IN SEARCH OF THE COUNTESS
By Sybil Needham

The Countess called her new home “Forest Lodge” because it was surrounded by a citrus grove. She bought the property that lies north of Westward Look and east of Oracle Road from Matthew Baird III on April 1, 1934. He had attempted to grow citrus there but the spot was a little too inclined to suffer frost. It was a perfect hideaway, however, for the reclusive Countess of Suffolk and Berkshire. She even bought it under an assumed name -Marguerite Hyde. Her real name was Margaret Howard. She was tall and beautiful and loved fast horses, cars and airplanes.

Lady Suffolk was a widow when she arrived here. Her husband, Henry Molyneaux Paget Howard, the Earl of Suffolk was killed in combat in WWI. Their courtship had been a storybook romance that had made headlines on two continents.

Margaret, or Daisy as she was known to her friends, was an American heiress from Chicago. Her father, Levi Leiter, was a business partner in the original Marshall Field store. He left that partnership and opened the Fair Store and speculated in lucrative real estate ventures. As was popular at the turn of the century, he sent Daisy and her two sisters to finishing school in England.

In England, American girls were known for their independence and spirit of adventure. Daisy and her sisters must have been sensational. They were famed for their intelligence and beauty.  Sister Mary married Lord Crosone, who soon became Viceroy of India. Nancy married Major Campbell of the Palace Guard and Daisy became engaged to the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire. Chicago papers carried pictorial features of the weddings.

The new Countess and her husband lived in his 17th century manor house called Redlinch. She bore his three sons. They traveled extensively and visited her sister in India and went on safaris in Africa where Daisy photographed big game. And then the Duke of Austria was assassinated in Serbia and that brought on World War One.

The death of the Earl was not the only tragedy that she suffered. We know that both of her sisters died and that there was a serious falling out with her father. He was unhappy that she visited him so seldom.  When he died, he bequeathed her 48 million dollars which stipulated that she had to live 4 months of every year in the United States.

But why did she come to Tucson instead of Chicago? Climate? Health? Romance? Maybe a little of all three. We know that she accompanied an Englishman here and helped him find a place to rent. Colonel Gillette had a respiratory problem which required clean and dry air. Maybe he had been gassed in the trenches during the war. He was tall, handsome and charming. A likely companion for the elegant Countess. Their relationship was discreet, however, and the rental of the property was kept secret. As mentioned, even the purchase of her property was done under an assumed name.

The Countess herself had a touch of arthritis in her back and took therapy once a week from a local physical therapist.

In 1935, she engaged local architect Robert A. Morse to build her new home. The style was called “International” or “modern”. Local sceptics called it “neo-Hitler”. It had five master bedrooms, servants quarters, a four-car garage and air-conditioning. Later, she built the servants their own house nearby and had a green lawn planted for lawn bowling. It was never a cozy house. A local interior decorator described it as looking like an institution or a hospital. The Countess spent a lot of money on drapes and other touches to soften the rooms.

She had a Bentley Rolls/Royce and a chauffeur named Stone and was often seen driving around town and shopping in local stores. Howard Rosenfeld was a young man working in the linen department of Levy’s Department Store. He was new and not especially knowledgable in fine linens. She arrived to shop and quickly perceived his ineptness and took him under her wing. He was always grateful for her understanding and they were friends until her death. He learned his lessons well for he married the boss’s daughter Jackie Levy and was a manager for Levy’s until it was sold in the 1980’s.

Stone the chauffeur may have been a former RAF pilot. He obtained a local pilot’s license and Daisy bought a Cessna 180, which she parked in her driveway, and together they flew forays around Arizona, California and Mexico where she photographed local wildlife. In 1969, he was flying her to California to visit her son Cecil when she had a heart attack. The plane made an emergency landing but there was nothing that could be done to save her. She was 88 years old at the time.

In 1957, she felt that Tucson was encroaching on her solitude, so she sold the ranch and bought land near Oracle. The Roman Catholic Church bought the buildings and the rest of the land was sold to a developer named Lusk who named the development Suffolk Hills. She built a beautiful new home on her new property and, as most of us know, that home is now part of the restaurant at Biosphere II.

By all accounts, she was a remarkable woman. She was impulsive. Once she had Stone drive her over to the Nasons, owners and founders of Westward Look. She sent Stone in to announce her.  Mrs. Nason, who was busy as the proprietress of a popular resort, said “Tell her to come in.” The Countess was so miffed at the woman’s failure to come out to greet her that she had Stone drive her home again.

Another time she was visiting relatives in Casanovia, NY. They were very rich and very conservative. She rented a helicopter and landed in their front yard. The whole town was scandalized. I can imagine she enjoyed that reaction.

She liked giving parties occasionally. Once she invited a whole bevy of Tucson debutantes and their gentlemen friends for a dinner dance. An acquaintance of mine was among the young guests but she was so concerned about a spat with her boyfriend that she could remember nothing else about the evening.

There may have been a lot of coverage about Lady Suffolk in Chicago papers but very little was said about her in Tucson newspapers. She must have guarded her private life carefully. As today, the rich and famous regard their abodes in Tucson as places to recuperate from the public’s prying eyes. But as a nosy historian, it sure would be nice to know more.

STEAM PUMP RANCH

by: HENRY ZIPF

My Grandfather, George Pusch, arrived in New York from Germany in 1865. He was eighteen years old. He was accompanied by a friend, John Zellweger, a Swiss boy of 15 years old. They were meat cutters by trade and soon found employment in the city.

They were young and eager and soon they traveled across the country to San Francisco. There Pusch, having saved his money, bought a wagon and 14 mule team and headed for Arizona. He spent some time in Prescott, which was the largest town in the territory, and headed for Phoenix. Finally, about 1874, he arrived in Tucson, a town of 3000 inhabitants.

He prevailed upon Zellweger to join him. Zellweger took a three day trip by boat from San Francisco to San Diego and then a five day trip by stage to Tucson.

There they pooled their resources and bought a portion of the Canada del Oro Ranch–named it the Steam Pump Ranch. Water was plentiful and close to the surface. So, they rigged up a steam pump to bring the water to the surface.

Ranchers from all over Pinal County would bring their cattle herds to Tucson or Red Rock for shipment to market and would water their cattle the night before loading at the Steam Pump Ranch. Pusch got 15 cents a head for each cow that was watered.

He also ran cattle on the ranch–his pasture included a forest permit in that part of the Catalinas we now call Pusch Ridge and Pusch Peak.

Mathilda Feldman, a 20 year old girl from Drockenburg, Germany, journeyed to Tucson in 1879 by train to visit her friend, Sophia Spieling, who married John Zellweger in 1883. Mathilda and George Pusch were married in 1880, one year after her arrival in Tucson.

Mathilda and George had nine children–two who died soon after birth. My mother, Gertrude, was the eldest of those who survived. and she lived all her life in Tucson until her death in 1974

About this time Pusch bought the PZ or Feldman Ranch.     Its headquarters were located between Mammoth and Winkelman, not far from the confluence of the Aravaipa Creek and San Pedro River.

The Feldman Ranch grew–at one time it stretched from the San Pedro River to Oracle Junction. Pusch ran as many as 15,000 range cattle on the ranches. The headquarters included a store, post office, school, church, blacksmith shop, and a number of ranch houses.

Pusch used the Steam Pump Ranch as an overnight stop for the trip to the Feldman Ranch–55 miles from Tucson. He would travel in a wagon across the Antelope Plains, and on many occasions mounted Apaches would circle the wagon to greet my grandfather.

He never carried a gun, but instead would give the Indians sugar, flour, and other provisions.

Often times the children would accompany him on the trip to Feldman–two of the youngest had long blonde hair. The Apaches took delight in running their fingers through the girl’s hair.

Apache hunting parties camped in the foothills above the Steam Pump Ranch–near where the Garrett Plant is located–and would beat on the kitchen door to demand food from the cook. My grandmother would quickly direct the cook not to argue with the visitors.

Prospectors watered their burros at the ranch prior to going in the Catalina foothills to seek a treasure nobody ever found. For years there had been a tale of a fabulous gold mine in the Catalina’s, sealed with an iron door.

In 1922 Harold Bell Wright, a prolific writer at the time came to Tucson for his health. He had tuberculosis. Wright was a visitor at the Steam Pump on a number of occasions and my mother told him the story of the Mine with the Iron Door.

Wright prevailed upon George Wilson, who owned the Linda Vista Ranch near Oracle, to allow him to live at an isolated line camp in the Canada del Oro. There Wright wrote the Mine with the Iron Door, and also greatly improved his health.

He sold the story to Principal Picture Corporation and insisted that it be filmed at the Linda Vista Ranch to repay his old friend, George Wilson for allowing him to live in the canyon line shack.

Wilson had to build cottages and other facilities to house the actors and film crew. So, after filming was completed he had to figure a use for the new facilities. He established the Linda Vista Guest Ranch–the first guest ranch in Arizona.

It accommodated 45 guests and in its heyday attracted such notables as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and Rita Hayworth. Other guests were such national figures as Vice-President Dawes and Herb Brownell. Boyd Wilson, George’s son, told me that Tom Dewey came to the ranch immediately after his loss of the presidency to Harry Truman.

Joe McAdams, bought Rancho Romero and Roberta Nicholas, of Johnson Johnson Pharmaceutical Co., bought and occupied for many years the ranch where Catalina and Saddlebrook are now located.

In 1933 Jack Proctor who operated the Pioneer Hotel and a board member of the Valley Bank bought the Steam Pump Ranch from Mathilda Puschs estate for $10,000.00.

Proctor would send his favorite guests to the Steam Pump to enjoy ranch life. Francis Rooney of the Manhattan Construction Company, Tulsa, spent several vacations at the ranch and subsequently purchased the Canada del Oro Ranch which adjoined the Steam Pump to the South. This ranch included most of Oro Valley Estates and property across the Canada.

Pancho Mendoza ran 100 mother cows on the Rooney property and constructed dikes in the area where the golf course is located today to bring in the flood waters from the Canada. His son, Gene, still lives on the property.

In 1958 Rooney sold a portion of the Canada del Oro Ranch to Jerry Timan, who afterwards organized Horizon Land Company. About the same time, Lou Landon, who was a frequent visitor to Tucson and an ardent golfer, organized a group of Chicago investors and purchased 375 acres from Timan for $187,000.00.

Timan and Landon subsequently presented a development plan for the area, including the golf course and Oro Valley Estates, to the Board of Supervisors which approved the plan and held a press conference at the Saddle 6 Sirloin Steak Club on Oracle Road to publicize the proposed development. The Arizona Daily Star the next morning in banner headlines announced a $44,000,000.00 development plan for Oro Valley.

Lambert Kautenburger chaired the Board of Supervisors, and his son, Bill, is now a member of the Oro Valley Town Council

Several years ago, Mr. Proctor died and left the Steam Pump Ranch to his grandsons, Henry and John Leiber. Henry (Butch) is now operating a ranch in Montana, and John is practicing law and living with his family on the property.

Until his death about a year ago, Hank Leiber, the major league ball player, lived in the adobe house which my grandfather, George Pusch built aver 100 years ago.

Life and War on the Edge of the Spanish Frontier

Usually when we think of Arizona in Spanish Colonial times we have an image of crumbling adobe walls with ragged settlers cowering in fear, just waiting to suffer slow, tortured death at the hands of hostile Indians. The truth is something very different. The settler of the frontier we know as the American Southwest was as tough and resourceful as any Davy Crocket or Daniel Boone. Danger and disease were always lingering about and the challenges of survival were many, but the settlers lived a good, productive life. In between field work and child raising the women followed the latest fashions from Britain and France and bought ribbon and silk. Soldiers took pride in who they were and what they accomplished. Life was rough, but these colonists persevered and carved out a settlement that impacts every part of our lives today.

Richard Collins

President of the Tucson Presidio Trust for Historic Preservation, has been a National Park Ranger and long time volunteer for years. His interest in life on the Spanish Colonial frontier army resulted in designing and creating costumes for the Anza National Historic Trail. He volunteers in the Spanish Colonial collection of the Arizona Historical Society, and guides the efforts of the Tucson Presidio Trust to preserve and showcase Tucson history at the Presidio San Agustin del Tucson.

The Town Center is an 87 acre site located at the Southeast corner of Rancho Vistoso Blvd. and Moore Rd. in Oro Valley. This site, which is privately owned, was formed as a part of the 1987 Rancho Vistoso PAD. At that time it was envisioned that this would be the center of the Town of Oro Valley, thus its name the “Town Center”. As such the Town Center was hard zoned for a wide variety of uses including very high density residential (up to 21RAC) and a mixture of commercial uses.
Located within the boundary of the Town Center is the actual Honey Bee Village Hohokam archaeological site The Honey Bee Village site is the most significant archeological site in the Town of Oro Valley. This site, occupied from 700AD through 1200AD, includes several hundred pit houses, a walled compound and a ball court. Its preservation and study is of the utmost importance to the Town of Oro Valley, Pima County and the Indian Nations,
The development of the Town Center poses a unique challenge. On the one hand, the Town Center contains the unique and irreplaceable cultural and historical resource of the Honey Bee Village. On the other hand, the Town Center land is fully entitled for development with only the requirement to mitigate the archaeological site and then build over the site Additionally, the land value for just the core area of the Honey Bee Village (approximately 13 acres) is $8,000,000 which far exceeds the available preservation bond funds of S1,000,000.
The successful, responsible and appropriate development of the Town Center requires a new and unique approach in which all interested parties work together in partnership throughout the entire development design process. This was accomplished through the formation, by the Town of Oro Valley, of the Honey Bee Village Preserve Working Group. This working group originally tasked with only preparing a conceptual plan for the preservation and management of the Honey Bee archaeological site was expanded in both scope and participants to encompass a conceptual development plan for the entire Town Center_ The working group addressed the issues of what should be preserved, how it should be preserved and the integration of the preserve with both residential and commercial development.
The expanded working group included representatives from the Town of Oro Valley (Mayor, Town Manager, Planning & Zoning, Parks & Recreation), the Town of Oro Valley consultants (Community By Design & Desert Archaeology), Pima County (County Administrator, Cultural Resources & Historical Preservation), the Tohono O’Od ham Nation (Executive Staff, Cultural Affairs & Cultural Preservation), the Arizona State Museum and the land owner and developer, Canada Vistas Homes.
The goals of the Town Center development were:
1. Preserve the core of the Honey Bee Village
2. Create a historical focal point for the Town of Oro Valley
3. Ensure the economic viability of the Development
4. Ensure unique and compatible residential and commercial development_
As a result of extensive meetings and planning sessions a conceptual preservation plan and development plan accomplishing the above goals and agreeable to all parties has been developed. The Town Center development is focused around the formation of the “Honey Bee Village Preserve”. This preserve encompasses the vast majority of the archaeological features believed to have formed the core of the village including the ball court and walled compound, The Honey Bee Village Preserve is being created by the donation of 13 acres by the land owner and developer, Canada Vistas Homes. The Preserve will be held in the public domain and will be accessible to the public, In addition Pima County is utilizing the voter approved Honey Bee Village preservation bond funds ($1,000,000) to provide the necessary archeological studies, surveys and mitigation of the remainder of the Town Center site outside of the preserved core area
The draft Honey Bee Village Archaeological Preserve Conceptual Site Plan was accepted by the Oro Valley Town Council on July 6, 2005 and forwarded to the Tohono 010d ham Nation for their review and comments_ The Tohono O’Od ham Legislative Council approved a resolution supporting the Conceptual Plan on September 14. 2005.

In addition to the Honey Bee Village Preserve the Town Center development consists of three separate development areas:

1. HONEY BEE PLAZA: A 10 acre central neighborhood mall commercial area of up to 100,000 square feet of space at the intersection of Rancho Vistoso Blvd. and Moore Road, Expected uses include specialty shops, restaurants with outside dining and offices. The commercial area will serve a dual function allowing the appropriate public access to the Preserve_ Facilities for the support of the Honey Bee Village Preserve will include space for an interpretive and educational center and a 1/4 acre site dedicated to an active archaeological display. Other necessary support services will include parking, food, beverages and restrooms.
2. HOHOKAM lvISA: A lower density 52 acre single family home development
   with 149 lots (3RAC). This development has been intentionally designed to avoid the typical “cookie cutter” look. Loving street design along with varied street setbacks and lot sires form a meandering and open streetscape throughout the neighborhood. The lots have been carefully configured to utilize the natural land contours and the expansive views and designed such all the lots back up to open space These design features, along with large amounts of natural space and an interconnected trail system, will provide the residents with a pedestrian friendly and open environment.
3. 3. DESERT PUEBLO: A 14 acre resortivacation condominium development consisting of 17 residential buildings and a club house for a total of 124 units. This results in a density of 9RAC as opposed to the zoning of 21RAC. Once again this community has been designed with caving and varied street setbacks to provide a meandering and open street scape.

Although the Rancho Vistoso Pad allows for high density development of the Town Center Neighborhood, the developed areas account for only 50% of the total 87 acres_ The designs of both the commercial and residential areas will be such that they reflect the Southwest native heritage of this site. All structures, walls, yards. landscaping and any other types of development will be in compliance with a set of Architectural Guidelines to ensure compatibility with the historic nature of the Town Center.
The Town Center development will truly be a one-of- a -kind unique community, not only in Oro Valley, but all of Southern Arizona, The Honey Bee Village Preserve will be the largest historical site in the Town of Oro Valley and is expected to be the jewel and focal point of the historic past and heritage of the Town_ The future residents of the Town Center community will be drawn by the archeological preserve and eager to participate in it preservation. Its historical significance along with the unique community design. open space, expansive vistas and central location will result in an unique and wonderful addition to the Oro Valley community.