Coronado National Memorial Park

Credit: NPS
    1.        Along the international border between the United States and Mexico, on the southeastern slope of a sky island known as the Huachuca (Wah-choo-ka) Mountains and south of the small desert town of Sierra Vista, Arizona, the National Park System operates and oversees a unique and remote national memorial park.   There are thirty national memorials across the United States and some are quite famous, like the Lincoln Memorial, Pearl Harbor Memorial and the Martin Luther King Memorial.   But this Arizona high desert national memorial is dedicated to people and events that occurred some 236 years before the United States was even a country.  It commemorates one of the greatest European expeditions ever to take place in the Americas - the 1540 - 1542 expedition in search of the Cibola - the fabled Seven Cities of Gold by a Spanish army led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado.   

             

Credit: NPS
2.   The Coronado National Memorial is a  4,830.22 acres (19.5472 km2) park and preserve originally established as an international park in 1939 in a hope to “advance the relationship of the United States and Mexico upon a friendly basis of cultural understanding…” to encourage the advancement of both counties common interests.  The park was located here because the mountains that encompass Coronado National Memorial overlook the vast San Pedro River Valley, shown above - the valley Coronado and his men traveled when they first entered today’s United States from Mexico some 67 years before the founding of the English colony of Jamestown, VA.

Credit: University of Southern Florida
3.   The story of the 1540 - 1542 Coronado’s Expedition has its genesis in the conquest of the Mexica (Aztec) people during the siege of 1519 - 1521 and led by Hernán Cortés, shown above.  After the conquest, Cortés had to return to Spain to face charges of improper treatment of the Mexica people.  In his absence, a new group of Spanish conquistadors, priests, soldiers and merchants arrived in the Valley of Mexico to govern and build a permanent Spanish colony in the New World.  

 
Credit: NPS & artist José Cisneros
4.  Now new men of Spain or under the ownership of Spain began to flow into what would become the modern countries of Mexico and the United States.  A group of four Spanish conquistadors along with a Black, Moorish slave known in history as Esteban or Estevanico, survived a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico and wandered across modern Texas and the deserts of the American Southwest and Mexico between 1528 - 1536 before coming upon a group of Spanish soldiers who rescued them in northern Mexico.  During their odyssey they were told of fabled Seven Cities of Gold, called Cibola, that according to the native people with whom they spoke, lay further to the north.  An artist rendition of Esteban is shown above. 

Credit: Linda & Dr. Dick Buscher
5.  A Spanish Franciscan friar named Fray Marcos de Niza had arrived in the City of Mexico in 1531 and in 1538 agreed to accompany the Moorish slave Esteban to the unknown regions to the north in search of the Seven Cities of Gold.  Historians believe that in May 1539 Esteban and Fray Marcos de Niza became the first African and first European to enter the southwest region of what would become the United States along the southern boundary of today’s Arizona.  A monument to their entry is located near the small ghost mining town of Lochiel, Arizona and is shown above.  The result of their journey was that Esteban was killed by the Zuni Indians in what is today’s northern New Mexico and Fray de Niza rushed back to City of Mexico and reported that he did actually did see Cibola - the Seven Cities of Gold! 

Credit: NPS
6.  Hernán Cortés once wrote, “We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure” and Fray de Niza’s arrival back into the capital city set the hearts of this new generation of young conquistadors a blaze.  A thirty year old noble, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was selected by then Governor Antonio de Mendoza to lead a large Spanish army of soldiers and native porters to the north to claim these golden cities for the King of Spain.  On February 22, 1540 Francisco Vázquez de Coronado left Compostela with a army of 336 Spanish conquistadors, 3 women and 761 Indian porters north to conquer Cibola under the banner of the Castilian flag.  Coronado. Fray de Niza and a small advanced portion of his army moved north ahead of the main part of his army.  This advanced group entered what is now the State of Arizona near today’s Coronado National Memorial Park along the San Pedro River Valley May 1540.

Credit: Linda & Dr. Dick Buscher
7.  The two year journey of Coronado and a small part of this army into the American southwest and plains provide many “first” in the annals of American history.   In the small pueblo known as Hawikuh in today’s northeastern New Mexico, the first battle between Europeans and Native Americans occurred on July 7, 1540.  Since Hawikuh, shown in ruins in the above 2006 photo,  was simply a small pueblo made of mud and stone and not of gold, distrust in Fray de Niza’s story of Cibola began to grow.  But Coronado was now injured having received a hail of stones thrown at his head and an arrow to his leg.  While recovering from his battle injuries, he ordered his officers to explore.  Twenty-two year old Hernando de Alvarado the designated “Captain of the Artillery”, traveled to the northeast and while entering today’s states of Texas and Oklahoma became the first European to see and dine on the American buffalo.  Captain Don García López de Cárdenas, led by a group of Hopi Indians, became the first European to gaze into the depths of the Grand Canyon. 

Credit: NPS
8. Coronado would recover from his wounds.  His first order of business was to send Fray Marcos de Niza back to the City of Mexico for his own safety as his men had become convinced the good Fray had lied about Cibola.   But Coronado and his army of conquistodors were soon back on the trail in search of Cibola.  This time they were told of a “Golden City” to the northeast known as Quivira.  They began their march to Quivira on April 23, 1541.  When they arrived at this pueblo, somewhere on the plains of central Kansas, they once again found only a poor village made of mud and stone.   Disheartened, Coronado and his men  turned their horses south and began their journey back to the City of Mexico arriving in April 1542. He was labeled a failure for not finding gold and died on September 22, 1554 never receiving the accolades for his accomplishments during his journey of exploration.   And even though Coronado did not find the Seven Cities of Gold, he and his men did open the northern lands for a future generation of Spanish soldiers, priests and settlers to travel there and begin to establish permanent Spanish settlements at the beginning of the 17th Century.  Some historians have argued that United States history actually began with the Coronado Expedition as he and/or his men were the first Europeans to travel through the future states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Credit: NPS
9.  The Huachuca Mountains, home to the Coronado National Memorial Park, is one of 27 Sky Islands found in the Madera Sky Island Archipelago.  It is a region of over 70,000 square miles (181,299 km²) that is the biological meeting point of two great mountain ranges - the Rocky Mountains of the north and the Sierra Madre Mountains of the south.  Here over the eons of geological time the valley floors have sunk resulting in sky island mountain peaks rising to over 9,000 feet in elevation above the Sonoran Desert floor.  The Huachuca Mountains, and Indian name that translates to mean “mountain of water” are within the boundary of the Coronado National Forest and the highest peak of the Huachuca Mountains rises to an elevation of 9,466 ft (2,885 m).  Coronado National Memorial Park sits at the eastern end of the Huachuca Mountains and the highest  peak within the park, known as Coronado Peak, rises to an elevation of 6,864 feet (2092 m).

Credit: NPS
10.  Mexico was unable to ever develop their side of the intended international park.  So, in July 1952 the United Staes Congress removed “international” from the park’s name and authorized designation of the park as a national Memorial.  President Harry S. Truman officially designed the Coronado National Memorial Park on November 5, 1952.  Finally, Coronado National Memorial Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.  At an average elevation within the park of 4,000 feet (1,219 m), the park preserves a unique and desolate desert landscape.

Credit: NPS
11.  One of the more adventurous experiences while visiting the national memorial park is a visit to Coronado Cave.  A short hike brings the explorer to a 600 foot (183 m) long, 20 foot (6 m) high limestone cave.  This spectacular cave, as shown above, requires no rappelling or squeezing through tight passageways but just a casual walk through rooms and areas 6 to 70 feet (2 - 21 m) wide.  Old West legends suggest that native Apache Indians, including the great Chiricahua Apache shaman, Geronimo, often camped and hid out in Coronado Cave during the Apache Wars of 1849 - 1886.

Credit: NPS
12. Within the boundary of the Coronado National Memorial a vast and diverse community of desert plants thrive.  Emory oaks and Gambel oak trees dominate a large part of the park.  Scrubland vegetation as well as non-native grasslands dominate parts of the lower elevations of the land.  Various yucca plants, like those shown above, and other high Sonoran Desert vegetation species are also common within the park.  In such a rugged and isolated region, 36 species of reptiles, 7 species of amphibians, 170 species of birds and 44 species of mammals are all found at Coronado National Memorial Park.

Credit: NPS
13.  Coronado National Memorial Park commemorates one of the greatest explorations ever to occur on the North American continent.  The San Pedro River Valley was one of the super highways of the 1540s and Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and his men used in in search of gold.   The memorial park is not highly visited, receiving some 5.5 million fewer visitors than the Grand Canyon.  But for those who choose to come, they will be rewarded with a peaceful adventure in one of the most desolate yet beautiful desert parks in America. 


More information - https://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/coronado/national_memorial.html