The community of Vaughn was located on the north and south sides of today’s Highway 83, west of the junction of 83 with the Elgin-Canelo road. Roskruge’s 1893 Official Map of Pima County records Vaughn’s location (spelled Vaughan). It wasn’t until the influx of homesteaders to the area starting in the early 1900s that a few hallmarks of a community were acquired, and reports of Vaughn happenings appeared in local newspapers.
The first of Vaughn’s buildings was a wood-frame one-room schoolhouse built by area residents in 1912. Miss May Farrell was perhaps the first teacher. [The Oasis, 11/16/1912]. In 1916 “A petition signed by twenty- nine voters of the Vaughn district of Santa Cruz County, asking for a voting precinct with the polling place at the Vaughn School House” was submitted to the Santa Cruz County board of supervisors. [The Border Vidette, 3/11/1916]. Local ranchers formed the Vaughn Cattle Grower’s Association “to provide water in the national forest nearby and to erect a drift fence so that the cattle owned by its members will get the full benefit of the grazing land in their territory, and not be compelled to share it with the cattle from the Red Rock district.” [The Border Vidette, 1/12/1918]. In 1918 the schoolhouse was moved from the north side of the county road (today’s Highway 83) “to a tract of two acres given to the school district by Mr. and Mrs. James F. Cunningham.” [The Daily Morning Oasis, 3/15/1918]. The Cunninghams had a homestead patent to 320 acres, but never lived in the Vaughn area.
Vaughn had its own enumeration district in the 1920 U.S. Census which recorded a population of 85. Sometime in the 1920s an adobe church was built on the north side of Highway 83. Preachers from Tucson conducted services and the Vaughn Church was used for many area gatherings and celebrations including picnics and plays. Newspaper accounts record funeral services held at the church for area residents who most frequently were buried at the Black Oak Cemetery in Canelo. A small graveyard with two headstones adjacent to what remains of the church’s foundation, features the headstones of Pearl Alfie Ellis (1919-1926) and Edward Ellis (1874-1933).
Edward Ellis purchased a ranch in Vaughn in 1917. [The Border Vidette, 7/28/1917]. He married Ethel Viola O’Brien in Tombstone in 1918 and they had eight children. Edward was active in the community and served as the Vaughn Justice of the Peace. In 1926 their oldest child, daughter Pearl Alfie, died of a ruptured appendix in Nogales’ St. Joseph Hospital. Her funeral at the Vaughn Church was “attended by the school children and all the people of this community.” [Arizona Daily Star, 10/15/1926]. In 1933 Edward died of “a lingering illness” and was buried next to his daughter. Ethel remarried and remained in the Nogales area until the mid-1940s.
The 1930 U.S. Census records the Vaughn population at 75. The Vaughn School was closed in 1934 when Vaughn voters petitioned for annexation to the Sonoita school district. [Nogales International, 7/7/1934].
It is not clear when the Vaughn Church ceased to operate but by 1947 the roof had blown off and the building was quickly deteriorating. [Nogales International, 6/13/1947]. Today the only remains of Vaughn are two gravestones and portions of the foundation of the Vaughn Church.