Travel America: Tucson's Western Heritage

Vestiges of its rip-roaring past intrigue visitors thirsting for frontier nostalgia in the Sonoran Desert of Southern Arizona

Emblazoned with a beefy bovine in silhouette, the yellow "Open Range" sign alerting motorists to watch for stray cows upped the excitement level as we got closer to White Stallion Ranch, our home for the next three nights. Cruising over the ridge, we were leaving Tucson's suburban sprawl for the Old Southwest of cowboys and cattle, cactus and coyotes.

On our mid-morning arrival at the ranch, we encountered a stillness broken only by twittering birds. The patio of our whitewashed adobe bungalow looked out on cactus gardens, towers of baled hay, and horses grazing in a scrubby pasture. Looming beyond were Safford and Panther peaks, part of the reddish Tucson Mountains that defined our desert kingdom. The sky was cloudless, the temperature on this February day a perfect 75 degrees.

Soon after we settled into our airconditioned quarters, the dinner bell clanged to beckon us to the dining room, which occupies the ranch's original main house, built of sundried mud bricks a century ago. There my teenage daughter and I met guests from Vermont and Nantucket, England and Germany. They talked abut their morning trail rides through the cactus-studded hills.

White Stallion, a homey place run by the True family, is one of only three real dude ranches that remain in booming Tucson, once a rowdy frontier town and Arizona's territorial capital. In the 1930s and '40s, the Tucson area counted more than 130 guest ranches. When the Trues moved from Denver and bought the property in 1965, there were still 30 guest ranches within an hour of Tucson. Mindful of encroaching development, they gradually increased their holdings from 160 acres to nearly 3,000. Today this working cattle ranch has 41 Spanish-style guest rooms available from September through May.

Tucson, a metropolis of 750,000 spread out over a valley hemmed by five mountain ranges, is the perfect Arizona choice for ranch fans who prefer urban amenities--cultural attractions, shopping, fine dining--close at hand, not hours away. After our America West flight from Chicago to Tucson (via Phoenix), it was just a 35-minute drive to the ranch, mostly on Interstate 10. Another reason for choosing Tucson was its proximity to the border town of Nogales, Mexico.

White Stallion Ranch (888-977-2624) offers a heated swimming pool, an indoor hot tub, tennis, and sand volleyball in addition to morning and afternoon horseback outings for beginners and advanced riders. In the arena every week, wranglers demonstrate rodeo events like calf roping and steer wrestling. The day we arrived we found ourselves competing in team penning, a timed event in which a team of four riders herds three calves into a pen. Fellow guests cheered us on from the bleachers.

Being staged that week in Tucson was the annual La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, featuring the largest outdoor winter rodeo in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association lineup. On the day of the Tucson Rodeo Parade, area schools and many businesses close. Drawing 200,000 spectators, the world's longest non-motorized parade has more than 200 Western-themed floats, plus horse-drawn coaches, outfitted riders, Mexican folk dancers, and marching bands. The rodeo next year will be February 21-25, the parade February 22.

Some of the trail horses at White Stallion Ranch have rodeo backgrounds, we discovered while looking over the "Book of Horses" in the lounge. The one named Rodeo "came from Mexico, where he worked on a ranch and performed in rodeos," according to his biography. Spanish was a "calf-roping horse in rodeos and pulled a wagon train." Guests enjoy looking up the breeds, measurements, and histories of their assigned horses--Bullet, Bucky, Blackjack, Cimarron, Cheyenne, Rawhide, Tequila, and the rest.

A scrapbook in the lounge brings back memories for the ranch's many repeat guests. By the barn we met three women grooming a retired horse they rode when they started vacationing at White Stallion 40 years ago. A man from Maine who came for 37 years had his ashes buried here in a cactus garden dedicated to him.

On a mountainside not far from White Stallion is the 23-room Lazy K Bar Guest Ranch (800-321-7018), with a similar atmosphere and facilities. On the east side of Tucson is the upscale, 72-room Tanque Verde Ranch (800-234-3833). To take part in a real cattle drive, contact Cocoraque Ranch (520-682-8594).

Tucson is flanked on its east and west sides by two units of Saguaro National Park, home to the world's largest concentration of the sentinel-like saguaro cactus that has come to symbolize the Southwest. Each location has a visitors center and loop road for driving or bicycling. Both White Stallion and Tanque Verde ranches share borders with the park.

Adjacent to the park's western wing is the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a zoo and botanical garden with animals and plants indigenous to the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, California, and Mexico. Visitors get closeup views of bobcats, scorpions, rattlesnakes, roadrunners, Gila monsters, Mexican wolves, coyotes, and hawks.

Two miles down the road is Old Tucson Studios, a theme park and movie studio. This re-creation of an 1880s Western town, built for the 1939 movie Arizona, is still used by Hollywood film companies. Highlights include gunfights, saloon shows, daring stunts, trick riding, and an occasional glimpse of film crews at work. Much of the park had to be reconstructed after a devastating fire in 1995.

Perhaps the best place to buy jeans, boots, and cowboy hats is Western Warehouse, with four locations in Tucson. Steakhouses with Old West flair include El Corral, housed in a territorial ranch house, and Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse in Trail Dust Town, a re-created frontier outpost. The signature dish at El Charro, the oldest Mexican restaurant in the U.S., is carne seca, a spiced, dried beef.

Though our Southern Arizona trip was short. I wanted to show my daughter a slice of Mexico (albeit an atypical one) in Nogales, a fun shopping destination for curious Americans. We spent a few hours wandering through shops and outdoor stalls brimming with everything from gaudy sombreros and bleached cow skulls to pinatas, hammocks, and pottery glazed in a rainbow of colors.

To break up the 65-mile drive to Nogales (via Interstate 19), we stopped at several historical sites on the way, including Mission San Xavier del Bac. This graceful Spanish mission church on the southwest side of Tucson still serves the Tohono O'Odham community for whom it was established in the late 1600s. Known for its recently restored frescoes, San Xavier has been called the "Sistine Chapel of North America."

Also worth a stop is tiny Tubac, 45 miles south of Tucson. Arizona's first European settlement is now an artist's colony with more than 80 shops. Nearby is Tumacacori National Historical Park, a Franciscan mission built in 1795.

For information, contact the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau (TravelAmerica Magazine), 130 S. Scott Ave., Tucson, AZ 85701; (800) 638-8350; www.visittucson.org.