0.1 miles away
Tucson Arena
Tucson Arena, part of the Tucson Convention Center in Arizona, has hosted the Tucson Roadrunners AHL team and events including Monster Truck shows.
El Tiradito
A shrine in downtown Tucson, standing since at least 1891, to a man who died in sin and could not be buried on consecrated ground.
- Rank in Arizona
- #220of 727 ranked
- Overall score
- Score 45.2 out of 100medium confidence
- Category
- Historic Site
El Tiradito, meaning the little castaway, is a shrine at 420 South Main Avenue in the Old Barrio area of downtown Tucson, Arizona. Its name comes from the Spanish tirar, and it is also called the Wishing Shrine for its association with pleas for supernatural intervention. The legends attached to the site date from the 1870s and centre on a broken-hearted man who died and, because of a sin, could not be buried on consecrated ground; the shrine has stood since at least 1891. It was the first property in Arizona placed on the National Register of Historic Places for its traditional cultural values, and it holds particular importance for Tucson's Mexican and Mexican American communities. The shrine consists of the crumbling remains of a brick building, with a large metal rack for candles and desert plants occupying the interior. Glass-encased candles, often depicting Roman Catholic saints, are lit and left burning on the stand and along the ledges, and slips of paper carrying prayers or thanks are pressed into cracks in the walls. The site is not sanctioned by the Catholic Church. A large Day of the Dead celebration is held there each year.
Where it is
El Tiradito is a historic site near Tucson, in Pima County. It is one of the historic sites in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.
How this ranking was reached
No official visitor count is published for El Tiradito, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.
Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.
Sources
- Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
- Coordinates and designations: Wikivoyage(opens in a new tab)
- County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
Record last verified 2026-08-12.
More photographs
Public domain · source(opens in a new tab)
Nearby attractions
0.2 miles away
Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson
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0.2 miles away
Sosa-Carrillo-Frémont House Museum
A 1870s Tucson adobe house tied to Territorial Governor John Charles Fremont, now an Arizona Historical Society museum.
0.3 miles away
Tucson Music Hall
Tucson Music Hall, in Tucson, Arizona, is the home of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and the Arizona Opera.0.3 miles away
Leo Rich Theater
Tucson's primary venue for ballet, theatre, and musicals, and home to concerts sponsored by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.
0.3 miles away
Cathedral of Saint Augustine
The cathedral and mother church of the Catholic Diocese of Tucson, known in Spanish as the Catedral de San Agustín.
Facts and sources
Place
- Category
- Historic Site
- Destination
- Tucson
- County
- Pima County
- State
- Arizona
- Designations
- National Register of Historic Places listed place
Visitation
- Annual visits
- Not published
Ranking
- Overall score
- 45.2 / 100
- Visitation score
- No published count
- Popularity score
- 23.9
- Significance score
- 63.0
- Confidence
- medium
Visiting
- Coordinates
- 32.2161, -110.9746
- Last verified
- 2026-08-12