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Keeper of legends

Tucson's La Pilita Museum preserves Barrio Viejo stories, tragedy of El Tiradito

For the residents of Barrio Viejo and El Hoyo, El Tiradito shrine and La Pilita were Tucson landmarks around which old stories swirled. All of the tales involved passion, violence, blood and death, but no one knew for sure which were true. The dust of time had covered the roots of these stories, but they remained embedded in the neighborhood's consciousness.

In 1971, the legends and the older neighborhood would help save each other when the city of Tucson proposed to build a freeway through Armory Park, Barrio Viejo and El Hoyo.  Residents banded with La Placita Committee, Los Tucsonenses and other activists to place El Tiradito on the National Register of Historic Places. Once that was accomplished, the neighborhoods were spared the freeway project.

La Pilita, now a museum and regional history resource at 420 S. Main, and El Tiradito, are owned by the city. Executive director Carol Cribbet-Bell and program/education director Joan Daniels are volunteer staff members at the museum, through which volunteer student docents conduct tours.

PRESERVING A SPECIAL PARK

Cribbet-Bell said La Pilita had been the site for water for the original Spanish Presidio, known as El Ojito spring. The tiny park area shares the south wall of  El Tiradito shrine and the entrance to what was once upscale parks of the late 1800s (Elysian Grove and Carrillo Gardens).

"La Pilita had a variety of uses. The actual building was a residence, a garage, and then a restaurant. Amity (a social service organization) also had it for awhile," she says, adding that in 1999 a group of teachers, parents and neighborhood residents wrote a proposal asking to be in charge of the park.

The city agreed, and threw in the La Pilita building. There was no heating, no cooling and it had a bad roof. Still, the preservationists were thrilled.

"The potential was there," Cribbet-Bell recalls. "We applied for a start-up grant for $38,000 and we got going."

"We became a nonprofit," Daniels adds. "It is not associated with the school because they thought we'd have a better chance and, indeed, we have. We've received over a quarter million dollars for programs and site improvement. We've now applied for a national grant."

La Pilita has found financial support with mostly local and state grants, and with an all-volunteer staff and an active board, the museum and the grounds are flourishing. La Tiendita, the museum's store, sells candles for visitors to use at El Tiradito, as well as articles, crafts and art work made by the student docents and local artists (see accompanying story on the next fundraising event).

"Our docents make different things for sale and we heavily supplement that with candles for the shrine. We're starting to work with people for things they make, including honey and some jewelry," said Cribbet-Bell. There also are some designer fashion items in the store.

A special readers theater is performed by the student docents, keeping alive the old stories. In one performance, a student portrays the original soldier who fell into the site's watering hole. This month, a group of Congressional  visitors will tour the site and listen to the students tell their stories. It is this type of lively preservation of oral history that visitors find so appealing and that the neighborhood's residents count upon.

Schoolchildren can also participate in hands-on activities to learn about anthropology, desert ecology and archaeology.

"We have had people tell us thank you very much," Cribbet-Bell says. "Because we have quite a few students, those folks (parents and grandparents) are very grateful for their children learning the old stories, seeing the old photos. Many people have come to give their oral histories, and that is some measure of success."

"We have this program, 'Who Walked Here Before You?' that has little feet as graphics," Daniels says. "That way (students) can really get it." The program includes a slide show starting with the site's history of the Hohokam, through a pioneering chapter up to the present.

AN AUTHENTIC PLACE

Cribbet-Bell and Daniels have a standing offer to interview anyone who has a memory or a story of Barrio Viejo they'd like to share. Recently, they were able to talk with the first student who walked into Carrillo Elementary School; he's now in his 90s.

"We're like an island. This is one of the few authentic places left," Daniels says, adding, "You're almost striving to keep them at bay."

"Them" are the developers who want to buy land parcels in the barrio neighborhood, knock down existing structures and rebuild. Currently, the old tortilla factory building across the street from La Pilita is on the market for about $700,000, a pittance for downtown property in any big city. According to Cribbet-Bell and Daniels, Carrillo school kids often stopped in at the factory to get a free hot tortilla to tide them over until dinner.

For now, the stories of La Pilita and El Tiradito are preserved as long as funding and volunteers continue to support the site. In the meantime, the neighborhood will try to weather the changes progress brings.

"The gentrification is the saddest thing," Cribbet-Bell observes. "It wouldn't surprise me if they built another law office."

For more information, visit www.lapilita.com or contact La Pilita Museum at (520) 882-7454.