Here are photographs of Phoenix from 100 years ago — I wrote about the decade in this column. Click on the image for a larger view. Enjoy!
The McCulloch Brothers Commercial Photographers posing in 1928 outside the Arizona Republican offices. ASU preserves the McCulloch archive as an essential resource for images from 1884 to 1947.
A Standard Oil roadmap of Phoenix and vicinity, circa 1925.
Kelly Printing at Third Avenue and Monroe Street, 1928.
First Street and Washington looking north with the Anderson Building on the left in 1928.
In 1926, Phoenix gained the northern main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad and most of its passenger trains at new Phoenix Union Station. This San Diego Chamber ad promotes a direct route between the two cities on the SP's challenging Carrizo Gorge route. That segment was originally begun by sugar magnate John Spreckels.
A skyline shot in 1929 of First Avenue and Washington, taken from the new City-County Building. The intersection shows the Fleming Building and the Monohon Building.
The Hotel Adams in its glory days.
The balcony of the Adams offered this view of Central Avenue and the South Mountains.
The vaulted ceiling of the Adams.
Business was so good — even with new competition from the San Carlos and Westward Ho — that the Adams saw construction of a 10-story addition to the east of the main building.
Looking south on Central in 1924 from the Hotel Del Rey at Monroe Street.
The Jefferson Hotel at Central and its namesake street. To the north is the Hotel Luhrs. Alfred Hitchcock panned across the building at the opening of "Psycho." It was a flophouse when I was a paramedic in the 1970s, but has been preserved as the Barrister Building condos.
The Carnegie Library was completed on west Washington Street in 1908. This scene is from the '20s (Brad Hall collection).
The decade saw completion of Phoenix's first resort, the Arizona Biltmore. This McCulloch Bros. shot shows the Arizona Canal, hotel grounds, and Camelback Mountain. The Biltmore opened nine months before the stock crash.
Swimming in the Town Ditch or Swilling's Ditch. It ran to Van Buren Street in the old townsite but was paved over by the 1930s.
A 1920s postcard shows the corner at Washington. The Heard and Security buildings are complete (the latter flies a flag). Phoenix leader Dwight Heard died in 1929.
Big News in 1921. The market was at First Avenue and Monroe.
Here's what it looked like when completed, next to the Hotel Reading and on the Kenilworth streetcar line. Downtown Phoenix was filled with small two- and three-story hotels — in the Deuce they lasted into the 1970s.
"Mosher's Folly" at Central and Taylor Street. The mansion, a dream of the tragic heiress Hattie Mosher, was never completed.
The O'Neill Building at First Avenue and Adams.
It's 1928 and the new Brophy College Prep's surroundings give a sense of the agricultural empire of Phoenix.
Miles of alfalfa fields framed by citrus groves and Camelback Mountain in 1923. The alluvial soil of the Salt River Valley made it one of the most fertile regions in the world.
One of the gems of church construction in the decade was First Presbyterian Church at Fourth Avenue and Monroe Street. In 2012, it was purchased by a fundamentalist congregation.
The AT&SF Railway ticket office on the northwest corner of Adams and Central. It's still there, under ugly stucco. The city's ubiquitous awnings were real "shade structures."
Adams and First Avenue looking northeast in the 1920s.
The Phoenix Title and Trust Building is one of the impressive legacies of the Roaring '20s. Others are the Luhrs Building, Luhrs Tower, Professional Building, Union Station and City-County Building.
Grand Avenue in Glendale. Just below the photo are the Santa Fe Railway tracks and the depot.
A 1921 article on the need for Cave Creek Dam. Flooding would reach all the way to the capitol. The dam was completed two years later.
Downstream of Mormon Flat Dam (top) and Horse Mesa Dam, which were completed on the Salt River in 1925 and 1927 respectively. Stewart Mountain Dam would be finished in 1930. They substantially added to the hydroelectric capacity of the Salt River Project. (Library of Congress)
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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 101 archive.
Great photos.
In the subject of WATER
See Harvard review article in Arizona front pages section.
Posted by: Cal Lash | February 25, 2020 at 09:20 AM
God,how I miss downtown. I was concentrating on making a living I didn’t enjoy or protect it enough. My loss.
Posted by: Mike Doughty | February 25, 2020 at 03:01 PM
Surprised at the amount of automobiles in some of these pictures, the second one in particular. Several large and expensive looking cars.
Posted by: 100 Octane | February 25, 2020 at 04:37 PM
Wonderful photos. We live in the area that used to be flooded by Cave Creek. The clay soil remains as a souvenir.
Posted by: El Kabong | February 26, 2020 at 07:27 AM
I'm always struck by seeing people in the ditch canals. It's an era I wish I could have been a part of. It seems so ... so Arizona, so desert.
Thank you for the great pictures. The Brophy picture - hard to imagine that is Central just south of Camelback.
Posted by: Roger | February 26, 2020 at 08:32 AM
You havent lived if you havent swam in a canal or shot down the flumes or been kidnapped and thrown in the Arizona canal by Glendale White Russians who tossed beer cans at you as you swam for the other side to scramble out.
Posted by: Cal Lash | February 26, 2020 at 10:18 AM
Roger, I don't go back to the 1920's like cal does, but if you've played in a canal as a child and you feel something clamp on to your foot and it's a catfish trying to eat you foot first, it's a memory that will stay with you for a lifetime. Over my lifetime, I've eaten many catfish in retaliation.
Posted by: AzRebel | February 26, 2020 at 12:17 PM
Roger
Helen Highwater doesn't know the difference between a fake Koi and a bottom feeding mudcat.
Posted by: Cal Lash | February 26, 2020 at 02:04 PM
WATER,
Check out Jon's Arizona pages legislature inaction on ground water use
Posted by: Cal Lash | February 26, 2020 at 10:32 PM
Regarding the photo of Brophy College (original name as it included both a high school and college curriculum at first) -- the school attempted to attract boarding students and a sleeping porch was provided. An early ad touted "The Sunshine School" which was "located three miles north of Phoenix, Arizona." (The northern city limit was at McDowell Road.)
Posted by: Joe Schallan | February 27, 2020 at 03:31 PM
US Census figures for the City of Phoenix, 1900-1930:
1900 -- 5,544
1910 -- 11,314
1920 -- 29,053
1930 -- 48,118
19,065 added during the 1920s.
Posted by: Joe Schallan | February 27, 2020 at 03:49 PM
This happens rarely, but I found a mistake in a Rogue column. The Westward Ho broadcast tower was erected in 1949, so that lovely residential street scene was photographed somewhere between then and a later date, most likely in the 1950s.
Posted by: soleri | February 27, 2020 at 04:19 PM
Thanks so much, Soleri. It's been removed. I work without a net, so always let me know errors.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | February 27, 2020 at 04:38 PM
The Feburary issue of Arizona Highways had some great photos including a man fishing in the canal in 1890.
Not AzRebel
Posted by: Cal Lash | February 27, 2020 at 04:38 PM
I don't go back to the twenties, but I damn sure swam in the ditches. I even swam across the Grand Canal to escape a Phoenix Cop (not Cal). The canal was the city limits at that time.
see the Crew on Sunday.
Posted by: Ramjet | February 27, 2020 at 05:47 PM
But did U shoot the flumes and miss the barb wire?
Posted by: Cal Lash | February 27, 2020 at 06:26 PM
Ramjet, in 55 myself and Eddie Valdez and i hid underwater in the irrigation ditch on 27th Avenue and Northern from MCSO.
We had jumped the fence into the Northern Drive Inn only to get chased back over the fence.
I never got to water ski behind a vehicle on the canals.
Posted by: Cal Lash | February 27, 2020 at 09:31 PM
Today A Rogue Fight Club meeting was held at Park Central. In attendance were six long time posting verbal fighters teamed up against the Sun City small ball bowling champ who despite a non white uniform defended himself well. Ramjet was
re-elected president since he was born in downtown Phoenix (Central and Columbus) in 1492. 2 hours passed quickly. No future meetings were scheduled in anticipation of the CIA requiring the next Mapstone mystery being subject to extensive redaction.
Hasta luego
Posted by: Cal Lash | March 01, 2020 at 05:05 PM
Park Central briefly returned to its roots as the bullshit was almost as deep as when it was the Central Avenue Dairy.
I will use LBJ statement about re-election/
Great time though.
Posted by: Ramjet | March 01, 2020 at 07:53 PM
In awe; i was simply in the presence of greatness. No, trump wasn't there, not even don the junior. Truly a fascinating cast of characters; ya sure you betcha.
The only way it could have been better is if the Rogue himself and former Phonecian soleri could have stopped by. My god, i might have had the "big one" right then and there.
Seriously gang, thanks for the invite. I know Sun City barely qualifies as part of the mystique you all share. But in time, i suspect i will be able to woo you to this amazing enclave where we all live into immortality.
I did note, i was the only one wearing shorts. Really? Long pants? My goodness i felt i was in church...but alas, it was only Starbucks. Such a shame i spent the first 15 minutes at the wrong one. Tough when i get outside these "white walls."
Posted by: Bill Pearson | March 01, 2020 at 09:18 PM
Bill, I look forward to visiting the Del Webb Museum in Sin City. I will try and get to that via Grand Avenue by April. Was good meeting you. Liked your reading habits and Union organizing background work.
Shorts, WTF? Real men (me and Ramjet) wear levis that you only wash once a year. Some years. Unless your name is Jon, then its suit and tie, and, Martinis stirred not shaken.
Posted by: Cal Lash | March 01, 2020 at 10:06 PM
I’m trying to find out more information about a travel court (tourist cabins)/ gas station that my grandfather had in the mid-1920’s that, at the time was on the outskirts of Phoenix but would be right downtown now. The only unique identifier, according to my late father who was about 5 or 6 at the time, was that they kept caged golden eagles as a tourist attraction. My grandfather’s family made the move from Wisconsin to Phoenix because my grandmother had tuberculosis and going to the desert was the “cure”. Little did they know that it was the worst thing to do for tuberculosis, but I digress. I know it’s a long shot because my dad would be 99 this year but maybe someone might know travel court history. In my recent trip from Wisconsin to Tucson via Rt. 66 I stayed in vintage motels that were built on that model. Thanks.
Posted by: Kim Donovan | March 01, 2020 at 10:23 PM
We natives prefer jeans to shorts as it is still officially winter.
Posted by: Jerry McKenzie | March 02, 2020 at 11:01 PM
I can only smile Jerry, because as i was leaving the house i looked at a pair of jeans and thought: i should probably wear long pants given the dynamic of the group i was invited to be with. For real.
It was pointed out, had JT been there, coat and tie would have been more appropriate. Any truth to that rumor Rogue?
Posted by: Bill Pearson | March 03, 2020 at 10:13 AM
Another treasure from you, Jon!
Posted by: Allan Starr | July 20, 2023 at 03:43 PM