By J.J. Lamb

The verdant stretch of land along the Pantano Wash we call Rancho del Lago today has drawn people to Vail for millennia, but Otto Schley, Vail’s first unofficial ‘mayor’, was the first to imagine building a golf course there. His dream was written up in the January 31, 1914, edition of the Arizona Citizen.

“Tucson is not the only city in Pima County which is reaching out for new things in an enterprising manner. Vail is now on the map. Otto Schley, mayor of that flourishing hamlet, is after the Tucson County Club. He has called attention to the fact that Vail is but 27 minutes from Tucson over the new highway, [and] that it has two railroads 200 feet apart, giving easy access to and from Tucson to those not owning automobiles, and that ample ground can be secured at a nominal figure.”

Families gather to connect and honor loved ones at the Bravo-Leon Cemetery. Patrick Mueller
Photographer, Vail Preservation Society

Otto Schley achieved many goals in his life. He successfully ran for Vail’s School Board, was a Justice of the Peace, served as Vail’s Postmaster, was active in the Democratic Delegation, and in 1908 had his eye on a seat in Arizona’ s Territorial Legislature. However, despite his best efforts, he was never able to bring a golf course to Vail. But Otto Schley was not the only person with development plans for the verdant land along the Pantano. Families were attracted by the possibility to create a good life and future for their children. The Leon family moved to Vail in 1898 and filed for a homestead along the Pantano along the long dirt road used by La Cienega farm to transport produce to market in Tucson. Santiago S. and his wife Mariana had acreage under cultivation sustained by seasonal waters harvested from the Pantano. Santiago also was employed at La Cienega farm. The farm was located at what we now call Rancho del Lago. The winding road along the Pantano eventually came to bear the name of the family that has lived there the longest: Leon Ranch Road.

In 2001, 86 years after Otto Schley’s original idea, a golf course was finally built in Vail. Row upon row of houses approved by Pima County and built by various builders subsumed the eastern portion of the over 100-year-old Leon Ranch Road and demolished the historic Rancho del Lago Estate. The Leon family and other residents living along the Pantano were forced to jump a developer installed curb that separated the ‘old Vail’ from the ‘new Vail’.

The ‘old Vail’ residents along the Pantano quietly managed to find ‘work arounds’ to get to their jobs and ‘to town’ weaving through the paved streets of the new Golf Community of Rancho del Lago. After two years of negotiations the curb was removed and the Leon family, and others along the historic dirt Leon Ranch Road, went about their daily lives.

Without intervention, current developments by Pepper-Viner and Richmond American will erase the remaining portion of the Leon Ranch Road and eliminate safe access to residents living along the road. Leon family members still living on land their great grandparents homesteaded and proved up on in 1912 are the caretakers for the Bravo-Leon Cemetery located on their homestead near the Pantano River. This culturally significant site is where Vail’s Mexican American pioneering families have laid their loved ones to rest for over 100 years.

Pima County leadership is currently working to obtain safe, permanent, access for residents living in the older established neighborhood along what remains of the historic Leon Ranch Road. The road is, and has been maintained by residents at their own expense. Pepper-Viner construction vehicles have been using and tearing up the road those residents have paid to maintain. Recently a sick horse could not be taken to the Vet because the road was impassible. School children living along the road would like to be picked up by the big yellow school busses again. Pima County is working on a solution. Pima County is asking the two development companies, Richmond American and Pepper-Viner, to donate a 30’ easement so that our neighbors will have a safe road home and continued access to the Bravo-Leon Cemetery where traditions continue to be passed from one generation to the next.

Speak up and encourage the Pepper-Viner and Richmond American companies to donate the needed 30’ easement to Pima County. Together we can build a future for Vail that understands the value of both the old and the new.

Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers. – Daniel Boorstin

J.J. Lamb is President & CEO of Vail Preservation Society. A U of A graduate, her family has lived in Vail since 1971. She was named an Arizona Culturekeeper in 2011 and an Arizona Friend of the Humanities in 2020.

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J.J. Lamb