Before a field of old orange groves became a desert refuge and botanical park, it was the secret wonderland of a bunch of kids.
“We ran all over the place,” remembers Suzanne “Suzie” (Wilson) Horst, one of the children of Tohono Chul Park founders Richard and Jean Wilson.
“We had a lot of secret trails.”
Some of those trails still meander through the wilder parts of Tohono Chul Park, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a gala next Sunday.
Suzie, who grew up in what is now the Garden Bistro, remembers riding horses through the Wilson property, which ultimately grew to 37 acres northwest of West Ina and North Oracle roads.
Todd Horst, whose family socialized with the Wilsons and who is now Suzie’s husband, also recalls many hours playing in the desert. “All the kids got along really well,” Todd says.
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A HOME
The idea of Tohono Chul (“desert corner” in O’odham) Park began to form in the 1960s.
The Wilsons came to Tucson in 1962 so that Richard could teach geology at the University of Arizona, according to park documents.
By 1966, the couple began buying land northwest of Tucson, including, in 1968, the small west house in Tohono Chul Park. They and their three children lived there for eight years.
Although the couple eventually owned the larger home to the east, they didn’t move the family there. Instead, they allowed a number of organizations to use it as housing for youth or visiting students.
Most of the land was left as undeveloped desert, Suzie says.
A BOOKSTORE
Jean and Richard opened The Haunted Bookshop in 1974. The popular independent business outgrew two locations at the Ina and Oracle intersection.
In the final expansion, the couple built a building on the eastern edge of their property to house a 5,000-square-foot store, according to a March 11, 1996 Tucson Citizen article.
Its winding patio offered desert views of the Wilson property.
Suzie and Todd became employees of the store, she as a buyer and he as the bookkeeper. They “reconnected,” Todd says, and married.
Over the years, the Wilsons cut paths from the store into their property so that shoppers could meander through the desert and stop at tables and benches to enjoy their purchases.
A PARK
Suzie recalls that her parents always wanted to preserve the property as a public open space. Their first project was inspired by ants.
A line of ants regularly crossed the parking lot that separated the bookstore from the undeveloped desert.
“My mom painted that ant trail and put up a little sign: ‘Caution, ant trail,’” Suzie says. “She was the kind of person that cared about the creatures living around (the bookstore).”
The couple started extending paths with plant identification signs. They hired folks to construct a water feature and ramada. Todd recalls that Richard brought plants and rocks from the Santa Catalina Mountains to build a patio grotto and a wall that replicates the area’s geology.
All the saguaros on the Wilson land that was condemned for the Ina Road widening were moved to other parts of the property.
As the northwest side of town grew, so did requests from developers to buy the Wilson land for commercial use, including, it’s been said, possibly the Foothills Mall.
While not pristine desert, the property “was in a critical strategic location,” says attorney Michael Racy, a long-time member of the park’s Board of Directors who was a fundraising volunteer in the early days.
When Tohono Chul Park was formally created in 1985, there were a few gardens, trails through desert landscape and an art gallery in the main house.
“Even then the place had a very special feel to it,” says Racy, who used to frequently take his family to The Haunted Bookshop and the trails. “Even before its development, it felt like this little urban-suburban enclave.”
Bond financing and capital fundraising put the park on good footing, Racy says. Over the years the park added several theme gardens, expanded to 49 acres, extended hiking trails and opened the eatery.
Business coach Tom Rompel also worked on raising funds for the park before joining the board in 1989, shortly after Tohono Chul became a nonprofit entity.
He credits Alice Herman, the park’s first executive director, for combining a natural preserve with botanical-garden features.
“Right now it’s the perfect balance of what she envisioned,” Rompel says.
Jean Wilson died in 2009, Richard in 2011. Although they retired to Flagstaff in 1991, they visited Tohono Chul on occasion, the last time when Richard attended the park’s 25th anniversary.
“They just thought it was great,” says Suzie. “It is beyond what they could have imagined it could be.”