Tucson’s mayor once vowed to bring this valley into his city “kicking and screaming,” but after a fight that went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, the valley became a town of its own. This map of Oro Valley prints Steam Pump Ranch, the Oro Valley Public Library, the Sun City Oro Valley Library, BASIS Oro Valley Primary, Innovation Academy and Leman Academy of Excellence-Oro Valley Arizona, with Honey Bee Canyon, the Cañada del Oro and Big Wash giving shape to the land.
Oro Valley is a suburban town in Pima County, 6 miles north of Tucson.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded relief of Honey Bee Canyon comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. Steam Pump Ranch was confirmed against the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places. The town sits in the western foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains at the base of Pusch Ridge, at an average elevation of 2,620 feet, with the Tortolita Mountains to the north. 47,070 people lived here at the 2020 census.
Ranches before the town
People have lived in this valley, on and off, for nearly two thousand years. The Hohokam lived in Honeybee Village, in the Tortolita foothills on the town’s far north side, for nearly 800 years, and the town preserves the ruins where they stand. In the 19th century Francisco Romero, from a Hispanic family with Tucson roots going back to the early 1800s, built a ranch on the site of a Hohokam ruin in what’s now Catalina State Park; the Romero Ruin there still holds pueblos of rock and adobe and a Mesoamerican ballcourt.
In 1874 George Pusch, a German immigrant, started a cattle ranch here that drew its water with a steam pump, one of only two in the Arizona Territory, and the place became known as Steam Pump Ranch. The Pusch family visited often but never lived on the ranch, and it gave rest to settlers and travelers coming and going from Tucson. Pusch served as an Arizona legislator and as a delegate to the Arizona Constitutional Convention in 1910, and Pusch Ridge is named for him. He and later the Pusch Land and Cattle Company held the ranch until 1925. Steam Pump Ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in September 2009, and today it’s a historical park site cared for by the Oro Valley Historical Society with the town and Pima County.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
Names on this map
These names are printed on this map.
Streets and roads: W Tortolita Vista Ln, W Niner Way, W Kitty Hawk Way, Cougar Canyon Trl, W Earhart Way, W Cessna Way, Moore Rd, W Hunter Rd, N Dove Canyon Ps, Estates Dr, N Piper Dr, W Granite Gorge Dr.
More street names, A to Z
Appaloosa Rd, Club Dr, Del Sol, E Golder Ranch Rd, E Ina Rd, E Innovation Park Dr, El Conquistador Way, E Miravista Ln, E Rollins Rd, E Wilds Rd, Gold Dr, Kai Way, La Canada Dr, Linda Vista Blvd, Magee Rd, Mina Rd, N Christie Dr, N Cross Rd, N Innovation Market Dr, W Appaloosa Rd, W Birch Way, W Cam del Norte, W Cll Concordia, W Foothills Mall Dr, W Gymkhana Way, W Hardy Rd, W Lambert Ln, W Limewood Dr, W Linda Vista Blvd, W Lobo Rd, W Lucero Rd, W Pecos Way, W Sage St, W Sahuaro Divide, W Sumter Dr, W Tangerine Rd.
A canyon of gold and a town of its own
The Cañada del Oro, Spanish for “Canyon of Gold,” cuts through the middle of town. It starts in the Santa Catalina Mountains, fed by rain and snowmelt off Mount Lemmon, and in Oro Valley it’s usually a dry riverbed. Spanish explorers searched it for gold as early as the 17th century, and later prospectors followed the legend of the Lost Mine with the Iron Door, the subject of Harold Bell Wright’s 1923 novel, but no significant amounts of gold turned up locally. Homesteaders claimed land here from 1903 into the 1940s, among them Hispanic homesteaders such as Francisco Romero, Jesus Elias, Francisco Marin and Francisco Aragon, and women such as Ina Gittings, Mabel Burke Johnson and Margaret Moodie. In 1937 Margaret Howard, Countess of Suffolk, built her winter home in what became the Suffolk Hills neighborhood; her former mansion is now Immaculate Heart Preparatory School.
A petition to incorporate began circulating in 1968. The Pima County Board of Supervisors refused, the case went to court, and the Arizona Supreme Court ruled for incorporation. The Town of Oro Valley was incorporated in 1974 with just 2.4 square miles and nearly 1,200 people. The founders first called it Palo Verde but chose the name Oro Valley to win the support of the influential residents of the Oro Valley Country Club, and for several years in the 1990s it was the fastest-growing municipality in Arizona. The Oro Valley Public Library stands in the heart of town with views of Pusch Ridge. Innovation Academy, the Sun City Oro Valley Library and Big Wash have their places on the sheet as well.
This Oro Valley map is a good addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of the area. It’s made for anyone who calls Oro Valley home, from Steam Pump Ranch to the Cañada del Oro, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the town as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Oro Valley map.
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