Kayak rentals are available again at the marina store.

The fish station will be closed for renovations, starting February 26, 2024.

Park gates will be open from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. All camping guests with reservations who will arrive after 10 p.m. must call the park before 4:30 p.m. to make arrangements.

 

Fish advisory in effect: ADEQ recommends that adults limit consumption of flathead catfish to 2.5 ounces (uncooked weight) per week and children 12 years of age and younger limit consumption to 2 ounces (uncooked weight) per month.

NO dogs allowed at beach day use area. Please use west day use area.

Science

Cultural History

Native Americans in the Patagonia Lake/Sonoita Creek area consisted of the closely related Sobaipuri and Papago Indian tribes. The Sobaipuri and Papago Indian tribes were also closely related to the Pima Indians who lived in the Tucson area.

The Sobaipuri inhabited the main and tributary valleys of the Santa Cruz and San Pedro rivers. The Spanish established missions among them in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to which several visitas were attached. A visita was a community visited regularly by a priest from a nearby mission. In the mid- to late 1700s, the Apache began raiding the area south of Tucson causing the Sobaipuri to give up their homes and to merge with the Pima and Papago tribes.

The Papago inhabited territory mainly south of Tucson along the Santa Cruz River on into Sonora, Mexico. Papago means “bean eating people.” The Papago were mainly semi-sedentary farmers living in small villages, growing corn, beans, and squash. They supplemented agriculture with a gathering of wild desert plants and hunting. Today, the Papago are known as the Tohono O'odham Indian tribe.

Sites in the Patagonia Lake/Sonoita Creek area consist of pictographs, petroglyphs, bedrock mortars, rock cairns, rock circles, and lithic scatters.

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