'A' Mountain, 1916
It was a sensational 7-6 Arizona football victory over Pomona College
on
Thanksgiving Day, November 6, 1914, that led to the building of the "A" on
Sentinel Peak, west of Tucson.
In what was doubtless a burst of
enthusiastic pride for his alma mater, Albert H. Condron, a member of the
1914 team and a civil engineering student, suggested to one of his
professors that a class assignment be made to survey Sentinel Peak for the
location of an "A".
The site was cleared of shrubbery and cactus, trenches dug to outline the
letter's foundations, rock at hand was mixed with mortar and water hauled
up the mountain by six-horse teams. The total cost of materials,
equipment,
and transportation was $397. The back-breaking work was done by the
students themselves, Saturday after Saturday, with many difficulties and
discouragements, but the "A" was finally whitewashed on March 4, 1916. No
one called it Sentinel Peak anymore. It was known thereafter as "A"
Mountain. The "A" is 70 feet wide and 160 feet long (or "tall").
The basalt rock quarried from the construction site was used to build the
Rock Wall surrounding most of the university's historic
district.
The site was cleared of shrubbery and cactus, trenches dug to outline the
letter's foundations, rock at hand was mixed with mortar and water hauled
up the mountain by six-horse teams. The total cost of materials,
equipment,
and transportation was $397. The back-breaking work was done by the
students themselves, Saturday after Saturday, with many difficulties and
discouragements, but the "A" was finally whitewashed on March 4, 1916. No
one called it Sentinel Peak anymore. It was known thereafter as "A"
Mountain. The "A" is 70 feet wide and 160 feet long (or "tall"). 
