Eusebio Francisco Kino

Father Eusebio Kino, an Italian Jesuit, rode into the Pimería Alta of southern Arizona and Sonora in 1687 and spent the rest of his life there mapping the country, founding missions like San Xavier del Bac, and introducing cattle and wheat. He is remembered as a defender of the O'odham against Spanish slave-raiders, though that record comes mostly from missionaries, and his crops and herds reshaped Indigenous life for good and ill. Sonora gave Arizona this equestrian statue in 1967; another Kino represents the state in the U.S. Capitol.

What the plaque says

Eusebio Francisco Kino, Egregio Civilizador de la Pimeria. Para mantener viva su memoria y fortalecer la amistad y la comprensión entre nuestros dos estados, Sonora donó ésta estatua a Arizona, en agosto de 1967, siendo gobernadores, respectivamente el Lic. Luis Encinas y el Señor Jack Williams.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Phoenix — 1.2 mi
  The fifth-largest US city, built on the canals of a thousand-year-old one
• Heard Museum — 2.1 mi
  The Native Southwest, told in the first person
• Taliesin West — 18 mi
  Frank Lloyd Wright's desert masterwork, grown from the ground it stands on

More markers nearby

• Arizona's Pioneer Women — steps away
• The Capitol — steps away
• Boras Headframe — steps away
• Arizona Copper Company's Locomotive #2 — steps away