Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, La Casa Cordova is one of the oldest buildings in Tucson. It has been named for the Cordova family, who acquired the building in 1936 and lived in it from 1944 until 1973. The Cordova family believed the original part of their home was constructed when Tucson was a village in the Mexican State of Sonora.
La Casa Cordova was built within the area enclosed by the Presidio wall. Some historians believe that the original rooms may predate the Gadsden Purchase of 1854. The acceptance of an early date of construction is based on the fact that the oldest portion of the building, the two back rooms on the south side, appears on the earliest known map of Tucson, the 1862 Major D. Ferguson map.
The building has been restored to the original floor plan evident in the 1883 Sanborn map, and to the external appearance of photographs from the period. The interior section of the oldest part of the structure was restored and furnished in the style of an 1850 northern Sonora dwelling. One room, an 1879 addition, has been restored and furnished to appear as a bedroom.
A separate room to the north houses the annual presentation of the popular El Nacimiento exhibition. It contains a multitude of scenes that tell the Christmas story, and also shows many cleverly constructed and beautifully lighted settings from Mexican folk life. El Nacimiento has been presented every year since 1978 from November to March and has become a Tucson tradition.
The patio is an enclosed courtyard with landscape in the northern Mexico style of the 1850-1880 era. It contains a ramada, a thatched porch-like structure, and a comal, a raised cooking platform made of adobe bricks. The plants growing in the patio are examples of those introduced from Mexico.
