Saguaro National Park: Rincon Mountain District (East)

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My second stop of the day was the Rincon Mountain District (East) of Saguaro National Park. It was too hot to do any hiking (110 degrees!), so I followed the recommendation of the Park Service staff at the Visitor Center and drove the 8-mile scenic Cactus Forest Loop Drive. As is the case with many of our National Parks, the mostly one-way Loop Drive was originally built during the Depression between 1937 and 1939 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Loop Drive was fully restored in the summer of 2006.

A bit of history of the park: in 1933, President Hoover used the power of the Antiquities Act to establish the original park, Saguaro National Monument, in the Rincon Mountains, east of Tucson. In 1961, President Kennedy added the Tucson Mountain District (to the west of Tucson) to the monument and renamed the original tract the Rincon Mountain District. In 1994, Congress combined the Tucson Mountain District and the Rincon Mountain District to form Saguaro National Park.


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