Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago, Being a Kid Was Hard Work!
By Edward Peng
Tucson’s Presidio was a Spanish and Mexican military fort. While it was home to soldiers, families with children also resided here. One of the goals of the museum, when elementary school classes visit for field trips, is to give them an idea of what life as a child might have looked like in Tucson two hundred and fifty years ago.
While children in the Presidio did not go to school, they were expected to help adults with the daily chores. Museum field trips have the children do chores to give them an idea of what life was like for the youngest residents. Field trip chores include kneading bread, cleaning cotton, and washing clothing. Students get water by putting a wooden yoke across their shoulders and carrying buckets of water.
Field trips also give students a taste of being an apprentice. Historically, once children got to be around the age of nine, many of their parents would send them off to be an apprentice to a master. As an apprentice, in exchange for food and shelter, they would have to learn the master’s trade and help them. Trades included blacksmithing (making all the nails and metal tools for the Presidio) and tinsmithing (shaping tin into useful objects like lanterns and cups).
Apprenticeships were also very difficult and carried with them their own responsibilities. Apprentices had to be on the job helping and learning for many hours a day, and the goal of an apprenticeship was to eventually be good enough at the craft to do it themselves. However, if the master did not believe their apprentice had reached that level, they could let them go and stop providing food and shelter. In that case, the apprentice was on their own to fend for themself.
While most of the children’s lives revolved around work, there were still moments of play. Of course, kids could come up with all sorts of games in their free time. One game the field trips play involves sticks with circular dried rinds tied to them. Kids play with the toy by holding the stick in front of them and trying to move it so that the rind would fall onto the stick.
Ultimately, this is just a sneak peek of what life could have been like in the Presidio. Come in person to answer questions such as, what were the duties of the soldiers? How did the Presidio residents interact with the people already living in the area? What kind of resources did people in the Sonoran Desert have?
About the Author:
Edward Peng was an intern at the Presidio in the fall of 2025 where he worked in children’s programming. He graduated in December 2025 from the University of Arizona where he studied History and East Asian Studies. Edward grew up in Tucson and is fascinated by its deep and unique history, of which the Presidio is an example.