Agua Caliente. Hot water.
The first time that we came to this park was in January when Brenda and Bob were visiting us. We were amazed with the tall palm trees, abundant bird life, and solitude out in the park.
On our second visit, we are once again taken aback by how beautiful it is out here. The park is at the base of Sabino Canyon with views of mountains on two sides. Half of the park is covered in 50 foot plus tall palm trees, bristling with branches and fur surrounding ponds with many types of water fowl. The other half of the park is much more desert-like with many different types of plants that want to harm you and then laugh. They also have a couple of ponds with more water fowl and turtles like the red eared slider, and bullfrogs.
On this trip, we especially noticed all the cacti that were in the park. Saguaros, fish hook barrel cactus, prickly pear, cactus along with multiple species of cholla.
When a cholla dies, the woody interior shows as a very cool lattice work.
Note: even though they look super cool and you want to bring it home. Don’t. They probably have tons of tiny bugs in them. Really
We also saw some new life birds (Merlin App = adult Pokémon). The black throated sparrow and the phainopepla. In January we also saw a teeny saw-whet owl chillin’ in a tree.
Along the paths we came upon a few very cool benches on the walk.
Agua Caliente has been used for over 175 years. In the 1850s the 1870s army troops wouldn’t camp here. In the 1875 James Fuller bought the property put on a one room Adobe house and he planted orchards with citrus, figs, apricots dates, and of course quince. He also created the Fuller Springs hot spa in 1878. This is been a ranch continuously until 1951. It has been a horse ranch, a cattle ranch, and a hay farm.
In 1951 Art Fillatrault bought the property and then purchased an extra thousand acres and added more ponds to the ranch. They still had an orchard that produced oranges while they maintained cattle horses and alfalfa.
From 1959 to 1984 sadly, the ranch was no longer maintained and fell into a state of disrepair due to neglect by a series of offsite owners.
In 1984 Pima County parks and rec purchased 101 acres of the ranch for $1.4 million with a $200,000 donation from Roy P Drachman.
