Description

Jose Maria Redondo was born at La Hacienda de Ocuca, near Altar, Sonora, Mexico, March 19, 1830; he died June 18, 1878 in Yuma. He left Sonora in January 1849 to engage in placer mining in Calaveras and Amador Counties, California. He married Piedad Contreras in 1853 and had ten children. As an adult he came to the Yuma, Arizona area in 1859. He led a party that discovered one of the richest placers nine miles from La Paz in 1861. He dammed the Gila River just east of where it flows into the Colorado and created the first irrigation ranch in Arizona, Hacienda San Ysidro. People from the entire world came to tour his ranch and study his methods. He was the first grower of lettuce in Yuma. He was a member of the 1st, 7th, 8th and 9th Arizona Territorial Legislatures, although he was unable to serve in the 1st since his naturalization papers did not arrive in time. He secured his naturalization papers in 1869. While in the Territorial Legislature he brought the new Territorial Prison to Yuma. He was responsible for changing the name of Arizona City to Yuma and is considered the father of Yuma. In 1877 he was elected Mayor of Yuma. When a small pox epidemic spread through town, he sent his family to California but stayed, contracted the virus and died June 18, 1878. This print is a photo clipping from the Ninth Legislative Assembly Organizational Photo, O-187p.