Arizona Things to Do Tips by traveldave

The Arizona State Capitol Building was completed in 1901 and served as the capitol building for the Arizona Territory until 1912, when Arizona became a state. At that time it became an official state capitol.

The original plans stipulated that all materials used in construction must come from Arizona. The building was constructed of local granite, malapai rock, and tuff stone. The dome was supposed to have been coated with copper, but because of cost overruns, the dome remained uncompleted. During extensive renovations in the 1970s, however, the Arizona copper industry donated 16 tons (16,257 kilograms) of copper for completion of the dome. The copper is chemically coated to prevent oxidation.

The State Capitol Building houses the Office of the Governor, both houses of the legislature, and the Arizona Supreme Court.

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Directions: The State Capitol Building is located at 1700 West Washington Street, in downtown Phoenix.

The Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum features exhibits about the history of mining in Arizona, as well as the many types of minerals that can be found in the state, especially in copper mines.

The museum has over 3,000 minerals on display, including an eight-foot (two-meter) piece of native copper, a quartz geode weighing 480 pounds (218 kilograms), rocks from the first moon landing, and a 206-pound (93-kilogram) fragment from the meteorite that created Meteor Crater in northern Arizona.

Other exhibits include gemstones and gem cutting, fluorescent minerals, and bowls and spheres carved from semi-precious stones.

Outside is a 43-foot (13-meter) head frame from the Boras Mine at Bisbee, an 1882 baby-gauge steam locomotive from Phelps Dodge's Morenci Mine, a mucker car and ore car on rails, and a 27-cubic-yard (21-cubic-meter) bucket from an electric mining bucket.

The museum's gift shop offers mineral specimens; jewelry; books on mineralogy, geology, and mining; and prospecting tools such as gold pans.

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Directions: The Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum is located at 1502 West Washington Street, in downtown Phoenix.

Construction started on the Saint Augustine Cathedral in 1896. It is actually Tucson's third cathedral, and replaced others previously located in different parts of the city. It was modeled after the Cathedral of Querétaro in Mexico, but differs in containing carvings of such desert images as saguaro and prickly pear cactus, yucca, and lizards.

The adobe and sandstone façade was added in 1928, and in the 1960s the entire structure, except for the façade, was razed and rebuilt to accommodate an expanding parish.

Nowadays, the Saint Augustine Cathedral is the seat for the Bishop of the Tucson Diocese.

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Directions: The Saint Augustine Cathedral is located at 192 South Stone Avenue, in downtown Tucson.

The Tucson Museum of Art has been acquiring artworks and collections for over 25 years, and now has over 6,000 pieces in its permanent collection.

Important acquisitions over the years have included the Frederick Pleasants Collection of pre-Columbian Art, the Lawrence and Agnes Heller Collection of American and Other 20th-Century Modern Art, the Ileen and Samuel Campbell Collection of Art of the American West, and the Small Collection of Contemporary Art.

Styles of art on display in the museum include pre-Columbian art dating from 500 B.C. to about 1500, Spanish colonial and folk art, Western American paintings and artworks, and twentieth-century European and American art.

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Directions: The Tucson Museum of Art is located at 140 North Main Avenue, in downtown Tucson.

The Tucson Children's Museum features 125 hands-on exhibits and activities in 12 rooms which help develop children's intellect and make learning fun.

Highlights of the museum include a dinosaur exhibit with four life-size robotic dinosaurs, an aquarium with sea creatures found in the Sea of Cortez, an exhibit showing the negative effects of tobacco use, an electricity and magnetism exhibit, an art studio where children can draw and paint, a hands-on computer learning center, a display of authentic emergency vehicles, a train exhibit, and a bakery/farmer's market where children can "shop" and "buy" bread and vegetables for their lunch.

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Directions: The Tucson Children's Museum is located at 200 South 6th Street, in downtown Tucson.

The residential El Presidio National Historic District dates from 1775 and is one of the oldest inhabited areas in the United States. It is named after the Spanish Presidio de San Augustín del Tucson, a fort which protected the early settlement.

The district includes a Hohokam Indian site dating from about 700 A.D. to 900 A.D., and most of the original Spanish fort.

El Presidio National Historic District incorporates many different architectural styles, including Spanish-Mexican, Anglo-American, and Eclectic.

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Directions: El Presidio National Historic District is located just north of downtown Tucson, bounded by West 6th Street, West Alameda Street, North Stone Avenue, and Granada Avenue.

The Tucson Botanical Gardens was established as an entity in 1964, but did not have a permanent location until 1975. At that time, Bernice and Rutger Porter donated land that had been in their family since 1929 to the botanical gardens.

The botanical gardens features 15 theme gardens including the Backyard Bird Garden, the Butterfly Garden, the Cactus and Succulent Garden, the Children's Discovery Garden, the Herb Garden, the Historical Gardens, the Iris Garden, the Native American Crops Garden, Nuestro Jardín (Our Garden), Plants of the Tohono O'odham Path, Sensoryscapes, Kay's Shade Garden, the Tropical Exhibit, the Wildflower Garden, and the Xeriscape Demonstration Garden.

Visitors will also be interested in the garden's interactive touch carts which contain hands-on exhibits, and feature desert birds, the saguaro cactus, cactus and succulents, and ethnobotany.

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Directions: The Tucson Botanical Gardens is located at 2150 North Alvernon Way, northeast of downtown Tucson.

The Fort Lowell Historic Site and Museum has been operated by the Arizona Historical Society since 1963. Their mission is to portray military life on the Arizona frontier through the museum's exhibits.

Camp Lowell was established on the outskirts of Tucson in 1866. However, because of unsanitary conditions, in 1873 the camp was moved seven miles (11 kilometers) northeast of Tucson and re-established as Fort Lowell. The role of the military stationed at the fort was to escort wagon trains, protect settlers, guard supplies, patrol the Mexican border, and conduct campaigns against the Apaches. Once the frontier was properly settled and tamed, the fort's usefulness vanished, and it was closed in 1891.

Nowadays, in addition to the museum, the grounds contain ruins of the fort's outbuildings. The old adobe-brick structures are protected from the elements with makeshift roofs (pictured here).

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Directions: The Fort Lowell Historic Site and Museum is located at 2900 North Craycroft Road, northeast of downtown Tucson.

Opened in 1967, the Pima Air and Space Museum is the third-largest aviation museum in the United States. The main feature of the museum is its 250 aircraft displayed on 80 acres (32 hectares). Many of the airplanes are housed in five hangars containing 100,000 square feet (9,290 square meters) of exhibit space.

Through displays and exhibits, the museum teaches about the history of military aviation from before the First World War to Desert Storm. In addition to the aircraft, the museum features exhibits including Women in Aviation, Blacks in Aviation, hands-on exhibits and displays, and a model collection that contains almost every American military aircraft from before the First World War to the present, displayed in chronological order.

Visitors to the museum can also tour the Space Gallery and the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame, which are located on the grounds. Special tours can also be arranged for the Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center, which is part of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. It is here that hundreds of out-of-date military and civilian airplanes are sent for storage, rehabilitation, or decommissioning.

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Directions: The Pima Air and Space Museum is located at 6000 East Valencia Road, southeast of downtown Tucson.

Founded in 1988, the International Wildlife Museum features over 400 species of mammals, birds, and insects, many of which are displayed in dioramas depicting their natural environments. All of the museum's specimens were donated by governmental agencies, zoos, wildlife rehabilitation centers, captive breeding programs, and private individuals. Some of the collections are more than 100 years old.

The International Wildlife Museum is run as part of the educational program of Safari Club International Foundation, a nonprofit organization which promotes wildlife conservation, wildlife education, hunting as a wildlife management tool, and humanitarian services for those in need.

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Directions: The International Wildlife Museum is located at 4800 West Gates Pass Road, in the hills west of Tucson.