WILBUR RANCH HISTORY

Wilbur Ranch was homesteaded by Dr. Ruben A. Wilbur in 1862.  Dr. Wilbur was a Harvard Medical School graduate who had come to the Arizona Territory in the early 1860's to serve as the physician for the Cheri Colorado Mining Company.  They mined silver and gold but because of mismanagement and Indian hostilities, the company failed.  After the company failed, Dr. Wilbur decided to homestead on Arivaca Creek under the principle of “squatter’s rights”.  He started with 140 acres but in time the ranch grew to 16 square miles.  The house was built one room at a time because of a lack of money, time and materials.  Dr. Wilbur married and became the Indian Agent.   The family had a fruit orchard, grew vegetables and had an extensive herb garden.  When crops were ready to harvest, one of the family had to sleep in the garden to protect it from Indians who thought that anything that grew could be used by them.  Tohono O’Odham (Papago) Indians and some Apaches would come to the creek area.  They passed this way as they traveled  to the Tucson  area to harvest saguaro and other cactus fruit.  They would often sit along the wall East of the house waiting to be seen by the Doctor.

Dr. Wilbur and his wife had a son named Agustin who married Ramona Valducea, the daughter of Don Francisco Valducea in 1901.  Their daughter, Eva Antonia Wilbur was born at the ranch in 1904 and was the oldest of five children.  In those days, women were raised like men and “Tonia”, as she was called, was raised to run the ranch.   When she was four, she helped her father dress a calf’s wound by digging out the maggots with her fingers.  By age 10, she was bossing the cowboys, toting a gun, and riding the range to check fences and water holes.  Pancho Villa raided the ranch during one of his excursions North of the border and trapped her brothers in a remote canyon. 

Eva married Marshall Cruce and they took over the operation of the ranch shortly after her father died in 1933.  In 1941, she was sent to prison for cattle rustling.  She claimed she was framed for the crime because lawmen could not catch her shooting the cattle of the land baron who had shot her horses and had attempted to get control of her land.    After her release from prison, she spent a lot of her days trying to protect the Spanish mustangs that roamed the land.  It is thought that the ancestors of the horses likely carried Father Eusebio Kino and other Spanish missionaries through Northern Sonora in the 1690’s. 

In 1987, at age 83, Eva Wilbur-Cruce started writing a letter to her nephews and nieces  about her life on the Arivaca Ranch.  These memories soon turned into short stories that  she compiled  into her autobiography, “A Beautiful Cruel Country”.  The book received a national certificate of commendation from the American Association of State and Local Histories.  It is available in the Green Valley Library

After her husband died in 1989, Eva sold the ranch, except the 10 acres surrounding the house, to add to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.  She had assumed the horses would remain but they were removed and donated to private ranches.  She was pleased that the land was preserved but was upset that the horses were not allowed to remain.  Eva Antonia “Bonnie” Wilbur-Cruce died January 30, 1998.  Her great niece, Eva Maria Zimmerman, took possession of the ranch house and said she planned to remodel it for her family.  However, sometime during 2003, vandals trashed the place and started a fire which burned the house.  The walls are still standing but the roof is gone.  As of the summer of 2003, it is not known what is going to happen to the property.

Summarized from an article in the 4 February 1998 Arizona Daily Star and from “A Beautiful Cruel Country” by Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruse published in 1987.

Additional Material: GVHC Library File 79