Oracle State park provides a place to enjoy nature, history, art and dark skies. It covers about 4,000 acres and is located on what used to be one of the earliest cattle ranches in the region. It was owned and operated by Kannally family siblings whose final survivor donated the land for what would eventually become the park. The Kannally Ranch House, built between 1929 and 1933, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also home to 30 art paintings by Lee Kannally, a self-taught cowboy artist. Thousands of years ago the area was possibly visited by “Clovis Man” Native Americans, and scientists say more recently, the Hohokam and possibly the Apache used the area for hunting and food gathering. The park contains a portion of the Arizona Trail and in 2014, was designated as an “International Dark Sky Park.”
Producer: Tony Paniagua
Videographer: Nate Huffman
Editor: Nate Huffman
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.