Gordon said. “This is our big chance to open the doors and be completely accessible to everybody. We want people to come back, maybe you get a membership or come and attend other events. We often have people come and say, ‘My grandmother grew up down the street.’ It’s nice to be able to teach people about family history.
“It was a Spanish garrison fort, and the purpose of it was essentially to protect the area to allow the Spanish to move towards California. The people who lived there were Spaniards, and many of them ended up staying and creating families…We have records of the people who lived in the presidio, and their descendants are still here.”
Some have even been part of the museum.
“We’ve had people on our board with seventh, eighth, ninth-generation families,” Hartmann-Gordon added.
The museum’s regular season runs from the end of August through May. During this time, it hosts events such as an annual Mexican Independence Day celebration, a Day of the Dead open house, living history events, lecture series, Arizona Statehood and Native Nations days and historic neighborhood walking tours.
Hartmann-Gordon said they try to partner with other community organizations on their events.
“Part of our goal is to give people that sense of why are we here and where did we come from? To get other people involved was really important,” she said. “For Mexican Independence Day, we partner with the Mexican Consulate. We work very closely with the Mexican American (Heritage and) History Museum and with the historical society. That’s part of what we’re trying to do is engage everybody in history,” Hartmann-Gordon said.
Celebration of All Things S-cuk Son/Tucson The 250+ Anniversary
WHEN: 6-10 p.m. Friday, August 23
WHERE: residio San Agustín del Tucson Museum, 196 N. Court Avenue, Tucson
COST: Free
INFO: tucsonpresidio.com
This article appears in Aug 14-21, 2025.
