What is now known as La Osa Ranch is about 18,300 acres of land in southern Pinal County spreading from the Santa Cruz River west toward the Tohono O'odham Reservation. But the land included in what someday could be a large residential development has gone through a series of owners and uses since the early 20th century.
1902: The Southern Arizona Smelting Co. builds a plant seven miles west of Red Rock to serve the mining operations in Silver Bell and near Picacho Peak. The land around the smelter becomes a town, known as Sasco, that reaches a peak population of 600.
1910: The smelter is closed due to insufficient profit, and by 1921 Sasco becomes a ghost town.
1913: Cattleman Jack C. Kinney begins purchasing ranch land around Sasco, including holdings of the La Osa Cattle & Loan Co.. Kinney later purchases Sasco, where La Osa Cattle & Loan was based.
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1955: Phillip Haas, a former New Yorker who moved to Tucson in 1945 to become a cowboy, buys Sasco from an unknown 85-year-old man who has acquired it.
1998: Haas donates Sasco's 120 acres, worth $1.2 million, to the Southern Arizona and El Paso Salvation Army. That land is eventually sold to developer George Johnson, pictured, who in the 1980s developed both El Conquistador Resort and the Cañada Hills neighborhood in Oro Valley.
Dec. 3, 2003: The Pinal County Board of Supervisors approves an amendment to its land-use plan that would allow Johnson to build up to 61,299 homes and 5,682 apartments on 19,670 acres. The La Osa property is projected at the time to someday be home to between 150,000 and 175,000 people.
Late 2003: Johnson is accused of environmental and archaeological violations at La Osa Ranch. He's accused of blading more than 150 acres of ancient Hohokam Indian sites along the Santa Cruz River, and putting goats on ranch land that ended up endangering the bighorn sheep population in the neighboring Ironwood National Monument. In December 2007 Johnson agrees to pay the state $7 million for the violations.
March 18, 2004: After a decision is delayed twice, Pinal's planning and zoning commission recommends disapproval of rezoning La Osa, which Johnson had offered to cut down to putting only 30,000 homes on 9,116 acres.
Summer 2004: Johnson announces the sale of the land to ABCDW LLC, a holding company associated with Tempe-based developer Conley Wolfswinkel, who developed Rancho Vistoso in Oro Valley.
Jan. 14: The city of Eloy expands its municipal planning area boundaries from 327 square miles to approximately 545, taking in the entirety of La Osa Ranch with the intent to annex the property in the future.
