Hispanic Heritage Month begins mañana. Keeping in the spirit of this important commemoration, I present another story from our illustrious Archives.

Esteban Ochoa was a native of Sonora, Mexico , who immigrated to Arizona Territory  in the 1850s. A pioneer businessman in Tucson , Ochoa ran a mercantile and freighting firm that delivered goods to settlements in the southwest. In those years, much of the region was still quite remote: Ochoa's services brought news and goods from the outside to isolated pioneers.

Esteban Ochoa became Wells Fargo's Agent in Pantano in 1880.

Ochoa had been elected Tucson’s third mayor five years earlier. He eventually served three distinguished terms in the Territorial government of Arizona. As an early advocate for public education in the territory, he crowned his political career by introducing legislation that established Arizona’s first public school system.