Page 22 - Enclave Communities 8-5-2022

St. David Springs Colonial Designs

Frontier and Colonial design of the style that may have been

indigenous to the area of the Escalante Crossing.

St. David was established as a result of the Mormon Battalion passing through what is now St
David Springs in 1846 and building camp and a small fort at the Escalante Crossing. This crossing
provided a low water route to cross from east to west and back though the San Pedro River.
But this group was not the first to depend on this crossing.

During the years of Spanish and Mexican control, Southern Arizona was, for the most part,
included within a larger area which the Spaniards called the Primera Alta or "Land of the Northern
Pimans”.
European explorers passed through the Primera Alta as early as the middle of the sixteenth
century.

Spanish colonists came to live in what is now Southern Arizona.

By the time Hispanic settlers arrived, the native population had become familiar with a few
elements of European culture, thanks to visitations from Jesuit missionaries beginning with Father
Eusebio Francisco Kino in 1691.

In some communities along the San Pedro River the Indians were growing European-derived
grains, vegetables and fruits. These cultigens supplemented native crops such as corn, beans and
squash. Stock raising, another contribution of the priests, was present at some locations, but herds
were small.

Southern Arizona's first Hispanic colonists were probably individuals who came into the area
looking for minerals. In 1736, a major silver strike took place a few miles southwest of modern
Nogales, Sonora, and some of the prospectors pushed on northward to develop the mines around
St David Springs.

And the early explorers included adventurers from what is now Croatia.

Frontier & Colonial Design