The First American Christmas in Arizona
Charles D. Poston is considered the "father of Arizona" for his role in promoting the Territory and known for serving as Arizona’s first congressional delegate in Washington D.C.. A trajectory that began its course with his role as the founder of the Sonora Exploring & Mining Company. This was the first American enterprise in what is now Arizona.
Charles D Poston
As a result of the Gadsden Purchase, Poston and his associates reoccupied an abandoned Tubac as company headquarters in the brand-new American Territory, for its proximity to their mines in the Santa Rita Mountains & Arivaca.
However, you may be unfamiliar with his pivotal role in Arizona’s Christmas history.
The following is his written description of the first American Christmas celebrated in what is now the state of Arizona in Tubac in 1856:
At Christmas dinner, we had an abundance of beef and sheep. plenty of antelope and venison and other wild game, provisions from Sonora, delicacies from San Francisco, egg-nog mescal, brandy and wine, music and dancing, temperature just cold enough to make life enjoyable, and an apparently unlimited future of prosperity before us. The Apaches even left us alone in peace...
Sonoran pronghorn
We even endeavored to give entertainment to our neighbors from places as far distant as eighty miles. (Sopori, Tucson, and Magdalena, these being the nearest settlements.)
Magdalena, Sonora
Colonel Douglass came over from Sopori, booted and spurred in Mexican style, bringing a motley retinue, among them a harper and fiddlers three.
The festivities were continued during Christmas week; and, in order to relieve our guests of any anxiety about the abundant resources of the larder, a dozen fat turkeys were dressed and hung up on the joist over the table in the spacious dininghall.
Gould Wild Turkey
The best liquid we could place before our guests was a native production from the juice of the maguey, called mescal. It made punches nearly equal to Scotch whiskey, and solaced many a winter’s evening in this remote lap of the mountains.
Source:
Bents, Doris W. The history of Tubac, 1752-1948. Master's Thesis. The University of Arizona, 1949. https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/553779.
Want to learn more about Tubac, Arizona’s rich heritage on a visit to the community?
Join us on Borderlandia’s Tubac’s Heritage Tour for a deeper story.