On Saturday, March 18, from 11 am to 3 pm, the Presidio Museum will celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Fort Lowell at the Fort Lowell Museum, 2900 N. Craycroft Rd. Suggested donation is $5 per person.
The schedule is as follows:
12 pm: Lecture on Military Medicine and 19th Century Amputations
1 pm: 4th Cavalry Regimental Band of Fort Lowell Performance
2 pm: Lecture on the Quirky Episodes of Danger and Death in the Santa Cruz Valley
Ongoing:
· Displays by the Mormon Battalion and the Buffalo Soldiers
· Blacksmith demonstrations
· Faro dealer demonstrations
Re-enactors portraying:
o A Fort Lowell quartermaster who supervises stores or barracks and distributes supplies and provisions
o Louise Gerard, wife of the Fort Lowell surgeon
o Lola Smith, wife of Fort Lowell quartermaster Gilbert Cole
o Fort Lowell ranchers
Children’s activities:
o Making a pendant out of soapstone with a traditional-style drill
o Learning about an atlatl and using it to throw arrows
o Play with the toys and games that kids in the fort would have enjoyed
o Learning to write with a quill and ink the way children would have in the fort.
· Councilman Paul Cunningham will be in attendance to visit with constituants.
Fort Lowell was active from 1873 to 1891 during the Apache Wars. It is the successor to Camp Lowell, which was located in downtown Tucson from 1866-1873. The soldiers stationed at the fort were responsible for escorting and protecting wagon trains, protecting nearby settlers, guarding supplies, patrolling the border and conducting offensive operations against the Western and Chiricahua Apache tribes. The fort was abandoned at the end of the Apache Wars.
The Presidio Museum has recently taken over management of the Fort Lowell Museum and is working with the City of Tucson to reopen the museum once needed improvements are completed on the building.
The Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum is located on the northeast corner of the original Presidio at 196 N. Court Ave. The Presidio Museum is a reconstruction of the original Tucson Presidio built in 1775. Docent tours give visitors a glimpse of what life in the Presidio was like for soldiers and other residents. Additional highlights include an original 150-year-old Sonoran row house and a 2,000-year-old prehistoric pit house. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children ages 6-13 and free for children 5 and under and Presidio Museum members. Special events have separate rates. The Presidio Museum is managed by the Tucson Presidio Trust for Historic Preservation, a not-for-profit entity whose mission is to guide and aid in the interpretation of history at the Presidio San Agustín through research, education and living history experiences.
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