A Mexican American mayor’s test of loyalty

Estevan Ochoa is best known as a businessman and politician who advocated for the creation of the Arizona Territory. He was also a Wells Fargo express agent in Pantano, Arizona.

But one of his most defining moments was in the spring of 1862, when he was forced to decide between love of the business he had built and loyalty to his country.

Building his business

Ochoa was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in a Spanish Mexican family. As a young boy, he traveled with the wagon trains of his brother’s freight business from Mexico to Missouri. After being exposed to the business from a young age, Ochoa eventually began to organize wagon trains of his own across the American Southwest.

By the 1860s, Ochoa had settled in the bustling town of Tucson, Arizona, and he and his partner, Pinckney Randolph Tully, operated one of the largest freight businesses in the region. Tully, Ochoa & Co. hired hundreds of employees, operated stores in multiple towns, and shipped millions of tons of supplies for ranchers, miners, and U.S. Army soldiers.

Political divisiveness

As the Civil War began in 1861, the people of Tucson were divided. Some sought a continued relationship with the Union, while others felt abandoned by the U.S. and believed the Confederacy would offer them more opportunity. Confederate sympathizers in Tucson unified and announced their intention to join the South.

On February 14, 1862, Jefferson Davis claimed Tucson and what was then known as the Territory of Arizona. Over 100 soldiers from Texas, with some volunteers from Arizona, occupied Tucson. All residents in town were directed to either take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy or leave immediately.

Reportedly, Ochoa answered, “It is out of the question for me to swear allegiance to any party or power hostile to the United States government; for to that government I owe my prosperity and happiness. When, sir, do you wish me to leave?”

For his loyalty to the Union, Ochoa was stripped of his property, given a horse, and told to go. As he traveled hundreds of miles across the desert landscape to his family in Mesilla, New Mexico, he didn’t know whether he would ever return to Tucson or the business he had built. When Union troops expelled the Confederate forces from Tucson just a few weeks later, Ochoa returned home with little lost, and a newfound reputation as a local legend.

“One of the coolest and bravest men”

In 1875, Ochoa was elected Tucson’s first Mexican American mayor. While in office, he oversaw the establishment of Tucson’s first public school. He donated the land for the building, provided thousands of dollars for the construction, and even put the shingles on himself.

After his time in local government ended, he managed Wells Fargo’s business for a year at the newly opened express office in the nearby railroad town of Pantano, Arizona. Ochoa died in 1888 while visiting family in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Union Army Capt. John G. Bourke said of Ochoa in 1891, “This rather undersized gentleman coming down the street is a man with a history — perhaps it might be perfectly correct to say two or three histories. He is Don Estevan Ochoa, one of the most enterprising merchants, as he is admitted to be one of the coolest and bravest men, in all the southwestern country.”

Today, Wells Fargo recognizes Ochoa’s contributions in serving his town and the nation.