Dads, and moms, work daily to build a framework within their home, neighborhood, school and community that will nurture their children. We want children to feel secure so that they can explore the world with confidence. We want them to feel respected and cared for so they will show respect and caring to others. We want them to understand the importance of connections. There is within each of us a need to connect with family, people and place.
We work together to ensure that our home towns are great places to live. Preserving historic places is about so much more than bricks and mortar or boards and shingles; it is about the relationships of the people who connect to build a stronger community together. In a place like Vail, established in 1880, where we are now surrounded by row after row of new stucco homes built to standard plans by developers from somewhere else, the two sole remaining buildings at the heart of Vail take on added significance. They are authentic, visual reminders of the hopes, dreams and daring of an earlier generation who loved this place as much as we do.
The 1935 Shrine of Santa Rita in the Desert and the 1908 Old Vail Store & Post Office, located between the railroad tracks, creates a sense of place. A strong sense of identity is a significant part of providing a firm foundation to grow a community. In 2016, where most residents are from somewhere else, the Vail Schools and beautiful landscape drew us here and another home town tugs at our heart strings. It is important to remember that Vail is the home town of the children growing up here. This is the place that will fill their memories and be at the center of the stories they share with their children. Strong families and strong communities go hand in hand. This Father’s Day we are grateful for dads, but also that the sole remaining pre-statehood building in Vail, the 1908 adobe Old Vail Store & Post Office, is going to be preserved. This is a gift we can give to the future.
The 1908 Old Vail Store & Post Office was the hub of communication and commerce for an area stretching from the Rincon Valley in the north to the Santa Rita and Empire Mountains to the south. Correspondence was welcomed equally by well-to do ranch owners like the Jelks, Haskell’s, and the Day’s, and railroad workers like the Haro’s, Bravo’s and Allen’s. Homesteaders, miners, wranglers and teamsters all crossed paths at the Vail Store & Post Office.
The walls of the humble adobe have echoed with joy, sorrow and laughter when a beer or a stiff shot of whisky hit the long wooden bar in its early days. Confrontations sometimes ended with a gunshot. The smell of fresh hay, lathered horses and oiled leather were taken for granted when the Tucson to Helvetia or Tombstone Stages made their regular stops at the west end of the building. Mexican and Yaqui families escaping unrest in Mexico stopped by in hopes of hearing where work could be found, purchase canned goods, or pick up a letter from loved ones. Vail children were proud to have the job of carrying the mail bag tossed from passing trains into the adobe where mail was sorted and placed in P.O. boxes.
During the 1930s the boys of the local Civilian Conservation Corp camp at Colossal Cave stopped in to pick up their mail and exchange gossip with Postmistress Mary Jane Warner. Many tears were shed when a telegraph arrived saying that Private Bernardino Estrada, son of Mt. Fagan homesteader Francisco Estrada, wouldn’t be coming home. The call announcing the elopement of Jack Herman and Jane Dillon at the beginning of WWII came to the Vail Store and Post Office which had one of Vail’s few phones. Whatever happened anywhere in the area was probably discussed over the counter at the Vail Store & Post Office. According to Frances Schmidt Sundt, “The Vail Store & Post Office was the hub of the community. We went to the post office just to find out what was going on. After all, you had to know what your neighbors were doing!” Frances grew up at Colossal Cave and picked up her mail in Vail.
The adobe 1908 Old Vail Store & Post Office is the sole remaining physical reminder of the national economic and cultural forces that converged at Vail at the turn of the last century. Every other trace of Vail’s railroad, mining and ranching roots at the town site have been erased by time, population growth, and development. This humble adobe is a reminder of Territorial Arizona and the daily struggles of those that made a life here. Located where Vail began, it, and the beautiful Shrine of Santa Rita in the Desert, bookend the heart of Vail. Both are significant enough to be listed on the National Register. VPS is proud to be working with the Vail School District and that the1908 Old Vail Store & P.O. will be the next student preservation project funded by your Vail Preservation Society. It is an investment in our youth and Vail’s future!
Vail Preservation Society
