Agua Caliente Ranch and Hot Springs

Warm springs in the desert are rare enough to shape history, and these drew ranchers early. Peter Bain filed the first claim to the land around Agua Caliente Spring in 1873 and started a dairy herd with cattle driven up from Sonora; two years later he sold to James Fuller, who planted an orchard and built the spring into a working ranch of more than a thousand head. For a century the warm water made this a resort and retreat. It is a Pima County park now, its ponds still fed by the spring.

What the plaque says

Agua Caliente Ranch. In 1873, Peter B. Bain filed the first formal claim to the land surrounding Agua Caliente Spring. Bain and a partner, Marion T. Beckwith, began a dairy cattle operation by bringing cows north from Sonora. Bain built a house, several outbuildings and corrals at the spring. In 1875 he sold Agua Caliente Rancho to James P. Fuller, a produce salesman from Hermosillo, Mexico for $300. Fuller planted an orchard, constructed ditches and ponds to harvest water for livestock and irrigation and established a significant cattle ranch, bringing nearly 1,200 head from Mexico to the ranch.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Saguaro National Park — 10 mi
  The giant cactus, and the O'odham who count it as kin
• Tucson — 15 mi
  The Old Pueblo — four thousand years of farming under the sky islands
• Mission San Xavier del Bac — 20 mi
  The White Dove of the Desert — the finest Spanish Baroque church in the country

More markers nearby

• Airmen Memorial Bridge — 7.1 mi
• Desert Homes — 8.3 mi
• Cavalry Barracks and Band Barracks — 8.6 mi
• Fort Lowell — 8.6 mi