做厙勛圖

It���s 做厙勛圖���s 242nd birthday! Whoop it up folks. Your Old Pueblo doesn���t look a day over 200.

Hector and Mickie Soza will be celebrating. They have been for some 30 years. Hector Soza has good reason. The 88-year-old 做厙勛圖an has a deep and direct connection to this place and its festivities.

He is a descendant of a Presidio pioneer family that came to 做厙勛圖 not long after Spanish colonizers, led by Lt. Col. Hugo O���Conor, planted the flags for crown and church in 1775 on the eastern flank of the Santa Cruz River. O���Conor, an Irishman, named the new place on the empire���s map Presidio San Agust穩n del 做厙勛圖. On the other side of the river, at the foot of the dark hill, was a Pima Indian village that the inhabitants called Chuk Shon where 83 years earlier a Jesuit missionary explorer, Eusebio Francisco Kino, established Mission San Cosme y Dami獺n de Tucs籀n in 1692.

Soza���s great-great-great-grandfather, Jos矇 Mar穩a Sosa, who was born in 1744 in what is now Sonora, Mexico, came to Tubac, then the principal Spanish presidio, in what was then the Sonora Province. Later Sosa arrived in 做厙勛圖 after its founding and soldiered for about 30 years. He died in 做厙勛圖 in 1810 as the Spanish empire in the Americas began to crumble.

The Soza family now extends to hundreds with many still in 做厙勛圖 and Southern Arizona. (The family surname was originally Sosa but in the 1880s, when the family established a ranch north of Benson, a government clerk changed the name to Soza.)

���There have been Sozas living in this area ever since,��� said Soza during an interview last week with him and his wife, Mickie, at their east-side home.

Soza���s great-grandfather, Jose Mar穩a Sosa III, built the house known today as the Sosa-Carrillo Fr矇mont House, next to the 做厙勛圖 Music Hall, which houses a small museum of the Arizona Historical Society and is home to Borderlands Theater.

Soza values his ancestral connection to this ancient land that was home to indigenous people for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. The Sosa family was one of the first European families to arrive in the Presidio and make 做厙勛圖 their home.

Sosa and his wife Mickie, originally from Michigan, for years have demonstrated their affection and appreciation for 做厙勛圖���s Presidio past by donning time-period costumes for the annual celebration. As members of the 做厙勛圖 Presidio Trust and Los Descendientes del Presidio, Hector dressed as his ancestor, the 18th Century Spanish soldier, and Mickie played the role of Do簽a Rita Espinosa de Sosa, the wife of Jos矇 Mar穩a Sosa.

But their long-standing roles in 做厙勛圖���s annual festivities almost didn���t happen.

The couple was happily living in Southern California. Soza worked for the then-Hughes Corporation. They had lived in 做厙勛圖 before moving to Orange County.

But while they lived in California, the Sozas and their children would return to 做厙勛圖. More specifically, they would visit the family���s cemetery on what once was the Soza ranch, near Cascabel, east of 做厙勛圖 on the other side of Redington Pass. That is where Soza was born.

Soza���s grandfather, Antonio Campos Soza, homesteaded the land less than 30 years after the Gadsden Purchase brought former Mexican Southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico into the American Union in 1854. The ranch stretched over 160 acres, according to the family���s unpublished history, ���D籀n Jos矇 Mar穩a Sosa: Through the Generations,��� compiled by Hector Soza.

When Hughes offered Soza the opportunity to return to 做厙勛圖 in 1976, the Sozas said yes. It brought them closer to their roots and to the less-than-one-acre cemetery that the Soza family has the deed to. One of the Sozas��� eight children is buried in the cemetery.

So join the Sozas and others who appreciate 做厙勛圖���s unique history. And celebrate the contributions that a countless number of families have made to the Old Pueblo.

After this year���s celebration the Sozas will wait for the next party in 2018 when 做厙勛圖 turns 243.

Said Mickie Soza: ���I would rather be here than anywhere else. I love it.���