Rogue Columnist

Book time open thread

* Please read below the jump for important new information.

With a hard September deadline for my next David Mapstone Mystery and the demands of my Seattle Times job, I must take a break from Rogue. I regret that I can't sustain the old 16-hour workdays any longer.

You may use this as an open thread to discuss the issues of the day in the comments section. If something major happens, I may try to write. Otherwise, I will also try to update the daily Front Page, as well as Arizona's Continuing Crisis.

As always, the site's archives offer plenty, especially the Phoenix 101 history section. See you in mid-September, God willing.

Being Number Five

I remember in 2006, when Phoenix passed Philadelphia in a Census estimate to become the nation's fifth most populous city. As a columnist for the Arizona Republic, I accompanied then-Mayor Phil Gordon and a delegation to Philly. The Philadelphians were very gracious. At one event, they talked about visiting Phoenix where City Hall "looked like a building where honest business was being done." The City Hall that the statue of William Penn stands atop had seen its share of big-city corruption. Not knowing Phoenix's abundant history of criminality, they sounded envious.

Even so, it was obvious wandering around Philly, with its great urban bones, energy-filled downtown, corporate headquarters, extensive rail transit and commuter-train system, and world-class cultural and educational institutions, that any comparison with Phoenix was apples to gravel. Still, even though I had begun to assemble powerful enemies writing about the city's reality and pushing verboten projects such as light rail (WBIYB), I felt proud. My hometown was America's fifth-largest city!

You can take the boy out of Phoenix but you can't take Phoenix out of the boy. For much of its existence Phoenix wanted above all to get big. And now it was.

The city fell back to sixth place in the 2010 Census, but with the latest numbers it's back to No. 5, probably to stay. Many dreams and ambitions have been realized over the past near-decade. Downtown is filling in, thanks to the ASU campus. It sports a handsome convention center and new hotels. Roosevelt Row is a destination, not a handful of Resistance members fighting to survive. T-Gen and the biomedical campus are there and growing, although not at the speed I had wished. We built light rail (you bastards) and it will be extended. All this in the face of thuggish opposition by the right and the city's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The Confederacy and us

It would be most misguided to try to erase Confederate monuments and memory from Arizona, as some black leaders are suggesting. We need more monuments to African-Americans in Arizona, more African-American history taught about Arizona and the nation, more about all the rich strands of e pluribus unum — not today's neo-Soviet attempt to rewrite and eradicate the actual past.

As it happens, the Civil War and the Confederacy are critical elements of Arizona history. The CSA created the first Arizona Territory, claiming the lower half of New Mexico Territory which at the time contained both future states. The Stars and Bars flew above Tucson. An Arizona delegate sat in the Confederate Congress throughout its existence. When Union forces pushed most Confederate units out of Arizona, Abraham Lincoln took Jefferson Davis' clue and created a separate Arizona Territory.

Before secession, Davis played an important role in Arizona. As U.S. Secretary of War, he was instrumental in the Gadsden Purchase, acquiring land south of the Gila River, including Tucson, from Mexico. Davis supported a southern route for the transcontinental railroad that eventually became the Southern Pacific. The SP was essential to the development of the territory and state, connecting it to the nation. It is hardly surprising that Davis was memorialized with a stretch of highway. Cases can be made for all six Confederate monuments in the state. Phoenix, especially, was as much a Southern as a Western city for much of its existence. This accounts for a pleasant friendliness that's sometimes found, like the citrus blossoms. But with that also came segregation for the first half of the 20th century. Such is history.

Jack Swilling, the most important of Phoenix's founders because he understood the true significance and potential of the prehistoric Hohokam canals, was a Confederate officer. He deserted after Richmond demanded that he confiscate supplies from his neighbors. He helped the Union as an Indian fighter and discovered gold, which was sent to Lincoln to show the importance of Arizona. In Phoenix after the war, he became fast friends with John Y.T. Smith, a former Union officer who was growing hay near the Salt River to supply the Army at Fort McDowell. Such was the reconciliation, replayed countless times across the land, that made a new united nation possible. Like it or not.

Big Town

Big Town was a brand of melons and vegetables shipped by MBM Farms and Zeitman Produce from the Salt River Valley in its days as American Eden. One of scores of colorful labels on wooden crates, it had a stylized version of the Phoenix skyline in the background.

But I can't help wondering if it also caught a bit of the moment in 1950, when Phoenix entered the ranks of America's 100 largest cities. It was No. 99, with 106,818 people in 17 square miles. Phoenix landed 62 people ahead of No. 100 Allentown, Pa. But it was behind Scranton, Wichita, Tulsa, Dayton — not to mention its Southwest rival El Paso, No. 76.

In 1950, the nation's fifth most populous city was Detroit. According to new Census data, Phoenix has once again surpassed Philadelphia to claim the No. 5 spot it had by estimates in 2006 but lost in the 2010 count. I'll have more to write about this later.

For now, I want to linger on that moment when the Census Bureau made it official: Phoenix had crossed 100,000. The big town was definitely a city now, if not a big one (Even now, Phoenix has many characteristics of a small town, especially in power and power relationships).

As you can tell from the geographic size of the city, this Phoenix was convenient and walkable, with a true urban fabric. At 6,714 people per square mile, it was much more dense than today's 2,798. Surrounding it were citrus groves, farms, and small towns mostly dependent on agriculture (Tempe 7,684, Mesa, 16,790, Glendale 8,179, Gilbert 1,114, Scottsdale 2,032, and Buckeye 1,932). Arizona's total population was 756,000. Phoenix boasted an abundant shade canopy from the narrow streets to the enchanting canal banks. Downtown was the busiest central business district between El Paso and Los Angeles. As many as 10 passenger trains served Union Station in the golden age of streamliners.