Arivaca (O'odham: Ali Wa:pk) is an unincorporated community in Pima County, Arizona, United States.[1] It is located 11 miles (18 km) north of the Mexican border and 35 miles (56 km) northwest of the port of entry at Nogales. The European-American history of the area dates back at least to 1695, although the community was not founded until 1878.[1] Arivaca has the ZIP code 85601.[2] The 85601 ZIP Code Tabulation Area had a population of 909 at the 2000 census.[3] The Arivaca community lies on the northeast foothills of a small, low elevation mountain range, the San Luis Mountains.
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The early history of Arivaca is obscure. It was probably a Pima or Tohono O'odham village, abandoned after the Pima Indian Revolt of 1751.[4] Spanish settlers developed small mines.
In 1833 a Mexican land grant of 8,677 acres (35.11 km2) was approved, which became La Aribac ranch, a Pima word for "small springs".[5] Charles Poston bought the ranch in 1856, and the reduction works for the Heintzelman Mine, at Cerro Colorado, were then erected at Arivaca. The Court of Private Land Claims eventually disallowed the Arivaca Land Grant.[6] The US Post Office was established April 10, 1878, with Noah W. Bernard as the first Postmaster;[4] still in operation at ZIP code 85601.
Arivaca was a camp for at least three United States Cavalry units during the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution: Troop B of the Connecticut National Guard (1916), the Utah Cavalry (1917) and the 10th Cavalry (1917-20).
In May 2007, Arivaca became a flash point for US immigration policy. Part of a travel corridor for a large volume of illegal migrant and drug smuggler traffic, Arivaca is at one end of Project 28, the test of SBInet. SBInet is the effort by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Boeing Corporation to secure US land borders using technology. It involves 98-foot (30 m) high towers with radar and cameras that send information to bases in Tucson and Sells, where directions are sent out to specially equipped Border Patrol vehicles about targets for apprehension. Project 28 is the effort to test this strategy on a 28-mile (45 km) stretch flanking the border on either side of Sasabe. There will be two towers on the Tohono O'Odham nation west of the Baboquivari Mountains and 7 towers in the Altar Valley and southwest of Arivaca.[7]
On May 30, 2009, Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, were killed in a home-invasion in Arivaca by a group of anti-immigration activists.[8] The murderer was sentenced to death in early 2011.[9]
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