Computer 'rebuilds' convento

It's been worshipped in, neglected, looted, photographed, dumped on and argued over.

Heck, it's even been sold on eBay in postcard form.

Now it's being computerized.

For the last couple of years, Doug Gann, a preservation archaeologist with the Center for Desert Archaeology, has been trying to re-create, via computer, the old convento.

It hasn't been easy.

Reduced way past rubble, the once-thriving complex of church, granary, homes and fields at the foot of "A" Mountain exists today mainly through sketches, maps, photographs and secondhand accounts - many in doubt.

Maps weren't to scale. Some recollections contradict each other. Even photographs fail to show every side of the complex.

Even so, Gann, who's now on his 11th version, is getting closer to what the convento looked like, inside and out.

He does this by "plugging" historic photos, maps and other information into the program.

"The computer makes its model. When the X's and Y's don't fit, there's no fudging."

What he's come up with is a virtual tour of the convento anyone with a computer can take. (Log onto www.rio-nuevo.org then click onto the Center for Desert Archaeology site and follow the links.)

This same "tour" also goes public at 7 p.m. next Tuesday during a presentation at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.

A panel of experts also will be there, all trying to decide how to depict this vital page - nay, chapter - from our past.

A former garbage dump, the convento is now part of the massive Rio Nuevo project to revitalize Downtown.

Some are calling for a total reconstruction of the convento complex. Others say it would give a false sense of history.

Carefully sidestepping that dispute, Gann says, "Our job is to inform people as best we can as to what was there. Whether or not it's built will be up to the Rio Nuevo committee."

Continually striving to come up with the most accurate model, Gann, who can be reached at 882-6946, is seeking old photos, to be scanned and returned.

There are roughly 60 known photos of the convento. Nary a one shows its northeast corner.

"I think it exists," says Gann, who guesses that most took photos with Tucson and the Santa Catalinas as backdrop.

Built in the early 1770s, San Agustín Mission was tumbling into ruins by century's end.

The chapel was either rebuilt or refurbished. Eventually the site would also include the familiar large two-story structure - possibly for visiting priests - we see in old photographs.

By 1843, the chapel's wood was described as rotted, its adobe walls disintegrating.

Even so, Tucson pioneer Atanacia Hughes remembered a vaulted roof, mural frescoes and vermillion-colored outer walls.

"I was skeptical at first, because a lot of written accounts have not panned out," says Gann. "But the evidence supports her."

By 1874, when Albert Buehman photographed the site, the chapel had collapsed, with only the convento and granary still standing.

For years, the convento lured photographers who snapped photos such as the one recently found on eBay. "We bought it," says Gann, who used it to disprove an earlier map.

A brickyard during the '40s, the property served as Tucson's city dump in the mid-'50s.

Though excavation work at the site in November 2000 turned up only the granary foundation and portions of an outer wall, the results, says Gann, helped him figure out the compound's dimensions.

Just recently, he's come up with three more photographs dating from the 1930s.

"The convento was pretty much gone, but they helped me position two doors."

Every little bit helps.

* Contact Bonnie Henry at 434-4074 or at bhenry@azstarnet.com, or write to 6781 N. Thornydale Road, Suite 239, Tucson, AZ 85741.