A Monument to Mexican American Agency
By J.J. Lamb
In 1889, families living in the Rincon Valley petitioned the Pima County Board of Supervisors for a school; nearly all of those who made the petition were Mexican Americans. They included: Eusebio Tellez, Francisco Solano Leon, Joseph and Teodora Diaz Mills, Crisanta Lopez de Allen, Joaquin Tellez, Francisco Barcelo, Jose Saenz, Paz Tellez de Ruiz, Angel Benitez, Jesus and Juana Martinez. These families were working to prove up on homestead claims, establish homes and build a future. They were farmers, ranchers, and miners but they shared the common desire to formally educate their children.
On October 10, 1889, Pima County established the Rincon School District No. 8 to educate children living east of Tucson, in Townships 15, 16, and 17. Even after successfully petitioning for a school district and school, Mexican Americans of the Rincon Valley continued to advocate for their children’s education by acting as school trustees, providing places for the new school to meet and providing housing for the teachers. School district trustees included Gregoria Barcelo’, Narciso Telles, Angel Benito, and E.S. Mendez. They were responsible for purchasing supplies and turning in reports to the Pima County Superintendent.

Although school buildings were not provided in Arizona Territory residents could raise funds to build schools through a bond process. This led to space being rented and inadequate buildings being constructed in many places within the Territory. This system was especially difficult in rural areas which had fewer residents. A small amount of funding for supplies was available. These funds together with moneys that could be raised through a District bond provided a very unequal education experience, including disparity in facilities. The Rincon School was far from Tucson over dirt roads that one had to traverse on foot, horseback, or wagon. The May 4, 1891 issue of the Arizona Daily Star reported that, “For the past four months Mrs. Agnes Marsh has been a teacher at the Rincon School, and today she came to Tucson and cashed her warrant (paycheck) for $320. During the four months there Mrs. Marsh saw only one person who spoke English: her husband.”
In 1983, Felicia Franco, then in her 70s, recalled, “My father had a ranch over by the Rincon [Valley]. My father wanted very much for me to learn and to have an education. He worked hard to bring teachers in. We did have a school, but not like they have nowadays.” Ramona Benitez Franco recollected that, “For a time when I was growing up, Senorita Carmen Tellez was the teacher, she taught in her home on her parents’ ranch. No one wanted to go out there to teach because it was far from town. Then my father began to insist that there be a school [building] out in the Rincon Valley, and he went around collecting signatures, and finally a school was built.”
Classes were held in a few different buildings, very probably at or near the location of the building identified as the Rincon School at the time of the Rincon School District’s closure and incorporation into the Vail School District in 1949. In the early 1900s, school met in the home of Delores Tellez. In the 1910s Frederick Knipe constructed an adobe schoolhouse, and a year later an adobe teacherage. We know with certainty, that the adobe located to the north of the Rincon Valley Farmers Market was where students gathered to learn from at least the early 1930s until 1949. The school closed at the end of the 1949 spring semester. The Rincon School District was integrated into the Vail School District in 1949. After its use as a school, the Rincon School building was a home for ranch families.
The role of Mexican Americans in the Rincon Valley began changing between the 1910s into the early 1930s when more affluent Anglo American families moved into the Rincon Valley displacing earlier residents. Today we call that process displacement and gentrification. New residents had different priorities, eventually leading to the Rincon District merger with the Vail School District. The expense of maintaining a school house, and educating a small number of students (12) of the Mexican Americans who worked for them on their ranches, tended fields, and maintained their property, did not make good business sense to decision makers. The last Rincon School District Board included Mrs. Veeck, wife of Bill Veeck owner of the Cleveland Indians Baseball team; she had been selected by the Pima County School Superintendent, she served along with, C.J. Hathaway, N-Lazy-H Ranch, Miss Dorothy Arnold Arrow-H Ranch and Mrs. Ruth Lichenstein, A-Bar-A Ranch. Closing the District and merging with nearby Vail School District was accomplished at the end of the 1949 school year. Rincon Valley students were bussed to the Vail School. Even though they were warmly welcomed at the Vail School, the closing of their school ‘community’ left a lasting imprint on the Rincon students, who even in their 80s struggle to understand why their school had to close.
The Rincon School building still stands, about ½ mile north of the Rincon Valley Farmers Market along Old Spanish Trail. It is a physical reminder of the significant role early Mexican Americans played in shaping the area’s landscape, cultural, and social history. It speaks to their hard work, and desire to establish a future for themselves, and their children. Will the Rincon School, and what it represents, have a place in the Rincon Valley’s future?