In Sahuarita a Titan II missile still stands in its silo, and pecan orchards grow on old farm land along the Santa Cruz. This map of Sahuarita prints the Titan Missile Museum, Walden Grove High School, the Sahuarita Library, Great Expectations Academy, the La Villita Community Center and Anza Trail Park, with the Santa Cruz River, Sawmill Canyon Wash and Sahuarita Lake giving shape to the land.
Sahuarita is a town in Pima County, 15 miles south of Tucson.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave modern data the look of a vintage atlas. The shaded relief of the landscape comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. The town lies south of the Tohono O’odham Nation and at the north end of Green Valley, and the Santa Cruz River runs through it, flowing north toward Tucson mostly in the monsoon season.
A ranch named for the saguaros
The first people known to live here were the Hohokam, known for their use of irrigation, who may be the ancestors of today’s Tohono O’odham, and later the Sobaipuri lived along this stretch of the river. Father Eusebio Kino met Sobaipuri leaders on his journey along the Santa Cruz in 1691 and founded Mission San Xavier del Bac, just north of Sahuarita, in 1699. In 1879 James Kilroy Brown started the Sahuarita Ranch and named it for the many saguaros in the area. It became a stopping place between Tucson, Arivaca and Quijotoa, and the railroad laid tracks through it with a station and a post office. Maps spelled the name in different ways: a German map of 1875 shows “Sahuarito,” and an 1879 Interior Department map has “Saurita.” Sahuarita counts 1911 as its founding year, and it incorporated in 1994.
In 1915, worried that a German blockade might cut off rubber, Bernard Baruch, Joseph Kennedy and J. P. Morgan started the Continental Farm along the Santa Cruz to grow guayule, a plant that yields rubber. They gave it up after World War I, and in 1922 the farm was sold to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who rented the land to cotton growers. In 1948 R. Keith Walden moved his Farmers Investment Co. from California and bought the Continental Farm lands, and in 1965, fearing that synthetic fibers would hurt cotton, he switched to pecans. The orchard now covers more than 6,000 acres with 106,000 trees, and it’s described as the largest pecan orchard in the world.
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 Helmet Peak Rd, Alley Way, W William Ranch Rd, E Mineral Hill Rd, E Helmet Peak Rd, E Sahuarita Rd, Sahuarita St, Kofa St, S Sahuarita Park Rd, W Cam Antigua, Butte Rd, W Cam Cuzco.
More street names, A to Z
Adot Rd, Ave Valle Verde del Norte, Birch St, Continental Dr, Dawson Rd, E Corto Rd, E Davis Rd, E Dawson Rd, E Josephine View Dr, El Toro Rd, E Milo Dr, Empire Canyon Ln, E Pla Fara, E Whispering, Frontage Rd, Los Arboles, Mill Dr, Native Grove Ln, N Broken Hills Dr, N Cam Cerro la Silla, N Campbell Ave, N Hill Dr, N Quail Dancer Ln, S Ave Valle Verde del, S Nogales Hwy, S Santa Rita Rd, Trailer Park, Verde Rd, W Anamax Mine Rd, W Duval Rd.
Bombers, missiles and a high school
During World War II the Sahuarita Airstrip trained bomber pilots, and the Army Air Corps used a 27,046-acre range here for practice bombing from 1942, finishing a paved flight strip in 1943. Bombing runs came back from 1950 to 1962, and the government released the land to the state in 1978. The old airstrip became a road, and Walden Grove High School now stands where a park and a charter school were later built among the old air force buildings. The school opened in August 2011 on land donated by the Walden family through the Farmers Investment Co., which is part of why it carries their name. Its students chose the Red Wolves as their mascot, a time capsule buried in 2011 is to be opened in 2061, and the first class graduated on May 22, 2014.
The Titan Missile Museum was built in 1963 as a Titan II missile site and shut down in 1984. It’s one of only two Titan II complexes left from the late Cold War, it became a National Historic Landmark in 1994, and it’s described as the only place in the country where visitors can see an entirely preserved ICBM. The 103-foot missile in the silo has no warhead and no fuel, and under an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union its silo doors are blocked from opening more than halfway. Scenes for the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact were shot here.
Around the map
Sahuarita Lake is an artificial lake that Rancho Sahuarita finished on June 22, 2001, with a 1-mile shore and a depth of up to 10 feet; the state stocks it with fish, and it draws ducks and other birds. Rancho Sahuarita, Quail Creek and Madera Highlands are among the town’s master-planned communities, and Madera Canyon, a birdwatching spot, lies just southeast. The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail follows much of the Santa Cruz, retracing the 1775 to 1776 route that Anza’s colonists took to San Francisco Bay. The Sahuarita Library, Great Expectations Academy, the La Villita Community Center, Anza Trail Park and Sawmill Canyon Wash all appear on the map.
This Sahuarita map makes 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 Sahuarita home, along the Santa Cruz, 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 Sahuarita map.
Sources
