Rogue Columnist

The geriatric state

One of the many lies the boosters tell is that Arizona is a youthful state. Yet according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.3% of the state's residents are 65 years or older. That compares with 16.8% nationally and — among peer Western states, 15% for Colorado, 16% for Washington, yet surprisingly 18% for Oregon (home of Portland, "where young people go to retire").

Either way you slice the baloney, Arizona is a state with a sizable cohort of older people. It's not surprising. Since 1960, when Del Webb built his pioneering Sun City development west of the Santa Fe Railway tracks and Grand Avenue northwest of Phoenix, Arizona has marketed itself to retirees.

One of our long-lost commenters — I believe it was Concern Troll — made the point that a huge piece of the state economy is dependent on retirees, including their Social Security and pension checks, and the vast system of hospitals, medical workers, and caregivers who serve them.

According to the Social Security Administration, more than $69 million was dispersed in Arizona in 2021, the latest data available. The average monthly check is modest: 574.76. And not all this goes to seniors. Still...

Copper Square

The Morenci mine in eastern Arizona, with one of the largest copper reserves in the world. It's owned by Freeport-McMoRan, formerly Phelps Dodge (Tom Blackwell photo).

One of the misbegotten efforts to revive downtown Phoenix in the early 2000s was to rename it. "Copper Square" was the monicker chosen on the, er, thinking that people in the metropolitan area didn't even know where the city's downtown was. Phoenix had nothing to do with copper — aside from the low dome of the Territorial Capitol and an occasional freight car going through with equipment to the mines — and thankfully the name went away.

But the story was far different for Arizona. Copper was one of the "Five Cs," along with cotton, citrus, cattle, and climate and for decades the most profitable. Arizona has by far the largest concentration of copper deposits in the nation — including Butte, Montana — and second only to southern Peru and northern Chile. Copper mining also produces such byproducts as gold, silver, and molybdenum.

Arizona is the only state with an elected Mining Inspector. His office estimates more than 100,000 abandoned mines dot the state. About 10 major copper mines remain today, with controversy over efforts to start the Resolution Mine near Superior.

No wonder the Grand Canyon State is also the Copper State.

Let's take a tour through the years (click for a larger image):

Jerome, a classic mining town, on Cleopatra Hill in the 1930s (Library of Congress). 

 

The United Verde Mine in Jerome produced 2 billion pounds of copper, silver, and gold from the 1880s to 1953 (Library of Congress).

An ore train passes through Jerome's Hopewell Tunnel circa 1920s (Library of Congress).

'Rim to River'

I don't do book reviews on this blog, but I'm making an exception for Tom Zoellner's superb Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona.

It deserves space on your Arizona history shelf along with Thomas Sheridan's Arizona: A History, Philip VanderMeer's Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix, William Collins' The Emerging Metropolis: Phoenix: 1944-1973, Marshall Trimble and Jack August's works, and, I hope, my Brief History of Phoenix.

The book has urgency because Arizona matters more than ever. It holds 7.2 million people, compared with the mere 1 million when I was born. It's the third most populous state in the West behind California and Washington, and Phoenix is the fifth most populous city in the nation. Facing a historic drought, state leaders are unwilling to stop the second-biggest driver of the problem: Sprawl. The biggest, climate change, is sure to bring rough justice to the Grand Canyon State. The politics are as extreme as the weather. 

Magical thinking and Bolles

Two topics this week:

• Above is a water desalination plant at Eilat, Israel, which turns Red Sea salt water into fresh water. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates make up the biggest users of desalination, with 21,000 plants worldwide, even in Australia.

Now an Israeli company, IDE Technologies, proposes to bring such an operation to Arizona, from the Sea of Cortez at Rocky Point through the Mexican state of Sonora.

At a cost of $5 billion, it would deliver 1 million acre feet annually to Arizona. Or so is the plan. By comparison, the Central Arizona Project carries 1.4 million acre feet from the Colorado River. The CAP cost approximately $4 billion, with only $1.5 billion repaid to the federal government. 

In 2016, Scientific American proclaimed "Israel proves the desalination era is here," as one of the driest countries on earth makes more fresh water than it needs using this technology. 

Parades in old Phoenix

From frontier days onward, who doesn't love a parade? Phoenicians certainly did. (Click on the image to enlarge).

Date unknown, a military parade on Washington. That looks like the Ford Hotel on the left.

 

It's 1899 and the Chinese Division parades through Phoenix in the Winter Carnival. The name is obscure, so I welcome information in the comments.

The Indian and Cowboy Carnival Parade goes down Washington Street in 1903 (National  Archives).

February thoughts

February was always my favorite month in Phoenix. I can't say exactly why. Winter was passing and the hot days hadn't yet arrived. Although the weather has changed because of ripping out citrus groves, shade trees, and grass ("turf") and replacing it with gravel and pavement, somehow this February remains magical. Above is a rainstorm over Park Central.

I'm here for the rest of the month, although between keeping up my day job as a columnist for the Seattle Times and seeing friends, I've been less attentive to the blog. Thanks for keeping things going on the previous open thread. Some thoughts:

• The Super Bowl came and went. Although it was played in the taxpayer-funded, developer subsidizing stadium in a former cotton field in west Glendale, almost all the festivities centered on downtown Phoenix and the deck park. (Regular readers know I refuse to call it Hance Park because of its namesake's destruction of the center city when she was mayor; name the mountain preserve for her, which she richly deserves).

Anyway, this was a triumph for central Phoenix, which has reasserted itself as the center of this sprawling metroplex of lookalike super-suburbs. Light-rail trains (WBIYB) were packed with visitors. Restaurants and hotels did a great business. Scottsdale was irrelevant except for the corporate jets at the Airpark (more than 200 private jets departed local airports after the big game). An Urber from Scottsdale to the cotton field was said to cost $500 on game day.

SOTU open thread

Carl Muecke illustration

Aviation in old Phoenix

A year before statehood, a balloon went aloft to take this photo centered on Second Street and Adams (click for a larger image).

Fighter ace Lt. Frank Luke, a Phoenix native, gained fame in World War I as the "Arizona Balloon Buster" for his success against German observation balloons as well as enemy aircraft. Here he is with 13th confirmed kill. He was shot down and fatally wounded two months before the end of the war. German soldiers buried Luke in the Murvaux cemetery; Americans retrieved his body two months later. He received the Medal of Honor and Luke Air Force Base is named after him. 

Amelia Earhart visiting Phoenix at the South Central Airport in 1931 (USC Libraries).

An aerial view of the land Phoenix purchased for its new airport in 1935, called Sky Harbor (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).