Off The Beaten Path

Looking back, I noticed I had a day I forgot to post my photo.  Fortunately, I did go out exploring that day.  Must have been tired when I got home.

This is the Assumption of Mary Catholic Mission located in Amado, Arizona.  I stumbled upon it after turning onto a "barely" paved road looking for a ranch, any ranch.  The Mission was established by the priests of St. Ann's Church in Tubac in an effort to reach settlers after the Pima Indians retreated from the area (see below). Try as I might, I could not find the exact date it was established.

St. Ann's church has been a place of worship almost continuously for the past 250 years.  As the Spanish Empire attempted to expand into the frontiers of New Spain, Catholic missions were established throughout modern-day Mexico and the Southwestern United States. One was established as a mission farm and ranch in Tubac, then a small Pima Indian village, in 1691.  

Spain began to colonize the area in the 1730s; twenty years later the Pimas led an uprising against them in 1751 and the settlement at Tubac was destroyed. A year later, the Pimas surrendered and the Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac was established to protect the town and the surrounding area from further rebellion. 

A 1750 map of Tubac shows a cemetery but no church. Travelers in 1848 and 1849 reported that Tubac’s “church” had walls but no roof. 
By 1920, its walls had fallen in, due to record rains of 1914-15, and faulty walls. The church adobe walls were eventually stuccoed in 1929.
Tubac became the first European settlement in what today is the state of Arizona. Arizona became a state in 1912, the 48th, to be followed only by Alaska and Hawaii. 
I think those last three states were added just so people had really awesome places to vacation. *tee hee*