Rogue Columnist

Statehood and its world

They couldn't pick a better time as that in life / It ain't too early and it ain't too late / Startin' as a farmer with a brand new wife / Soon be livin' in a brand-new state / Brand new state!

OK, I stole that from the musical Oklahoma!, about the 46th state, which entered the union in 1907. But the sentiments applied no less to the 48th, Arizona, the Baby State, the Frontier State, the Valentine State. At least for the Anglo settlers and not a few Mexican-Americans, especially in Tucson, statehood was a grand achievement, a validation of the efforts to build a new civilization in a wilderness. The government had declared the frontier closed in 1890, but it was very much alive in Arizona. The only photograph of my great-grandmother shows a grizzled, sun-baked woman standing outside an adobe hovel, my family's first home here. Air conditioning was decades away. She survived a Comanche attack as a baby — was scalped and wore a wig the rest of her life — when federal troops were withdrawn from the Texas frontier during the Civil War. In the 1890s, the family came to Arizona Territory. Plenty of heart and plenty of hope, indeed.

Many have been writing about the difficult path to statehood. I will only add that one big but largely forgotten impediment is that Arizona would come in as a Democratic state. Thus, it's no surprise that the Republicans who dominated Washington for decades after the Civil War would be loathe to give the opposition two new Senate seats and another in the House, along with Democratic electors in the Electoral College. Not only that, but allow statehood for a bunch of former Confederates and Southern sympathizers (Arizona Territory had a delegate to the Confederate Congress). And that's just what happened, with Henry Fountain Ashurst, Marcus Aurelius Smith and Carl Hayden beginning Democratic control of the state that would continue pretty much uncontested for 40 years. At his worst, Ashurst made Ben Quayle look like Pericles — he opposed a National Park for Grand Canyon, for example. Yet he also said, "When I come back to Arizona, you never ask me questions about such (international) policies; instead, you ask me, 'What about my pension?' or 'What about that job for my sons?' " Hayden, of course, went on to become one of the greats.

Things about Arizona

It's centennial week in Arizona, and the local media are doing their part. On Sunday, the Arizona Republic had a clever front-page display of wishes for the next hundred years from readers. My favorite was that Arizona enters the 21st century before it's over. Another asked for less conservative politics (good luck with that). The paper is trying very hard and doing good work. Inside were some quick hits by state worthies on what you should know about Arizona. They were relentlessly upbeat, as is a requirement for being viable here as a worthy: "The good people of Arizona have always had grit"; "We defy a stereotype as some might see existing in Maine, Texas or California"; "We are an iconoclastic bunch"; "It's a fantastic state with an early history that is just special," and, from Gov. Jan Brewer, "There is nothing that can't be accomplished here." Draw your own conclusions.

As usual, the rest is left to homey. "Every dirty job that comes along...," as Clint Eastwood growls in the original and best Dirty Harry film. So what are some things you need to know about Arizona? It's one of this blog's missions, but I'll try to put it into short Gannett-ese (sorry, my crack graphics/design team is off):

1. Arizona is not metropolitan Phoenix. Even though Phoenix-like mass-produced sprawl housing and shopping strips have spread statewide, most of Arizona has very different history, topography, cultures and socio-economic challenges from the big concrete blob in the center of the state.

Phoenix 101: The capitol

The Capitol and legislative chambers in the 1960s, before the erection of the brutalist Executive Office Tower.
Channel 12's Brahm Resnik asked me to nominate the three most significant Arizona political events since statehood. It's a bit like wanting a cinephile to name only three favorite movies. I settled for 1) statehood, which was not a given when it happened; 2) The congressional delegation's ultimately successful decades-long pursuit of Colorado River water, and 3) SB 1070, which is a bright red marker for the hotbed of intolerance, ignorance, extremism and backwardness into which the state has descended. Other events could contend, such as Barry Goldwater's 1952 defeat of Sen. Ernest McFarland, marking the birth of the Republican Party's ascendancy.

One of the most telling political stories, however, doesn't concern politicians or elections, at least not directly. It's about the old capitol building. The copper-domed structure was actually built as the territorial capitol and completed in 1901. The architect was James Riely Gordon, who designed many court houses in Texas, as well as a grand one for Bergen County, N.J. Gordon set aside his usual Romanesque Revival style to create a territorial capitol made from native materials. It was originally intended to be much grander, but the territory cut back funding. Additions made in 1918 and 1938 preserved the Gordon design.

President Kennedy (perhaps apocryphally) quipped that it was the ugliest state capitol in America. This was certainly not true: The Alaska capitol resembles an insurance company office; the Ohio statehouse with its forever-incomplete dome defines homeliness and lack of proportion, and North Carolina's looks like the court house for a small, poor county. The only saving grace for New Mexico's building is that it is in Santa Fe. To me, the old Arizona capitol always held a certain modest grace, particularly when I was growing up and it dominated the vista at the foot of Washington Street. But it's also true, odd and perhaps telling that Montana, which still doesn't have 1 million people, has a much bigger, grander capitol. And otherwise poor, conservative states such as West Virginia, Arkansas and Mississippi boast majestically beautiful statehouses.

Halftime in Arizona

Note to national and international Rogue readers: As Arizona marks 100 years of statehood this month, you'll have to put up with more than the usual number of AZ- and Phoenix-centric posts.

In 1962, Arizona marked its 50th year as a state. It's a vivid memory for me, although I was but a child. I loved the commemorative seal with the cactus wren, so much more appealing than today's gaudy centennial emblem. Fifty years of statehood was a remarkable event for those still living who had witnessed statehood and lived in Arizona Territory, my grandmother among them. The state in 1962 had barely more than 1 million people, with Phoenix not yet at the half-million mark. Phoenix was becoming a big city with comforts unimagined 50 years before, especially air conditioning. Still, the frontier was close enough to touch, living history was all around and much of the state was still wilderness. Vast empty distances separated the settled areas and those were compact and clear in their purpose.

Prescott, for example, the onetime territorial capital, was an enchanting little town with appealing rough edges. None of today's sprawl existed. It had only recently lost its status as a division point on the Santa Fe Railway between Phoenix and Williams Jct. Mining and ranching were the economy. The highway up Yarnell Hill was notoriously treacherous. Flagstaff was a major railroad town, also depending on sawmills for the logging industry and Arizona State College. The Mogollon Rim was virtually uninhabited, just one of many parts of the state as wild as ever. The state highways were two lanes, taking you to rich history that wasn't across the street from a Wal-Mart. Even in Phoenix, you could see old cowboys, the real thing, living out their last years in the elegantly-designed-but-neglected old apartments that graced the neighborhood between Seventh Avenue and the capitol.