AROUND St.David
St David is a small community located 7 miles from Benson on the way to Tombstone. Our friends and neighbors enjoy the warm Arizona sun, with annual temperatures averaging nearly 80 degrees for highs, and 45 for lows. Folks here love the fact that they can't see the air they breathe! The altitude is about 3700 feet with an average rainfall between 11 and 12 inches. St David was founded in 1877. A handful of Mormon families moved from the north to settle the community in August, 1877. Farming and cattle raising are the two principal industries in the area.
Benson is a much larger center which enjoys a rich American Indian heritage that is nicely blended with elements of the Spanish culture. There have been at varying times since Benson was founded in 1880 many highs and lows with regard to railroad, agriculture, missions, mining (copper and silver), and ranching. Transportation and trade have developed over the years to serve as an important foundation for the future. Tourism continues to expand, bringing many welcome visitors from the north each winter.
Fort Bowie
Fort Bowie was a 19th-century outpost of the United States Army located in southeastern Arizona near the present day town of Willcox, Arizona. The remaining buildings and site are now protected as Fort Bowie National Historic Site.
The Coronado National Forest
The Coronado National Forest is a United States National Forest that includes an area of about 1.78 million acres spread throughout mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.
Queen Mine Tours
Kartchner Caverns State Park
Kartchner Caverns State Park is a state park of Arizona, United States, featuring a show cave with 2.4 miles of passages. The park is located 9 miles south of the town of Benson and west of the north-flowing San Pedro River.
Tombstone
Tombstone is a town in southeastern Arizona, known for its Wild West history. Exhibits at the Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park include a replica gallows. On historic Allen Street, the O.K. Corral outdoor theater re-enacts an 1881 cowboy gunfight.
Resident ghosts are said to haunt the bullet-riddled Bird Cage Theatre. Outlaws are among the local townsfolk buried at the 1878 Boothill Cemetery.
Outfitted in a hard hat, miner’s headlamp and a yellow slicker, thousands of Bisbee visitors descend into the Queen Mine Tour each year—heading underground and back in time. Tour guides, retired Phelps Dodge employees, lead the group 1,500 feet into the mine and recount mining days, techniques, dangers and drama.
