6.1 miles away
Empire Ranch
A beautifully-situated historic ranch from the 1860s. The adobe ranch house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the property is managed as part of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area. The area offers good opportunities for a range of outdoor activities, including birding, hiking, and horseback riding.

Facts and sources
Place
- Category
- Historic Site
- Destination
- Sonoita
- County
- Pima County
- State
- Arizona
- Designations
- National Register of Historic Places listed place
Visitation
- Annual visits
- Not published
Ranking
- Overall score
- 46.0 / 100
- Visitation score
- No published count
- Popularity score
- 25.7
- Significance score
- 63.0
- Confidence
- medium
Visiting
- Official website
- empireranchfoundation.org(opens in a new tab)
- Coordinates
- 31.7850, -110.6423
- Last verified
- 2026-08-12
Where it is
Empire Ranch is a historic site near Sonoita, 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
This place scores 46.0 out of 100, at medium confidence. No official visitor count is published for it, so the score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page.
Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.
Sources
- Description: Wikivoyage(opens in a new tab), used under CC BY-SA 4.0(opens in a new tab)
- 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
- Official site: http://www.empireranchfoundation.org/(opens in a new tab)
Record last verified 2026-08-12.
Nearby attractions
- A ghost town and former mining camp which is maintained by the Coronado National Forest. A few buildings have been restored, and for a unique experience visitors can rent one of the buildings for an overnight stay (see listing below).
8.8 miles away
Onyx Cave
Onyx Cave is a solutional cave system with about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) of passages formed in Permian limestone in the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona. It is part of the Coronado National Forest. It was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974.
9.6 miles away
Fort Buchanan
Fort Buchanan was a US Army post founded in 1856 three miles southwest of present-day Sonoita in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, on the east slope of what is now called Hog Canyon. At the time, the area was under constant threat from hostile Apaches. Full-scale war with the local Chiricahua Apache was initiated by the Bascom affair in early 1861, during which Lieutenant George Nicholas Bascom and his patrol were based at Fort Buchanan.
10.0 miles away
Helvetia
Helvetia is a ghost town in Pima County, Arizona, United States that was settled in 1891 and abandoned in the early 1920s. Helvetia is an ancient name for Switzerland. Today, only the Ray Mine and cemetery are visitable, as the rest of the town has been fenced off due to active mining operations.13 miles away
Iron Springs (Cochise County, Arizona)
Iron Springs is the historical name of a natural spring in the Whetstone Mountains of southeastern Arizona. It is famous for being the site of a confrontation between Wyatt Earp and William "Curly Bill" Brocius on March 24, 1882, which resulted in Brocius' death. The site was then known as Iron Springs, but on later maps the designation is Mescal Springs.
13 miles away
Whetstone Mountains
The Whetstone Mountains are a range of mountains in Cochise County, southeastern Arizona. The Opata called the mountains Babocomari, a name still attached to the nearby Babocomari River. The Spanish continued the name as Sierra del Babocomari.