San Pablo

A community was founded on the south side of Tempe Butte by Hispanic farmers who had worked on the Kirkland-McKinney Ditch. William H. Kirkland donated the 80-acre site, a triangular tract set against the base of the butte. In 1872, the Arizona Citizen reported:

The Tempe people, not satisfied with Hayden's Ferry, have laid out a new town just along side named San Pablo and the proceeds of the sale of the town lots is to be devoted to the building of a Catholic church.

Two Catholic priests from Florence were invited to a meeting of the San Pablo Town Association, and Father Andrés Eschallier, pastor of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, celebrated the first Mass in Tempe on Sunday, April 12, 1872.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, c.1892

An adobe church was finally built in San Pablo, and dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel on March 10, 1881. The front of the small church was plastered and whitewashed, but the rest of the exterior walls were bare adobe block. It was set at the foot of the butte, and a footbridge over the Hayden Canal led to a Sonoran-style cemetery.

San Pablo, as seen from Tempe Butte, c.1900.