El Conquistador Water Tower

This Spanish Colonial tower is the last standing piece of the El Conquistador, a lavish 1928 resort hotel that once drew winter visitors to the desert's edge. When the hotel was demolished in the 1960s to build a shopping mall, the water tower survived; the architect Roy Place had given it a decorative sheath in 1932 that made it worth keeping. Restored in 1994, it stands now among parking lots and storefronts, a lonely marker of the era when Tucson sold itself as a genteel winter escape.

What the plaque says

Constructed in 1928, the tower is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been designated as a Tucson Landmark. The tower's Spanish colonial revival sheathing was designed by Tucson architect Roy Place and added in 1932. In 1994, the tower was restored by the City of Tucson and the Tucson-Pima County Historical Commission with the assistance of the Arizona Heritage Fund.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tucson — 3.3 mi
  The Old Pueblo — four thousand years of farming under the sky islands
• Mission San Xavier del Bac — 9.4 mi
  The White Dove of the Desert — the finest Spanish Baroque church in the country
• Saguaro National Park — 18 mi
  The giant cactus, and the O'odham who count it as kin

More markers nearby

• Bicentennial Moon Tree — 1.8 mi
• Coronado Hotel — 2.7 mi
• Camp Lowell 1866-1873 — 2.9 mi
• Carlos Ygnacio Velasco House — 3.0 mi