Arizona republican., 1916-10-15
Early Arizona Mininn

Historically, probably the most in- teresting of all of the mining activities within the State of Arizona are those or santa Cruz county, inasmuch as it was within this area that the Jesuit Iathers founded chain of missions in me valley or the Santa Cruz river and farther south into Mexico According to La Historia del Nayarit." an ac- count of the ''labors of the Sociey of Jesus in SempitroniaI America. :" which work was written by Fra Ortega. one of that order Father Eusebia Kino. whose name has been immortalized by ms great work, came from the City of Mexico in 1886, and locating in l678
 mission at a point about thirty miles south Of the present international boundary between the United States and Mexico, he names the mission and the river beside whose banks it stoodN one the Mission Dolores and the other Rio Dolores. From that point as a base or operations the devoted missionary established missions at Cocospera Remedies, Santa Barbara.
 Tn the santa Cruz Valley, below the santa Barbara Mission Fra Kino built Iour other missions, the first at San fellpe Guevavi about nine miles north east or Nogales; another at San Cay- T. miles northwest from the same town. a third at Santiago, the site of which point IS not known accurately now and the fourth at San Xavier del Bac nine miles south of Tucson. San Xavier has been restored by the federal gov ernmept and it is one of the show l places of Arizona.
 Tn the vicinity of each mission was a l presldlo, or military post, with a gar
 rlson sufficiently strong for protection or the surrounding region from the ] marauding Apaches who occupied re- gions beyond the San Pedro and inc Gila, whence they were won't to make excursions of rapine and rayage into the country of the Pimas and the Papagoes, peaceable Indians occupying these regions, who readily embraced christianity, coming easily under the uoninatlon of the gentle priests. Ihose Indians were tillers of the soil anu iaporers. From among them were uraWh the workers in the mines and on the ranches that the friars and lay- | ment among the Spaniards discovered and exploited. Tubac. on the Santa cruz, twenty-two miles from Nogales
 was the presidio near Tumacacori and recently there have bten unearthed a lot or old, rusty, twelve pound cannon Dalls that were no doubt for use in some of the artillery of the garrison. | tucson, which had been the site of an ihulan Village, was the presidio for protection or the country surroundine. According to the history of that time and the records of the mission now preserved in Spain, the friars at Yum acacori discovered and wrought rich silver mines in the Santa Rita moun- tains, to the northeast, and in the Al
 acosa mountains on the southwest.
 The Salero mines and other properties In the Santa Ritas are known to have been operated by the friars, and in places vestiges of their workings are Iound today. In recent years a party rom California, having a plat or man with a written description of the loca ton, said to have come from the ar chlves of the old mission, has been searching in the Atacosa mountains Tor the abandoned mine that the record |, Whlcn they have tells of having been exploited by the friars. Those opera :