Tucked behind El Minuto Café in Tucson’s Barrio Viejo sits El Tiradito, a wishing shrine tied to the folktale of 18-year-old Juan Oliveras.
For more than 140 years, Oliveras has lived as a local legend about an affair setting off a chain of violence and heartbreak, according to the National Register of Historic Places.
Today, the shrine is a reminder of how layered — and often messy — Tucson’s history can be, a past that guides like Scott Darlage use to bring their walking tours to life.
As the story goes, according to Darlage’s favorite interpretation of the myth, Oliveras’ father-in-law found young Juan in bed with his mother-in-law, chased him with an axe, and killed him near the original shrine site a block east. The mother-in-law killed herself in shame. The father-in-law fled toward Sonora, Mexico, but was later raided and killed by Apaches. Oliveras’ young wife, devastated by the betrayal and Juan’s death, jumped from a bridge.
Listed on the National Register since 1971, the shrine evolved into a place where community members and visitors leave candles and written wishes, Darlage noted. The original structure was demolished in 1927 for highway construction, but a shrine was rebuilt in the 1940s. When a freeway proposal in the early 1970s threatened to displace 1,200 Barrio Viejo residents, locals rallied around the shrine and neighborhood to save them.
“So if you think about it, if young Juan hadn’t slept with his mother-in-law, there’s a good chance this neighborhood might not be here today,” said Darlage, owner of Strolls and Stories Tours…