The lure of gold near today’s Catalina State Park and the lasting footprint of the Romero family ranch.
Written by Devon Sloan, March 2024
There’s gold in “them thar hills”!???…or so a March 1875 issue of the Arizona Citizen implied.
Francisco Romero
The “hills” referred to are in the area we now know as Catalina State Park, near the mouth of Romero Canyon. Francisco Romero and his partner, William Zeckendorf (who was also the owner of Zeckendorf Mercantile in downtown Tucson at the time), found a rich vein of gold and silver in the mountains. The article in the newspaper was probably published to entice investors for their company. That didn’t work, however, and no gold or silver was ever mined in this area on a large-scale basis. There are plenty of accounts, however, of miners, who with their burros and camping gear and high hopes, made many trips to discover on their own what treasures might be found in the Catalina Mountains.
Romero Ruin at Catalina State Park
Francisco Romero, probably the first non-native settler of the Cañada del Oro area, established a cattle ranch, centering his spread on an enclosed house compound in a former Hohokam village. We know this area today as Romero Ruins. His family was well established in the Tucson area, having come to Arizona as part of a Spanish presidio army in the late 18th century. Romero lived on this ranch intermittently from 1869 to his death in 1905. Due to constant threat of Apache attacks, he and his family lived most of their days in the city of Tucson and kept some cattle on the ranch in the Catalinas.
Members of the Romero family occupied land in this same area until 1930. His only son returned to Cañada del Oro and built a new ranch house in 1889, just below the ridge where his father’s house stood. The remains of this house survive today and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which includes Romero Ruins.
Find more interesting information on the Historical Marker Database; it’s actually missing from Arizona Route 77 just north of Steam Pump Ranch.
Romero Ruin Sign at Catalina State Park
Romero Ruin (Catalina State Park) by Archeology Southwest
Take a hike! Romero Ruins Interpretive Trail
Catalina State Park: A Vision Realized, by Devon Sloan