Rogue Columnist

USS Arizona

Arizona had barely been in the union for two years when the keel was laid on battleship 39 (BB-39) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, named after the 48th state. In attendance was Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Battleships were the premier capital ships of any navy and had been revolutionized by the 1906 launch of the Royal Navy's HMS Dreadnought, the first all-big-gun ship. It lost the smaller-caliber weapons of its predecessors in favor of batteries of deadly 12-inch guns that could hurl shells for miles. The ship took its name from Queen Elizabeth I's saying, "I will trust in God and dread nought." This gave the name to all classes of future battleships.

Arizona, according to the New York Times, would be "the world's biggest and most powerful, both offensively and defensively, superdreadnought ever constructed." It was armed with three batteries of three 14-inch big guns each, with a range of 12 miles. The armor belt at its widest (made by Krupp) measured 13.5 inches; the deck was also armored. She was 608 feet long and displaced nearly 30,000 tons, becoming at the time the largest ship in the fleet (today’s new Gerald R. Ford carrier is 100,000 tons and more than 1,000 feet long).

Arizona was launched in 15 months with 75,000 people in attendance, including the state's governor, George W.P. Hunt. Esther Ross of Prescott christened her with two bottles, one of sparking wine and another of water from Theodore Roosevelt Lake (the state had recently passed prohibition).

Phoenix's architectural icons

In an earlier column, I wrote about Phoenix's influential architects from Frank Lloyd Wright to Will Bruder (who decamped for Portland). Here is a gallery of the most iconic and beautiful structures from the past and present, from the McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives, Library of Congress, and Brad Hall. Click on a photo for a larger image.

The Fleming Building at First Avenue and Washington in 1938. It was completed in 1883, the most impressive building in the young town. Among its amenities: A basement bowling alley and two rooms as the first public library. It was demolished in the 1980s for the boxy Wells Fargo Building.

The State Capitol at 17th Street and Washington, completed in 1901 as the territorial capitol. The Legislature never funded a replacement statehouse, although architecturally compatible additions were made. Modernistic structures for the House and Senate were added in the 1960s, and the scene was marred by the 1974 Executive Tower behind it. The Capitol is now a museum with its copper dome.

The Center Street Bridge, first span across the Salt River connecting farmers with the city and its railroads. Completed in 1911, it was claimed to be the longest reinforced concrete bridge in the world.

The Hotel Adams, built to replace an 1896 wooden structure that burned in 1910. It was demolished in the mid-1970s for today's Renaissance Hotel (first named the new Hotel Adams).

Some Phoenix then and now

If you're a Phoenician of a certain age, you've seen tremendous change to the cityscape. Here are a few thanks to the McCulloch Bros. Collection in the ASU Archives and Brad Hall's collection. Click on the photo for a larger image.

McDowell and Central:

1940.

1959 with the Phoenix Civic Center.

2020 with infill, light rail, the Phoenix Art Museum, and Midtown skyscrapers.

Writing off the news

I know some friends of the blog are unenthusiastic when I post galleries of Phoenix history. But history is one of Rogue Columnist's missions. And the traffic goes through the roof. People love the photos. But back to the serious stuff.

The New York Times did an in-depth look at the astonishing lack of care in advance of the deadly crowd trampling at the rapper's concert on Friday. It says in part:

Concert organizers and Houston city officials knew that the crowd at a music festival planned by Travis Scott, a favorite local rapper turned megastar, could be difficult to control. That’s what happened two years earlier, the last time Mr. Scott held his Astroworld Festival.

For months, they braced themselves, adding dozens more officers from the Houston Police Department and more private security hired by Live Nation, the concert organizer.

The Houston police chief, who knows Mr. Scott personally and felt the musician had been trying to do good for his hometown, said that he visited Mr. Scott in his trailer before his show on Friday and conveyed concerns about the energy in the crowd, according to a person with knowledge of the chief’s account.

But I urge you to read the whole thing here. I'll wait.

Valley towns

Even into the 1960s, the towns of the Salt River Valley were distinctive and separated from each other as well as from Phoenix. Let's take a photo tour (click for a larger image):

Glendale:

Main Street seen in the 1930s when the town's population was about 3,700.

The sugar beet factory circa 1940 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

First Avenue (58th Drive) looking north (Brad Hall collection).

Grant Woods, an appreciation

The spontaneous outpouring of grief on news of Grant Woods' death at 67, too too young, is a measure of the man. We'll never see the same for Doug Ducey or Kyrsten Sinema or almost any Arizona pol you can name. Something similar might happen for Janet Napolitano or Terry Goddard, but this is an elite club.

Woods and I became friends when I returned to Phoenix in 2000 as a columnist for the Arizona Republic. A graduate of Mesa's Westwood High, we had long-running jokes because I had graduated from rival Coronado High in Scottsdale. He was a valuable off-the-record source and I knew the score. He'd already been ridden out of the Republican Party as a RINO. The state party had been radicalized since he was Attorney General from 1990 to 1999.

He was an outlier from the start, forcing the eccentric Bob Corbin from the primary and emphasizing civil rights, including a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Gov. Evan Mecham had repealed his predecessor, Bruce Babbitt's holiday proclamation in 1987. The holiday didn't become state law until 1992.

Lost opportunities

Carl Muecke illustration.

So this is where are: People are refusing to take vaccinations. Religious exemptions? Health worries? The vaccinations don't work? None of those hold water. The common denominator is these are Trump Republicans (and Trump controls the GOP). His administration's Operation Warp Speed is responsible for the tempo and effectiveness of the vaccinations. He could declare a genuine accomplishment. But the goal is destruction of the Biden presidency, retaking the White House in 2024 and Republicans retaking the Congress next year. All of these appear likely.

One reason is the vote suppression and state gerrymandering thanks to Republican-controlled statehouses. Another is Biden's agenda stuck in Congress, in no small measure because of Sens. Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin, only nominally Democratic. Finally is the far left of the Democratic Party with an agenda of defunding the police, allowing a rise in crime, encouraging "the homeless crisis," and pulling down statues. Wokeness might play in blue islands such as Seattle, but it's poison for winning national elections.

If the Republicans retake Congress, say goodbye to infrastructure, addressing climate change, and rebuilding the social safety net. The GOP operates in lockstep discipline. The Democrats are unable to slowly win legislative victories — something the New Deal accomplished even with commanding Democratic majorities in the Congress of the 1930s.

Neon Phoenix

Nothing said magic and excitement in an American city more than neon during the first half of the 20th century. The Great White Way in New York City. Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Ocean Drive in Miami Beach. Chicago's Magnificent Mile. In New Orleans, Bourbon Street.

Neon was found widely — from Route 66 to old Las Vegas. Today, with a few lucky exceptions, much of it has been replaced by bland, but easier to maintain signage or consigned to museums out of context. But it had particular beauty and sexiness in a city. This was true even of a small city such as Phoenix.

The challenge for the visual historian is finding color images, even though Kodak introduced Kodachrome film in 1935. Finding them, at least for Phoenix. Here's what I've got (click on the photo for a larger image):

Neon lights up Donofrio's Cactus Candy store on Central, 1915 (McCulloch Bros./ASU Archives).

A ribbon on neon on Central Avenue in the 1940s. Even the billboard above the coffee shop for Schlitz beer features neon.