Steamboats on the Santa Cruz
In 1878 Col. Charles Skyes of San Francisco, mapped out a town site in Rio Rico's Calabasas area. He than began to aggressively promote the land. He used a brochure with drawings of a prosperous Calabasas community complete with steamboats docked at a busy Santa Cruz waterfront. A prominent Tucsonan filed a libel suit when Sykes used his name to endorse the plan. Skyes rebuffed charges of trickery. Although Skyes did build a two-story hotel at the site, he later lost the land when a court found the 1844 land sale invalid.
Source:
"Rio Rico's land-scandal history finds parallel in 1800s." Arizona Daily Star. September 18, 1994. Page B4
"Rio Rico's land-scandal history finds parallel in 1800s." Arizona Daily Star. September 18, 1994. Page B4