Mission Garden Acequia
Acequia inspiration for the future building site at Mission Garden.
The Timeline Acequia is the central feature of Mission Garden, the practical demonstration of the story of water through time in the Tucson Basin. This story, water and its uses, is central to all the layers of agricultural history at Mission Garden, and is essential to the interpretation of our region’s indigenous peoples and of all the various immigrating groups who have arrived since. The story of the Timeline Gardens is incomplete without the physical presence of the acequia, the technological instrument that allowed these gardens to exist over such a long period. The challenge of growing food crops in the Sonoran Desert is not one of water scarcity but of how creative solutions can bring water from where it is to where it is needed.
Seen as a whole, north and south portions of the canal will provide the interpretive centerpiece for education about the agricultural history of our oasis in the Sonoran Desert and the ways in which each of the multiple culture groups who cultivated in this remarkably long-lived site, brought water to their fields. The south portion of the canal will interpret the ways the Spanish, Mexican, Chinese, Yaqui, African American, and Anglo-American farmers used, delivered, and conserved our precious waters. It is significant that the reconstructed Timeline Acequia will be located above the remains of one of the largest Hohokam canals uncovered to date in southern Arizona (6 feet deep by 10 feet wide). Mission Garden is a nationally unique cultural asset with the rich archaeology of its “stacked” acequias representing the continuous sequence of previous culture groups.
The Timeline Acequia represents a microcosm of the ecological system of the Santa Cruz River and the Tucson Basin, as well as our history of use and abuse of the river and its waters over time. It will reflect the formerly vibrant ecological condition of the river and its riparian vegetation, and the current importance to residents in a time of climate change. Interpretive signage will reflect the importance of water to humans and wildlife alike, and will not overlook the spiritual significance of water to the series of cultures represented in this project.
The Mission Garden Acequia project has been funded through a generous grant from the Southwestern Foundation for Education and Historic Preservation and a funding commitment from the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s Partners program. FOTB is still seeking additional funders for this project, which is to begin by summer of 2018.
Acequia inspiration.
