Phoenix punches below its weight on almost category compared with its peers. But it has one amenity that places it above nearly every other big city: the mountain preserves and parks. They are a majestic and defining accomplishment.
The city has about 37,000 acres, or 58 square miles, of mountain preserves and parks. These range from South Mountain Park and Papago Park to the Phoenix Mountains Preserve and the Sonoran Preserve in far north Phoenix.
This also inspired suburbs, especially Scottsdale with its McDowell Sonoran Preserve. As I write, this is the subject of a big fight over Proposition 420, which would allow a tourist center — and potentially other development — to be built in this pristine land. Scottsdale preservationists are wise to be on guard. Phoenix's experience shows that saving the mountains didn't come easy — and is always at risk.
Preservation began with two federal initiatives. First was the Papago Saguaro National Monument, established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 at the urging of Rep. Carl Hayden (Hayden actually wanted a National Park). Second came the Coolidge administration's sale of the 13,000 acres of the future South Mountain Park to the city in 1925, again with the urging of Hayden, by then a Senator. Phoenix paid $17,000 ($248,000 in today's money) for the ranges of what were then known as the Salt River Mountains and surrounding desert.
Both were far from the city limits. Local neglect and federal austerity caused Washington to withdraw the National Monument designation, and the land was almost entirely lost before Phoenix and Tempe cobbled together today's Papago Park. Yet it's about half of what it was as the National Monument.
South Mountain Park fared better. When FDR implemented the New Deal, two Civilian Conservation Corps camps were established there, and the otherwise unemployed CCC workers built 40 miles of trails, along with ramadas, fire pits, water faucets, and other improvements. This work continued until 1940. The park was gradually expanded to 16,000 acres — for decades presiding over the enchanting Japanese flower gardens — and includes the stunning Dobbins Overlook (site of a critical scene in my novel The Bomb Shelter). Above it are the television towers that blink red in the desert night.
More progress was difficult. Camelback Mountain and the North Phoenix Mountains were almost entirely privately owned, with hundreds of individual properties and even mining claims. This wasn't a problem when the city was compact and getting water up a mountain was prohibitively expensive. The image at the top shows an untouched Camelback circa 1950.
But residential development became a threat as the 1950s continued. Phoenix came very close to losing its signature natural feature, Camelback Mountain. Houses began marching up the slopes, largely unimpeded by lax county planning. Even once it was annexed by the city, property rights left municipal officials scrambling for ways to stop the desecration. (One plan wanted to run a tram up the mountain to a restaurant).
Louise Woolsey and the Garden Club tried to stop building by circulating petitions. This pressed the Legislature to pass a bill encouraging land swaps. Neither effort was successful. As a schoolchild, I was one of thousands who collected coins in the 1960s to save Camelback. This was part of a more robust move spearheaded by Barry Goldwater, who made it a personal project after losing the 1964 presidential election. But the reality is more complex.
While Goldwater solicited donations and leaned on property owners to sell their land cheaply or donate it, the effort was not enough. Goldwater set aside his conservatism in favor of conservation, asking the federal government for funding to save the landmark. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall had fun at Barry's expense when he delivered the check. Even this success was bittersweet. Only the land above 1,800 feet was saved. The lower 900 feet were lost to increasing clutter, housing the swells with spectacular views.
Today's Phoenix Mountains Preserve, which covers the necklace that provided the northern boundaries of the old city, was an even more complex undertaking. It entailed several prominences: Shaw Butte, North Mountain, Squaw Peak (now Piestewa Peak), Lookout Mountain, Shadow Mountain, as well as parts of Dreamy Draw. Many were geographically separated, private holdings were high, and mining claims were still valid.
Dorothy "Dottie" Gilbert began a grassroots preservation movement in 1960. Maricopa County had conveyed to the city two modest preserves, 270 acres at North Mountain and 546 acres at Squaw Peak (even this was fractured; part of the Squaw Peak park was state land leased to the county, part leased as grazing rights to a Mrs. Howard Smith). Gilbert lobbied mayors, city council members and officials, legislators, federal and civic leaders. She gained important help early from the Arizona State Horsemen's Association and other rider groups. The Old West still lingered. She added support from the Arizona Republic's well-loved outdoors columnist Ben Avery and the recently widowed Margaret Hance, who joined the city parks board.
Gilbert's group established itself as the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council in 1970. By this time, it had considerable support, including from Chuck Christiansen, the city parks director, but developers were snatching prime view sites. The council asked planner Paul Van Cleve to study the mountains and he came back with a recommendation to set aside 9,700 acres. At a crowded meeting, the City Council appointed a commission to find the path.
In the coming decades, Phoenix would use bonds to finance land acquisitions. Even this required assent of the Legislature and a constitutional amendment (this was in the Barr/Gutierrez era; one wonders if it would even be possible now). Once on City Council and later as mayor, Hance did some of her most effective civic work in bringing the preserve together.
Still, with the northern preserve largely accomplished by the end of the century, questions sometimes arose about the safety of it and South Mountain Park from development incursions.
Phoenix remains "park poor" in the traditional sense compared with other big cities. Steele Indian School Park, shrunken by a shady land swap, could have been another Encanto — but it hasn't happened. The Trust for Public Land's ParkScore placed the city 56th nationally. The preserves are wilderness inside the city limits, a great gift but also a perilous one with so many tenderfoots setting out on dangerous hikes, requiring daily rescues that put first responders at risk.
One wonders if this achievement would even be possible today. The Phoenix that accomplished it was richer, with moneyed stewards and upper-middle-class women with time to invest in the cause. But we owe them all, as will generations to come.
Saving the mountains gallery — click on a photo for a larger image:
A pristine Camelback Mountain in the 1930s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
By the early 1970s, houses had marched up the side of the mountain. This view is looking northeast from 44th Street.
A view of Piestewa (then Squaw) Peak and part of what became the North Phoenix Mountain Preserve, likely in the 1940s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
Telegraph Pass through the South Mountains in the 1930s. In a brief flourishing of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, a cross was burned nearby.
View from the Dobbins Overlook at Phoenix South Mountain Park in the 1950s, over a largely agricultural valley.
The future Papago Park, soon after Congress rescinded its status as the Papago–Saguaro National Monument in 1930.
An Easter Sunday service in Echo Canyon, 1934 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
During World War II, a section of Papago Park was made into a POW camp.
Barnes Butte in Papago Park.
Hole in the Rock. One of Papago Park's famous rock formations.
The rugged area around North Mountain Park and the Preserve (Jeff Kucharski photo).
A trail up to Shaw Butte in north Phoenix (Renee Lightner photo).
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix and Arizona history archive.
This is how democracy is supposed to work where citizens get involved in an issue and do something tangibly good for their community. I was a teenager back then and I recall dropping spare change into a jar to save Camelback Mountain. It didn't strike me as dramatic or fraught in any way with a countervailing argument. It was something obviously good, so good people did something and it happened.
Here's another example where a single individual attempted to do something good. Eugene Pulliam objected to a horrible design for the 1-10 segment through central Phoenix. The Arizona Republic published his editorial and swayed opinion. The ballot proposition was voted down and Phoenix avoided a permanent eyesore.
But as time wore on, it became increasingly difficult to get significant public projects done. In the 1980s, there were two: Val Trans and Rio Salado. Both were voted down by two-to-one margins since they involved an increase in property taxes. The main opposition came from the exurban fringes of the metroplex like Sun City. The common good for these people was their own local community, not the larger one.
In 2000, the Sierra Club hoped to get reasonable growth controls placed on the epic sprawl that was devouring so much of Arizona. Prop 202 polled well in the beginning but.....well, you know the rest of the story.
I think a lot about why our democracy is failing. Public cynicism about community improvement and politics itself is rife. But the Phoenix Mountains Preserves movement showed how our public life can be enhanced by good people merely marshaling their civic spirit and cooperating with one another. Who knows? Maybe someday we can resuscitate this ethos in some post-Trumpian civic revival.
Posted by: soleri | October 19, 2018 at 05:55 PM
Dottie Gilbert left a large and useful archive to ASU. She had the neatest personal files I’d seen. We made a website with selected documents, news clips and photos many years ago and recast it as a PDF file here: https://repository.asu.edu/items/18357
Posted by: Rob Spindler | October 19, 2018 at 07:28 PM
This subject is definitely our tragedy of the commons. If u want to defeat anything such as the solar prop. Just tell people it is going to cost them money and viola-it’s done. Same with schools.
Posted by: Mike d. | October 20, 2018 at 02:46 PM
What do you want? People actually caring about their communities and making good choices for the long term good?
Uh, no. Absolutely not.
Just see this about vaccines and GRRC:
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2018/10/19/doug-ducey-vaccines-anti-autism/1698368002/
What a disgrace. And farce.
What fools.
Ducey once again shows how deep the derp runs in his administration. The idea of GRRC is to review rules for the necessity, not just for the feel good of not having regulations.
And not have a pilot program to tell people they are being stupid about vaccines, not mandating they get their children immunized, just watch a video so their choice is informed by more than some internet blather is beyond risible.
Stupidity of humans is beyond amazing.
After all, deregulation will somehow allow those diseases to be stopped by the magic powers of the free market!!!
Statistic don't lie, over 5% of the Kindergarten kids are not immunized, so hey, guess what someone will bring back from vacation- some measles for the class!
Beyond stupid, now we are getting to dangerous.
The cult of deregulation, as I foresaw, has now degenerated into utter stupidity.
Posted by: Concern Troll | October 21, 2018 at 09:50 AM
Excellent Front pages.
Posted by: Cal Lash | October 23, 2018 at 02:03 PM
Good column Jon. In the seventies I helped build and maintain the Charles Christianson trail that runs from 7th Avenue and Peoria to Tatum Blvd in Paradise Valley passing thru the Point Resort on 7th street. I have spent 68 years walking, running and bicycling the Trails at South Mountain. In 91 I designed a 50 mile course for a Phoenix Police Department event that police departments from the United States and other countries attended. Which brings me to my point. The mountain preserves are overused. Particularly South Mountain. A number of proposals, such as charging entrance fees have not solved this problem. Given the climate of the Midwest and Southern and Northern States, Phoenix will continue to grow. Infrastructure is critical for that growth and must include for current and new parks.
Coyote and I will help plant a few Sajuaros
On the positive side, a site about Phoenix the “Artificial” city.
https://www.inverse.com/article/5665-future-cities-phoenix-hot-dry-big
Posted by: Cal Lash | October 23, 2018 at 03:02 PM
Few commenters? Maybe blog readers dont leave their tightly wound refrigerated condo cocoons for desert tromps through the cholla and mesquite. Or jump a rattler on the Crystal Trail in Piestewa
Peak Park (formerly Squaw Peak).
The last 100 times i drove by Tovera Castle its been closed. It has some stupendous Sajuaros!
Posted by: Cal Lash | October 24, 2018 at 06:59 PM
Thank you for writing about this, Jon. I appreciate it.
Parks and preserves must be protected at all costs because once they are gone, they can never come back.
Posted by: Mark in Scottsdale | October 30, 2018 at 08:31 PM
Have spent much time in the preserves from Papago which was south of my boyhood home, picnics below Camelback with my parents, and hiking Squaw Peak and Camelback and South Mtn countless times. I even have an old pic of my parents targeting shooting around Squaw Peak about 1957 or so. Remarkably long hikes one can do within the city limits. Any politician that risks an oligarch’s encroachment is playing at political perdition. The preserve is wildly popular. Drove by Camelback and Squaw Peak and despite the restrictions both were full up.
Posted by: Jerry | April 09, 2020 at 09:53 PM
Thank you for this post. Looking forward to visiting the refurbished Dreamy Draw facilities when they are reopened.
Posted by: Tom | May 17, 2023 at 05:48 AM