Born: c. 1820
Died: 1902, in Tempe

The Sotelo family was one of the first to settle in the Tempe area. Tiburcio Sotelo and his sons, José and Feliciano, worked on the Kirkland-McKinney Ditch in 1870, and settled on 160 acres at the southeast corner of Rural Road and University Drive. All three died within a year: Tiburcio had apparently been ill; Feliciano, who carried mail on the Tucson-Maricopa route, was killed by Apaches, and was buried in Tempe; José was chased by Indians, drove his horse into the Salt River trying to escape, and drowned. Tiburcio's widow, Manuela Sanchez Sotelo, came up from Tucson and settled on the land with her daughters and her youngest son. In what was virtually a wilderness, the family grew corn, beans, squash, and herbs. Manuela Sotelo was a shareholder in the Tempe Irrigating Canal Company, and one of the few who held two water rights in 1870s.

After many years of living on the land, on July 3, 1890, Sotelo filed her final homestead claim and received a patent on her land. The 160-acre ranch was surveyed and subdivided, and on Aug. 23, 1890, her son-in-law, Winchester Miller, filed a plat map for the Sotelo Addition. This subdivision consisted of twenty-five large lots lying between the Tempe-Mesa Road and the Hayden Canal. Many of these lots were already occupied by her children and by relatives who had moved from Tucson. She later divided the rest of her land among her daughters.

The children of Tiburcio and Manuela Sotelo include:

• Petra Sotelo
  
  
• José Sotelo
  
  • Born 1848; died 1871 in Tempe
    
    
• Feliciano Sotelo
  
  • Born 1850; died 1871 in southern Arizona
    
    
• Maria Sotelo Miller 
  
  • Born 1853 in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico; married Winchester Miller in Tempe in 1873; died 1937 in Tempe
    
    
• Isabel Sotelo Molina Olivas
  
  • Born 1855 in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico (sources differ on birth date - often listed as 1855, though AZ death certificate lists birth date as Sept. 13, 1849); married José Molina in Tempe in 1874 (divorced - date unknown); married Ramon Olivas in Tempe in 1892; died June 17, 1948 in Florence, AZ
    
    
• Guadalupe Sotelo Mendoza
  
  • Born 1856 in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico; married Isidoro Mendoza in Tempe in 1873
    
    
• Jesús María Sotelo Soza 
  
  • Born 1857 in Tubac, Arizona; married Juan Soza in Tucson in 1873; died 1936 in Tempe
    
    
• Concepción Sotelo Palacio
  
  • Born 1861 in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico; married Jesús Palacio in Tempe in 1874
    
    
• Salomé Sotelo Granillo
  
  • Born 1862 in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico; married José Granillo in Tempe in 1876
    
    
• Manuela Sotelo Gonzales
  
  • Born 1863 in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico
    
    
• Antonio Sotelo
  
  • Born 1866