May 2026 Tidbits from the Museum Series

“Colonel” Charles P. Sykes and Calabasas

By Robert Pattison

“Colonel” Charles P. Sykes {1824-1899?): unknowingly made an illegal purchase of the Calabasas, Tumacacori, and Guevavi land grants from Sonoran governor Gandara in 1877. Sykes created the Calabasas Town Site (centered on the historic Rio Rico golf course) in 1878 in anticipation that Calabasas would become an influential center of commerce in Arizona. Calabasas had a customs house and was the port-of-entry Into Mexico before Nogales existed. With the coming of the New Mexico and Arizona Railroad in 1882 and with plans for several other transcontinental railroads to Calabasas, Sykes completed the finest hotel between Denver and San Francisco in 1882. He sold some 2300 of the 2800 lots in the Calabasas Town Site within a few years. On weekends In 1882, the population of Calabasas swelled from 800 to 2400 with its 16 saloons, five stores, three hotels, a Chinese opium den, and Calabasas was half the size of Tucson. There were 1500 railroad workers in four railroad work camps in Sonoita Creek along with perhaps 100 miners. A few years later, Sykes started the Calabasas, Tucson, and North West Railroad that planned to trek north from Calabasas to Phoenix but ran out of money after completing only eight miles of railroad grade from Calabasas to Tumacacori. He was listed on postal records as the postmaster from 1882-83 and changed the postmark from “Calabazas’* to “Calabasas”.