Mission San Cosme y Damián de Tucsón (), originally known as Mission San Agustín del Tucson (), was a Spanish mission located in present-day

Tucson Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

Pima County Pima County ( ) is a County (United States), county in the south central region of the U.S. state of Arizona, one of 15 List of counties in Arizona, counties in the state. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 1 ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. It was established in 1692 by

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionary

Eusebio Francisco Kino Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ (, ; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Bishopric of Trent, Holy Roma ...

as a ''

visita Visitas or asistencias were smaller Mission (station), sub-missions of Catholicism, Catholic missions established during the 16th-19th centuries of the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the History of the Philippines (1565–1898), Philipp ...

'', or "visiting chapel", of the nearby

Mission San Xavier del Bac Mission San Xavier del Bac () is a historic Spanish Catholic mission about south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham Nation San Xavier Indian Reservation. The mission was founded in 1692 by Eusebio Kino in the center of a cent ...

. Today, almost nothing remains of the original complex.

Location

The mission was located along the western bank of the Santa Cruz River, at the base of Sentinel Peak or "A" Mountain. The

Sobaipuri The Sobaipuri were one of many Indigenous groups occupying Sonora and what is now Arizona at the time Europeans first entered the American Southwest. They were a Piman or O'odham group who occupied southern Arizona and northern Sonora (the Pimer� ...

village of ''Chuk Shon'', meaning "at the foot of the black mountain", was located nearby.

History

The mission would be built, near the

village of ''Chuk Shon'' which Padre

named ''San Cosmé del Tucson''. Here Father Kino established a ''

'', or "visiting chapel", of

in 1692. In 1768 the visita was expanded, fortified and renamed Mission San Agustín del Tucson by the Franciscans who had just replaced the Jesuits in the Missions. This was soon followed by the establishment of a

Presidio San Augustin del Tucson A presidio (''jail, fortification'') was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire mainly between the 16th and 18th centuries in areas under their control or influence. The term is derived from the Latin word ''praesidium'' meaning ''pr ...

in 1776 on the east side of the Santa Cruz River. The pueblo of

grew up near the Presido along the river. The Mission was finally abandoned in 1828. Its lands were sold off and the neglected buildings were eventually destroyed.Anne M. Nequette, R. Brooks Jeffery, A Guide to Tucson Architecture, University of Arizona Press, 2002, pp. 10–12, 174–175 In 1852,

John Russell Bartlett John Russell Bartlett (October 23, 1805 – May 28, 1886) was an American historian and linguist. Early life Bartlett was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on October 23, 1805, the son of Smith Bartlett and Nancy (Russell) Bartlett. In 1819 he ...

visited the mission, writing: Between 1950 and 2010, the site served as a

landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...

for the city of Tucson.

Present day

Since 2010, site has been under the care of the non-profit organization Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace. The former landfill and mission site is being repurposed as a historical and nature park called Tucson Origins Heritage Park.

References

Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1888, ''History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530–1888.'' The History Company, San Francisco.

''Spanish Colonial Tucson''
Dobyns, Henry F, 1976, University of Arizona Press, Tucson. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Mission San Cosme y Damian de Tucson Catholic Church in Arizona Jesuit history in North America 1692 establishments in New Spain 1768 establishments in New Spain History of Pima County, Arizona Tohono O'odham Spanish missions in Arizona

Location

History

Present day

See also

References