Amado: A Family's Name on the Land

The small community of Amado carries the name of Manuel Amado, who began ranching this stretch of the Santa Cruz Valley in eighteen fifty-two. The Amado family called their land El Alamo Bonito, meaning "the beautiful cottonwood," after the trees lining the river. For generations the family stayed, and the ranch name gradually gave way to the family name itself as the settlement grew.

A Southern Pacific railroad station opened nearby in nineteen ten, formalizing the stop, and a post office followed in nineteen nineteen under the name Amadoville. One year later the name was shortened to Amado. The community sits in Santa Cruz County, a small crossroads that has served as a gateway on this north-south corridor for well over a century.

Today Amado is best known among travelers as a quiet rest stop on Interstate Nineteen between Tucson and Nogales, with a population that remains in the hundreds.