El Tiradito, Historic shrine in Barrio Viejo, Tucson, United States

El Tiradito is a shrine built from the crumbling remains of a brick building at 420 South Main Avenue in Tucson's Old Barrio. A curved adobe wall with a red brick coping rises to a rounded arch; set into it is a white plastered niche with faint handwritten text inside. A metal rack holding glass-encased candles stands before the niche, and a low wire fence with red ribbons surrounds the base.

The shrine has stood since at least 1891; the original structure was destroyed to build a highway and rebuilt in 1927 on land donated by Teófilo Otero, with the present structure built in 1940 under the Neighborhood Youth Administration. In 1971 residents formed the El Tiradito Committee against a planned highway through Barrio Viejo, and the shrine was listed on the National Register of Historic Places that year. It was documented in the Historic American Landscapes Survey in 2012.

The name comes from the Spanish tirar, and the site is also called the Wishing Shrine. Legend holds that a candle burning through the night grants the lighter's wish, so glass-encased candles depicting Roman Catholic saints are left on the metal rack and along the ledges. Prayers and notes are pressed into cracks in the walls. A large Day of the Dead celebration is held here each year.

The shrine sits at 420 South Main Avenue in the Old Barrio, set into the adobe wall with a low wire fence around its base. Candles are placed on the metal rack in front of the white niche, and slips of paper are pressed into cracks in the wall. A weekly vigil is held here for migrants who die crossing the Sonoran Desert.

The shrine's name comes from the Spanish tirar, "to throw away," and refers to the outcast buried where he fell. The University of Arizona's Southwest Folklore Center holds over twenty versions of his story, first recorded in an 1893 newspaper article and again in a 1909 diary.