Mountainous terrain and scenic canyons offering panoramic views, hiking trails, and historical interpretation of early Spanish exploration.
General Information
Visitor Center: 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM daily
Closed: Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day
No entrance pass required
Not allowed in buildings or most hiking trails
Must be leashed (max 6 ft), not left unattended, and cleaned up after
How to Get There
From Tucson, AZ (90 mi): Take AZ-92 S through Sierra Vista, then turn east on E Montezuma Canyon Rd and follow signs to the memorial entrance.
Overview
The Coronado National Memorial commemorates the first organized expedition into the Southwest by conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1540. The memorial is located in a natural setting on the Mexico-United States border on the southeast flank of the Huachuca Mountains south of Sierra Vista, Arizona and is bordered to the north and west by Coronado National Forest. Within the memorial is an overlook at Montezuma Pass where the Coronado expedition entered modern Arizona. The memorial confirms the ties that bind the United States and Mexico.
History
Official statements indicate that it was initially designed as a gesture of goodwill and cooperation between the United States and Mexico, through the recognition of Coronado's 1540 expedition to the area. For example, in 1939 the House Committee on Foreign Affairs noted:
As a result of this expedition, what has been truly characterized by historians as one of the greatest land expeditions the world has known, a new civilization was established in the great American Southwest.
And E. K. Burlew, Acting Secretary of the Interior added in 1940:
To commemorate permanently the explorations of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. . .would be of great value in advancing the relationship of the United States and Mexico upon a friendly basis of cultural understanding. . . [It would] stress the history and problems of the two countries and would encourage cooperation for the advancement of their common interests.
Over 2600 species of arid land plants from around the world grow at the Arboretum. Agaves, aloes, boojum trees, cork oaks, jujube trees, legume trees, and, in the Eucalyptus grove, one of the largest red gum Eucalyptus trees ("Mr. Big") in the United States. Cacti and succulents grow extensively throughout the Arboretum.
Thus the site was first designated Coronado International Memorial on August 18, 1941, with the hope that a comparable adjoining area would be established in Mexico. The arrangement might have been similar to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park between the United States and Canada. However, despite interest by the government of Mexico, the Mexican memorial was never created, therefore Congress changed the authorized designation to a national memorial on July 9, 1952. The memorial was established by Harry S. Truman on November 5 of that year. As with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, the national memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Coronado National Memorial", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
