RRHS Newsletter JANUARY 2024
www.rioricohistoricalsociety.org
Rio Rico Historical Society, PO Box 4201, Rio Rico, Arizona 85648
Veronica Sainz, Editor
Message From the President
Dear fellow RRHS members,
We just closed a flourishing year for our society, with the reopening of our new museum, our successful bus tour, rummage sale, and speaker series. We were also recipients of two grants, one from South 32 and one from White Elephant. We have the highest membership level and the most new members join our society this past year, along with a high level of donations, and great press coverage for all our events.
We are truly blessed to have a score of volunteers, docents, Board Members and Committee members that gave it their all this year. I am truly honored to have been part and lead this dedicated organization for the past 5 years. Thank you to all of you for your help and contributions!
We look forward to continuing the growth of our society and expanding the society’s profile in the community through our general meetings with speakers, fundraising events, lecture events, articles, grants, and sponsorships.
MUSEUM NEWS
Our visitor and guest numbers are growing gradually and we can boast having visitors from as far away as Idaho, Mississippi and Georgia. Thank you, members, for bringing your visiting friends and family to enjoy our amazing exhibits. We are eager to increase our visitor numbers in 2024 and will realize our goals only with your constant help in promoting and personally inviting and bringing in our esteemed visitors.
Docents are the life of our museum. Please welcome our most recent new docent, Heidi Daetwyler who trained and gallantly began filling in for those that were called to family duty or have struggled with illness these past few months. Thank You Heidi.
New Kiosk Sign by Rob White
Sign maker extraordinaire, Rob White has created our beautiful kiosk sign at the museum entry to the De Anza Plaza. This sign will help bring in new visitors. We are appreciative of this excellent artwork.
Thank You Rob.
RECENT EVENTS : Fall Bus Tour: October 21, 2023
Nogales native Olivia Gutierrez Garino led an inviting & rich Rio Rico/Nogales historical bus tour. Olivia’s personal knowledge and experience living in Nogales provided insights not commonly available.
Participants began the event with a tour of our museum, and then traveled to Calixtro produce Co. where Frank Calixtro, one of a business team of 8 brothers shared the story of his father’s founding the business and how the 8 brothers have worked to expand the company into a successful multinational produce enterprise. After the produce tour each tour participant was gifted a delicious ripe watermelon.
Following a delicious traditional Mexican lunch at famous Zula’s Restaurant the tour stopped at the Historic Nogales Courthouse where tour guide, Evan Cory, President of La Lina Art Studio explained the history and ongoing renovation of this unique building. Serendipitously a student youth art exhibit and renowned artist, Luis Preciado, a Nogales Native son were exhibiting their works in the rotunda that day.
A stop at the Wittner Museum followed where over 100 floor-to-ceiling original oils are displayed. Prolific artist Paula Wittner’s genre is whimsical eye-catching colorful oils. Evan Cory, a Julliard graduate, graciously entertained tour visitors with some lovely classical compositions.
The tour ended at the jewel of the tour, the Holler-Saunders Hacienda and Holler Homestead where Olivia lived and grew up. She proudly shared the history of the path her ancestors took culminating in homesteading in Nogales on property immediately adjacent to the international border called the Holler Canyon.
Her ancestral heritage began with immigration in the 1870’s of her great grandparents, Karl Edouard Holler a mining engineer from Prussia educated in Heidelberg, Germany and Sigrid Sophia Pierson from Sweden. They met and married in Stanton, Iowa in 1872 and lived in San Francisco and Hermosillo Mexico prior to settling in Nogales.
Olivia’s fascinating family history comes alive with personal stories of Apache raids and the hardships survived including an untimely accidental death of her great grand-father. The Holler Saunders Hacienda is filled with antiques and art from around the world. If you have a future opportunity to tour with Olivia do so as it is an unforgettable experience.
ANNUAL FIESTA DE TUMACACORI: December 2 & 3, 2023
WHITE ELEPHANT AWARDS CEREMONY: December 7, 2023
With humble appreciation, Helen Serras-Herman & Olivia Garino received the astonishingly generous Grant award of $10,000 from our greatest benefactors and enduring supporters. The funds are urgently needed to upgrade our exhibits, signs, museum furniture and so much more.
We are eternally grateful to the White Elephant organization for its continuous support of our historical society & museum.
ANNUAL RUMMAGE SALE: November 17 & 18, 2023
Chairman Victor Cazares led a team of dedicated volunteers who through an enormous amount of work had the most successful rummage sale yet.
The results of the hard work netted close to
$3,000, greatly needed to help keep our museum doors open.
Thank you, Rummage Sale Team!!
Bill Meyers, Manny Trujillo, Helen Serras-Herman, Bob Pattison, Larry Brown, Steve Gastellum, Charles LaRue, Donna Butler, Isabel Kruger, Heidi Daetwyler, Jennifer Wiley.
UPCOMING GENERAL MEETING:
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at
6:00 p.m. ,
Rio Rico Community Center,
391 Coatimundi, Rio Rico
Join us as Sherrif David Hathaway will share history of the Harrison/ Hathaway’s family, ranching and mining in Santa Cruz County from the 1880’s to the present.
Sheriff Hathaway has had an extensive career in law enforcement on both the national and county levels. His talk will include historical family highlights with an open question and answer session to conclude his talk. Don’t miss learning about this important family’s contributions to the ranching and mining development in Santa Cruz County.
The Hathaway family are life-time members of the Rio Rico Historical Society and have been very supportive our RRHS through its duration.
VISIT US ONLINE AT www.rioricohistoricalsociety.org
General Meeting January 16, 2023 at 6:00p.m., at Rio Rico Community Center, 391 Avenida Coatimundi, Rio Rico. Please plan to attend this very important meeting as elections are being held to fill four board positions. Your vote counts.
If you have renewed your membership, we thank you very much. If you haven’t, please do it soon. After our January meeting, membership rates are going up.
RRHS Newsletter JANUARY 2024
www.rioricohistoricalsociety.org
Rio Rico Historical Society, PO Box 4201, Rio Rico, Arizona 85648
Veronica Sainz, Editor
Message From the President
Dear fellow RRHS members,
We just closed a flourishing year for our society, with the reopening of our new museum, our successful bus tour, rummage sale, and speaker series. We were also recipients of two grants, one from South 32 and one from White Elephant. We have the highest membership level and the most new members join our society this past year, along with a high level of donations, and great press coverage for all our events.
We are truly blessed to have a score of volunteers, docents, Board Members and Committee members that gave it their all this year. I am truly honored to have been part and lead this dedicated organization for the past 5 years. Thank you to all of you for your help and contributions!
We look forward to continuing the growth of our society and expanding the society’s profile in the community through our general meetings with speakers, fundraising events, lecture events, articles, grants, and sponsorships.
MUSEUM NEWS
Our visitor and guest numbers are growing gradually and we can boast having visitors from as far away as Idaho, Mississippi and Georgia. Thank you, members, for bringing your visiting friends and family to enjoy our amazing exhibits. We are eager to increase our visitor numbers in 2024 and will realize our goals only with your constant help in promoting and personally inviting and bringing in our esteemed visitors.
Docents are the life of our museum. Please welcome our most recent new docent, Heidi Daetwyler who trained and gallantly began filling in for those that were called to family duty or have struggled with illness these past few months. Thank You Heidi.
New Kiosk Sign by Rob White
Sign maker extraordinaire, Rob White has created our beautiful kiosk sign at the museum entry to the De Anza Plaza. This sign will help bring in new visitors. We are appreciative of this excellent artwork.
Thank You Rob.
RECENT EVENTS : Fall Bus Tour: October 21, 2023
Nogales native Olivia Gutierrez Garino led an inviting & rich Rio Rico/Nogales historical bus tour. Olivia’s personal knowledge and experience living in Nogales provided insights not commonly available.
Participants began the event with a tour of our museum, and then traveled to Calixtro produce Co. where Frank Calixtro, one of a business team of 8 brothers shared the story of his father’s founding the business and how the 8 brothers have worked to expand the company into a successful multinational produce enterprise. After the produce tour each tour participant was gifted a delicious ripe watermelon.
Following a delicious traditional Mexican lunch at famous Zula’s Restaurant the tour stopped at the Historic Nogales Courthouse where tour guide, Evan Cory, President of La Lina Art Studio explained the history and ongoing renovation of this unique building. Serendipitously a student youth art exhibit and renowned artist, Luis Preciado, a Nogales Native son were exhibiting their works in the rotunda that day.
A stop at the Wittner Museum followed where over 100 floor-to-ceiling original oils are displayed. Prolific artist Paula Wittner’s genre is whimsical eye-catching colorful oils. Evan Cory, a Julliard graduate, graciously entertained tour visitors with some lovely classical compositions.
The tour ended at the jewel of the tour, the Holler-Saunders Hacienda and Holler Homestead where Olivia lived and grew up. She proudly shared the history of the path her ancestors took culminating in homesteading in Nogales on property immediately adjacent to the international border called the Holler Canyon.
Her ancestral heritage began with immigration in the 1870’s of her great grandparents, Karl Edouard Holler a mining engineer from Prussia educated in Heidelberg, Germany and Sigrid Sophia Pierson from Sweden. They met and married in Stanton, Iowa in 1872 and lived in San Francisco and Hermosillo Mexico prior to settling in Nogales.
Olivia’s fascinating family history comes alive with personal stories of Apache raids and the hardships survived including an untimely accidental death of her great grand-father. The Holler Saunders Hacienda is filled with antiques and art from around the world. If you have a future opportunity to tour with Olivia do so as it is an unforgettable experience.
ANNUAL FIESTA DE TUMACACORI: December 2 & 3, 2023
WHITE ELEPHANT AWARDS CEREMONY: December 7, 2023
With humble appreciation, Helen Serras-Herman & Olivia Garino received the astonishingly generous Grant award of $10,000 from our greatest benefactors and enduring supporters. The funds are urgently needed to upgrade our exhibits, signs, museum furniture and so much more.
We are eternally grateful to the White Elephant organization for its continuous support of our historical society & museum.
ANNUAL RUMMAGE SALE: November 17 & 18, 2023
Chairman Victor Cazares led a team of dedicated volunteers who through an enormous amount of work had the most successful rummage sale yet.
The results of the hard work netted close to
$3,000, greatly needed to help keep our museum doors open.
Thank you, Rummage Sale Team!!
Bill Meyers, Manny Trujillo, Helen Serras-Herman, Bob Pattison, Larry Brown, Steve Gastellum, Charles LaRue, Donna Butler, Isabel Kruger, Heidi Daetwyler, Jennifer Wiley.
UPCOMING GENERAL MEETING:
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 at
6:00 p.m. ,
Rio Rico Community Center,
391 Coatimundi, Rio Rico
Join us as Sherrif David Hathaway will share history of the Harrison/ Hathaway’s family, ranching and mining in Santa Cruz County from the 1880’s to the present.
Sheriff Hathaway has had an extensive career in law enforcement on both the national and county levels. His talk will include historical family highlights with an open question and answer session to conclude his talk. Don’t miss learning about this important family’s contributions to the ranching and mining development in Santa Cruz County.
The Hathaway family are life-time members of the Rio Rico Historical Society and have been very supportive our RRHS through its duration.
VISIT US ONLINE AT www.rioricohistoricalsociety.org
General Meeting January 16, 2023 at 6:00p.m., at Rio Rico Community Center, 391 Avenida Coatimundi, Rio Rico. Please plan to attend this very important meeting as elections are being held to fill four board positions. Your vote counts.
If you have renewed your membership, we thank you very much. If you haven’t, please do it soon. After our January meeting, membership rates are going up.
To read the entire newsletter, click here.