The choice for the location for the Santa Catalina Cottages was excellent. It was two blocks from the University and two blocks from the trolley line. Since downtown was just a mile away, it was within walking distance.
All the stores, including the grocery stores, were downtown. The city directory for these years gives a picture of the location of buildings and stores, and shows how isolated the campus was from town. Soon more residential and business property buildings would be built merging the campus and town.
entrance gates with electric light globes on the pillars. These replaced the barbed
wire fence and wooden turnstile service. In 1916 volcanic stone would be used to
replace this entrance. This photograph would date before that time, but after 1909 as
Science Hall built that year is to the left in this picture. Note the dirt road and end of the
railway tracks. The trolley backed up to reverse direction to go back to town. TKM
Besides transportation change from horse to horseless carriage, three new buildings came and are still there today. These are Herring Hall built in the summer of 1903, Library and Museum, 1904 (now the A. E. Douglass Building) and Science Hall, 1909 (now Comunication). Throughout the years they have had many functions. Only Herring Hall has kept the same name.
Louise Foucar bought three shares for three hundred dollars in the Tucson Street Railway on October 17, 1903. An electric street car would be more reliable and keep to its schedule unlike its horse or mule-drawn predecessor. It would provide good service to the West University neighborhood.
The electric trolley ran from 1906 to December 31,1930. On January 1,1931 it was replaced by a bus. In 1990, a natural-gas powered trolley ran from downtown to the University.
In the summer of 1905 a stone and brick entrance, with white painted wooden gates, replaced the original barbed wire fence and wooden turnstile. A wooden post and metal pipe fence was installed along Park Avenue and Rincon Road (Second Street). Attractive, durable, and inexpensive this type fence was often used in Tucson at that time.
the lot behind the trolley is the future location of the University Square stores. Maybe
the conductor is Sabastian Eder, Santa Catalina resident. The 1910 census lists his
occupation as street car conductor. TKM
purchased by Professor Louise Foucar, October 17, 1903. This is same month the
Catalina apartments were finished.
