Rogue Columnist

A Christmas letter

Illustrations by Carl Muecke

Here we are, hurtling toward a Democratic shellacking in 2022. And based on the voter suppression laws being passed by Republican-controlled legislatures around the country, they may never be in power again. For example, the Arizona Legislature has stripped the Secretary of State of the ability to certify elections. Now the Legislature itself will decide electors — here comes Trump in 2024.

Electoral success depends on quick results by the Democrats, not only on infrastructure (which Trump never delivered) but also rebuilding the social-safety net and addressing climate change. Instead, the monstrous Sen. Joe Manchin has torpedoed much of President Biden's agenda. West Virginia is among the poorest states in the nation. It one of the biggest beneficiaries of Biden's Build Back Better programs, but no. Manchin revels in being essentially shadow president. The razor-thin Senate Democratic majority that leaves so much power in the hands of Manchin and Arizona's Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Both should be Republicans for the damage they did. They are anything but centrists. But let's not forget the Democrat's self-inflicted wounds.

These are nicely encapsulated on Andrew Sullivan's Substack column. (It's well worth a subscription). Here's some of the salient points Sullivan makes:

More early Phoenix 3

Phoenix grew from 270 people in 1870 to 11,314 in 1910. Here's a gallery of our town before statehood. Most are from the Library of Congress or Brad Hall. Click on a photo for a larger image:

Phoenix in the 1870s. Lots of shade trees and not a palo verde in sight.

Twelve mule-team freight haulers at Montezuma Street (First Street) and Jefferson in 1880, before the railroads arrived. Look at all the shade trees.

Another view of how goods were delivered. This is at Maricopa Street (Second Street) and Jefferson.

The territorial capitol under construction in 1898.

Adams Street east of Center, looking southeast circa 1890. It's near the future site of Switzers and Hanny's.

Looking northeast up Melinda's Alley near Mojave Street (First Avenue) and Monroe in the 1890s.

The Interstate 11 boondoggle

I don't know why they call the agency the Arizona Department of Transportation. It's the highway department, it's historic name. All it does is plan, build, expand, and maintain highways. No trains – Phoenix is the largest city in North America without intercity passenger rail. No commuter rail or light rail or transit. ADOT is all about highways. Behold its new creation.

Interstate 11 is planned to eventually run from Nogales to Reno, cutting the above swath through hundreds of miles of virgin desert as it winds to the west of Phoenix. I-11 could cost as much as $10 billion to build from Phoenix to Las Vegas alone. But this doesn’t include externalities: Air pollution, emissions that worsen climate change, loss of desert habitat, bladed desert plants, including increasingly vulnerable saguaros.

Kristen Mosbrucker in New Times reported on how the route will benefit Mike Ingram's holdings in Maricopa, as well as Douglas Ranch, acquired for $600 million by the Howard Hughes Corp. with Ingram and Jerry Colangelo as partners. Without freeways, this is worthless empty desert north and west of the White Tanks. With I-11, a goldmine — even though gold mines of the West play out quickly.

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:

The Gillette Building at 58th Drive and First Avenue looking toward the Santa Fe Railway tracks and Grand Avenue in 1910 (Brad Hall collection).

The same location in the 1920s (Brad Hall collection).

Main Street seen in the 1930s when the town's population was about 3,700 (Brad Hall collection).

Looking north on 58th Drive, including Safeway, the Plaza Theater, and city hall in 1942 (Brad Hall collection).

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.

The extremists

Gage Skidmore photo

Will Rogers quipped, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." This was during the 1930s, when FDR's New Deal was made possible by an uneasy coalition of northern and midwestern big-city party bosses, unions, farmers, and Southern segregationists. Somehow it worked and the nation was saved.

Now, at another moment of national peril, the Democrats are not merely disorganized but deeply divided and nobody's laughing. Their time to make constructive moves on historic public investments in infrastructure, improve living standards, and return to progressive taxation is running down. If they fail and we get a Republican-controlled Congress next year and Donald Trump’s second term in 2024, we'll know who to blame.

In the past I've been willing to cut Sen. Kyrsten Sinema a break, tacking right sometimes to be viable in a red-purple state. It's in the "pinto" tradition of Arizona Democrats such as Carl Hayden. But in the Biden years, she's hardened into an extremist, deliberately blocking the president’s agenda when Democrats have momentary control of both houses of Congress. Like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, she's no "centrist." She's a destructive force who might as well be a Republican. And, like Manchin, she stands to profit from industries that oppose the Biden budget.

And they aren't the only ones.

The 2000s

I'll wrap up the series of decade history columns (twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and 'teens) with a look at Phoenix from 2000 to 2009.  This one is different because I was an active participant in many of the events, having returned home as a columnist for the Arizona Republic. Caveat lector.

Phoenix and Arizona roared into the new century on a historic wave of growth in the 1990s. The city's population topped a million for the first time, clocking in at more than 1.3 million in the 2000 Census and surpassing San Diego as the nation's sixth most-populous city.

All seemed to confirm the near constant, mysterious levitation of growth, despite the downturn in 1990 foreshadowed by the 1988 Barron's "Phoenix descending" report. The Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) had established high-end clusters to cultivate. But having worked in San Diego, Dayton, Denver, Cincinnati, and Charlotte, I was concerned and started asking questions.

For one thing, the big local election issue was Prop. 202, an initiative that would have required (very loose) growth boundaries. Early polling showed it leading among respondents. And the real-estate interests went crazy, labeling it "the Sierra Club initiative, ripping down supportive signs, and economist/developer Elliott Pollack darkly warning that if it passed a devastating recession would result.

The warpath ahead

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

One of the interesting parts of Michael Crow's empire is the Center on the Future of War, dedicated to exploring "the social, political, economic, and cultural implications of the changing character of war and conflict." With a faculty led by Peter Bergen, a CNN analyst and leading scholar on terrorism, and Daniel Rothenberg, former Managing Director of International Projects at the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University, we're a long way from little Tempe Normal. The UA — or UArizona as they would have it — has nothing to compare.

Crow has a genius for going where the action is, particularly where money can be found in a state that shamefully underfunds higher education. And even with the end of the "Forever War" with President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan (that and Iraq were not our longest conflict; that prize goes to the Indian wars of the 19th century), America's seeming hunger for war isn't going away.

The Pentagon, think tanks, and cottage industry of military journalism have us aiming at China, with runners up Russia and Iran. As for the first two, war with nuclear-armed adversaries: What could go wrong? Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates direct costs from the “war on terror” to be 929,000 deaths and a federal price tag of $8 trillion.

Downtown through the years

Follow this visual history of downtown Phoenix through the decades. I use the historic boundaries of downtown: Fillmore Street to the north; the railroad tracks to the south; Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street to west and east respectively. Click on a photo to see a larger image.

The early 1900s:

Looking east on Washington Street from the Ford Hotel. Redewill's music store was owned by the family that built the 1914 bungalow where we lived in Willo in the 2000s. We placed an Interior Department National Register of Historic Places plaque on it, the A.C. Redewill House.

The twenties:

Central Avenue heading south from Monroe Street, with the Hotel Adams the multi-story building on the left, and Central Methodist Church (ME, South), Heard Building, and Luhrs Building on the right.

Second Avenue and Washington in 1929. The awnings are on the red-brick Fleming Building. From left to right in the distance are the new Hotel Westward Ho, the Professional Building, and the Hotel Adams annex (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Read more about this decade here.

How to read the news

Penelope Abernathy at the University of North Carolina has been tracking the expansion of "news deserts" in the United States — counties with no local newspapers at all, and those with only one. Even the survivors are hanging on.

U.S. newspapers lost 48 percent of their journalists between 2008 and 2018, and the losses are now accelerated by the pandemic. More than 1,800 newspapers have closed since 2004. Arizona newspaper circulation dropped by 37% between 2004 and 2019. The Arizona Republic's circulation fell from nearly half a million at the turn of the century — 10th largest daily in the country — to 82,861 at the start of 2021.

Much of this this is because of the collapse of the old business model because of Craig's List and self-inflicted wounds. The trends reach further back. Circulation of all dailies peaked at more than 63 million in 1989. It was down to 46 million by 2009, then 26 million by 2020.

Many newspapers are now being sucked dry by hedge-fund owners. As a result, the most experienced journalists are being pushed out. What's left are cub reporters while institutional knowledge is lost. The alternative is television news/entertainment, which is typically a shooting, an auto collision, and Heather-with-the-weather. (An honorable exception is Brahm Resnik at 12 News, a newspaper-trained newsman).

Meanwhile, a gray area of news also exists. In Phoenix, this includes Cronkite News out of ASU, KJZZ, and AZ Big Media. Flagstaff and Tucson are served by Arizona Public Media. Each of these have plusses and minuses.

This situation has profound implications for a self-governing society. Only real journalism exposes corruption, shines a light on self-serving politicians, explains complicated issues, and knits together civil society. Let's look at how to read the news — I've been a reporter, editor, and columnist for nearly four decades.

Growing up, in photos

I wrote a column in 2010 about growing up in central Phoenix in the 1960s. Along with the old city column, they sum up an experience that few had, fewer still remember. Now I have enough photos to show a bit what my lost world looked like. 

Me around the age of five, taken at the Ramada Inn on east Van Buren.

The house on west Cypress in today's Willo Historic District, looking much as it did when I grew up with my mother and grandmother. It's also David Mapstone's house in the Mapstone Mysteries (Willo Historic District photo).

Central and Palm Lane looking south. I was baptized and confirmed in Central Methodist Church in the foreground, and spent hours in the central library, middle left (Brad Hall collection).

The Census

So Phoenix is officially the nation's fifth most populous city, surpassing Philadelphia in the 2020 Census. Much information and analysis awaits unpacking.

Phoenix grew 11.2% over the decade, the biggest increase of the 10 largest cities. Yet this was the second-slowest percentage growth rate in the city's history; only the 9.4% from 2000 to 2010, hobbled by the housing bust, was slower. By contrast, the city grew by more than 34% in the 1990s.

The contest with the City of Brotherly Love was close. Phoenix clocked in with 1,608,139 only 4,342 more than Philly. The latter also continued to reverse its population loss, growing at 5.1 percent. Philadelphia benefited from the "back to the city" movement, where talented millennials and empty nest boomers chose vibrant, high-quality cities and corporate headquarters followed.

Maps of Phoenix

When I was a child, I loved to get the maps from my Great Aunt's monthly National Geographic magazines. And the Arizona Room at the Phoenix Public Library had more maps, but of the state and city. 

Now Phoenix is the nation's fifth most populous city and runs nearly into Yavapai County. Here's a snapshot of how it got there (click on the map for a larger image).  

1867: No Phoenix yet, and no railroads. The Overland Mail Route follows rugged country to the south past Maricopa Wells.

1881: The original. township. with two public squares. The north-south streets are named, not numbered.

1892: The Salt River Valley with platted land and canals (Mostly Hohokam).

1884: Phoenix in the center of a multi-county map. The Gila and Salt River Base Line is prominent. It governed the surveys of Arizona Territory and became Baseline Road.

Phoenix's Art Deco gems

Art Deco architecture flowered in America in the 1920s and 1930s, epitomized by New York's Chrysler Building and the Los Angeles City Hall. Phoenix, population 29,053, was too small to gain as much as Deco fans like me would have wished. But it managed to preserve most of its masterpieces of the era.

Here they are (click on the photo for a larger image):

The Luhrs Tower:

When most people think of Phoenix Deco they think of this 14-story masterpiece, the brain child of George Luhrs Jr. and connected to the Luhrs Building by an arcade. Located at First Avenue and Jefferson Street, it was designed by Trost & Trost of El Paso.

Ground zero II

Carl Muecke illustration

In Phoenix this past weekend, Trump said, "If I lost the election, I could handle it pretty easily. But when they steal it from you and rig it, that’s not easy, and we have to fight!"

The location and big-lie language are no random coincidence. For the past several months the Republican-controlled state Senate has been conducting an "audit" of Maricopa County ballots. The goal is to show the presidential election was stolen here from Trump (When Fox "News" called Arizona for Biden, something approved by Rupert Murdoch himself, Trump exploded).

The "stolen election" and the January 6th insurrection to prevent the results from being certified by Congress, is a national Republican narrative. But, as with climate change, Arizona is ground zero.

The deeper consequence of the "audit" is to kneecap Arizona from turning purple or blue. It sets a blueprint by which any future election that goes Democratic can be challenged and even reversed. No wonder Republicans from other states have been watching closely and trying to install their own "audits."

It's not the only way Republicans are working to ensure they maintain power, whatever the changing demographics and politics of the nation.

Eden in photographs

One of the most popular columns on this site is American Eden. Before red-tile-roof subdivisions built at an acre an hour. Before pavement, gravel, and longer, hotter summers, the Salt River Valley was an agricultural empire. Anything would grow here — just add water — and we shipped it across the country. Also, compared with today's 10,000-mile supply chain, we could feed ourselves.

Here's a sampling of images. Click on one for a larger view. Most are from the McCulloch Bros. Collection at the ASU Archives.

Fruit stands were ubiquitous into the 1970s. This stood at 41st Street and Baseline Road.

The Sunny Hills Fruit Stand at 32nd Street and Baseline in the 1960s.

Another one at 51st Street and McDowell in the 1960s. Phoenicians could ship fresh oranges and grapefruits to family and friends (Brad Hall collection).

Alfalfa fields in 1923.

Ground zero

Have you noticed how many stories are generated out of Phoenix and Arizona by big national news organizations, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times? This is a big change from the days when we operated in relative obscurity. It is also no coincidence.

For one thing, the state is so different from the one I grew up in: 1.3 million population in 1960 vs. 7.2 million in 2020. Arizona was the 35th most populous state in the union in 1960. Now No. 14 — the third largest in the West — and Phoenix is the fifth most populous city. With size comes scrutiny.

But more important is that many of the crises of the future are being played out here. Climate change. Border pressures. Demographic shifts. The crisis of political legitimacy and our experiment in self-government. We have a front-row seat and are players. Yes, I'm happy for the Suns (and that the arena contract requires the team to keep the city name) and for the center-city infill. Happy for light rail (WBIYB).

But all is not well. Indeed, it's shocking how dark the future looks — and Arizona is ground zero.

Churches of early Phoenix

Phoenix in the 1880s boasted 16 saloons and four dance halls on Washington Street's notorious Whiskey Row. But as the town grew, the number of churches weren't too far behind. Here are a few (click the image for a larger photo):

Central Methodist was the oldest Protestant church in Phoenix, founded in 1872.

The postcard shows it in 1904 at Central and Monroe Street. It was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, part of the Methodist split before the Civil War. North and South churches reunited in 1939.

Here's the building in 1942 although the congregation has moved farther north on Central (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

The state of the state

Carl Muecke illustration

For all the talk about Arizona being flipped from red to blue, or at least purple, the reality on the ground is far different. That's because the most powerful branch of government, the Legislature, remains under Republican control — as it has for decades. The same situation is at work in the governor's office, where Doug Ducey is in his (term-limited) final stretch.

The most obvious result has been the "audit" of Maricopa County ballots, ordered by the Republican-run state Senate. Even if it eventually "validates" the election of Joe Biden as president, it has become a template for Republicans around the country and for any future elections they lose. It's hard to overstate the menace this presents to our experiment in self-government.

At the same time, the Legislature pressed two dozen voter suppression bills, intended to ensure that they continue to rule — widespread voting is the enemy of Republicans. One crafty measure will automatically purge by-mail voters who do not vote every two years. This happened even with mail voting widely popular in the state. Ducey took only a few hours before signing it into law.

Meanwhile, the body blows keep coming with such ferocity that it's difficult to keep up (see the daily headline links under "Phoenix and Arizona" to the left. The challenge is compounded by the hollowing out of local newspapers.

When the river ran free

The Salt River flows without the impediment of upstream dams, pre-1911 (Tempe History Museum).

The first settlers to the region found a Salt River running as it had for millennia, free from its headwaters in the White Mountains to the northeast 200 miles to its meeting with the Gila River southwest of modern Phoenix.

The river had sustained the most advanced irrigation civilization in the pre-Columbian New World, although mysteriously gone for 500 years. The River brought not only with water, but also some of the planet's richest alluvial soil to its valley. Anything would grow here. These pioneers, especially Jack Swilling who saw the potential of the abandoned Hohokam canals and hired miners from Wickenburg to clean them out, hoped it would do the same for them.

There was, however, a catch. The Salt was a fickle river. It could run at a healthy flow much of the year, then turn nearly dry at the height of summer, interspersed with floods that destroyed the primitive diversion dams and irrigation systems of the pioneers. Archaeologists estimate that great floods had occurred on the river for two million years.

Floods hit in 1880, 1884, 1886, and 1889. The 1890s, when my family arrived, were particularly tough years. Against a backdrop of national "panics" (financial recessions), the Salt River rampaged and nearly dried up. The 1890 flood was followed a year later by a monster that breached its banks by miles, nearly reaching the Phoenix townsite and inundating crops.

The pioneers began to wonder if they would go the way of the Hohokam.

Signs and wonders

The media love to fixate on the "bathtub ring" of a diminishing Lake Mead. America's largest reservoir, contained by Hoover Dam, is at its lowest level since it first filled in the late 1930s. It's a potent sign of climate change. So is the expected string of record heat broiling central Arizona this week.

It makes me wonder, though. In 1960, Phoenix had a population of 439,170. The city encompassed 185 square miles. Importantly, it was entirely watered by the dams of the Salt River Project, providing a renewable source from snow runoff in watersheds that ran from the Coconino Plateau to the New Mexico border.

Looking back, that was probably peak sustainability for Phoenix. It looked like this:

Washington through the years

No east-west street was more important to early Phoenix than the one named after our first president. It carried streetcars, was the heart of the business district, held important buildings, and was movie-theater row. Washington remains the north-south dividing line for street addresses (Central is east-west). Let's take a tour through time.

1901: A dusty road with horses and mule-drawn streetcars.

1904: The Indian and Cowboy Carnival Parade.

1905: At First Street looking west.

The data center hustle

Data centers becoming dominant force in Mesa," reads the headline on a recent East Valley Tribune story. The lede: "It may never rival Silicon Valley, but Mesa is fast becoming Data Center Alley." 

This "Alley" isn't transforming struggling west Mesa and it's nowhere near the light-rail line. Instead, it's centered on the "Elliott Avenue Technology Corridor" in far southeast Mesa, the location of agriculture, desert, and the former Williams Air Force Base. Now, with abundant concrete, gravel, and asphalt, it will expand the increasingly dangerous Phoenix urban heat island. The "Corridor" is entirely car dependent.

Data centers are lowest on the ladder of the tech economy: necessary, but bringing few jobs — much less high-end jobs — and several headaches. This is why they are usually found in rural areas desperate to replace their lost millwork, manufacturing, or railroad jobs. States and localities shell out huge incentives and disappointment follows.

But to see the proliferation of data centers in a city the size of Mesa (518,000 in 2019), in the 10th most populous metropolitan area in the nation, is curious.

Duke and more Ponzi dreams

The news from my old 'hood is the pending demise of the Duke Photography building on the southwest corner of Seventh Street and Thomas. The Arizona Republic reported the building is set to be demolished and a Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers drive-thru built on the site. Duke is moving to the First Federal Building on Central in Midtown, taking its sign with it.

This is wrong for so many reasons, no wonder nearby neighborhood associations are opposing it ahead of a June 17th virtual public hearing. One big concern is increased traffic, including dangerous turns on Seventh, which has been widened and had "suicide lanes" added for rush hour. A Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-thru on the northwest corner already causes collisions.

Beyond that, while the building is modest it fits into the remaining fabric of the streetscape. The Raising Cane would be another soulless off-the-shelf building, made for cars not for pedestrians. If the company really wanted to be a good neighbor, as it claims, it would build something appropriate to the nearby historic districts. Too many losses have already been allowed, notably the replacement of John Sing Tang's iconic Helsing's at Central and Osborn — right up to the street — by a Walgreens, set back by a surface parking lot and surrounded by a low wall, gravel, and rocks.

Downtown's pivotal 1970s

Between the long series of civic missteps that murdered downtown Phoenix and its recent rebirth of sorts, the 1970s loom large. As the decade began — shown in the photo above — much of corporate Arizona and the energy of the city had shifted to Midtown. 

The city opened the brutalist Phoenix Civic Plaza (so named because the Phoenix Civic Center was at Central and McDowell with the library, art museum, and "little theater"). The new complex offered a convention center, Symphony Hall, and sun-blasted open space. It was intended to revive downtown, but its "super blocks" destroyed the fine-grained, human-scale of the old urban fabric, including much of the Deuce. That fabric was characterized by eight or nine steps between doorways to shops or offices shaded by awnings.

Walter Bimson of Valley National Bank gave downtown a vote of confidence, insisting the new headquarters tower be build there rather than at Central and Osborn. The other big banks followed. Two new hotels were also built. But it was a catastrophic 10 years for historic preservation. The gallery below tells some of the story. Click on a photo for a larger image.

A rendering of Phoenix Civic Plaza. The shade trees in the foreground of Symphony Hall never happened, leaving an uninviting frying pan. It did show the concert hall's signature lobby chandeliers to advantage, lost now to the new Convention Center.

Arizona putsch

Carl Muecke illustration

If you've been following the daily links here on Phoenix and Arizona news (left), you know the GOP-controlled state Senate is conducting an "audit" of Maricopa County's 2020 presidential votes. It was here that President Biden pulled out his narrow victory.

As the Washington Post reported, the review "has been undertaken using an opaque, often inscrutable process, outside of the close view of objective third parties and with the assistance of obviously motivated actors, such as a former legislator who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6." Republicans now say 40,000 ballots were flown in, including from Asia written on bamboo. I am not making this up.

The most obvious insular lesson is that Arizona's status as a blue or purple state is unsettled as long as the Republicans control the Legislature, the most powerful branch of state government.

But what's happening here has profound national implications, too. Amid a push in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and other states to suppress voting, Arizona is taking it a step further. If an election's outcome is not what the GOP apparatchiks desire, the Legislature will intervene post facto. The goal is to overturn the result or, failing that, sow doubt about the election's legitimacy. Never mind that this was the election that put these lawmakers in office, too. Meanwhile, the GOP raises money and keeps the base ginned up for the critical 2022 mid-terms.

We can't have a functioning experiment in self-governance if the losing side refuses to accept the results of elections. John Adams was angry over the 1800 election but he peacefully transferred power to his bitter rival (and former and later dear friend) Thomas Jefferson. This path leads to civil war. Discuss.

 

 

Early Phoenix mapped

One of the most interesting sources of information on early Phoenix can be found on the Library of Congress' Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. The Sanborn Map Co. produced detailed maps of 12,000 U.S. cities and towns, detailing not only buildings but in many their construction materials so insurers could assess their risks.

Below I have some views of Phoenix, one in 1911 and the remainder from 1949, focused on Union Station and the Warehouse District. Click for a larger image.

Russell Lee's Phoenix

In 1940, photographer Russell Lee visited Phoenix. His main task was taking pictures of Farm Security Administration projects in the city. He joined such distinguished federal photographers as Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein.

The FSA was created in 1937 to help ease rural poverty. Among its signature Phoenix operations were Camelback Farms, northeast of downtown and intended to create a stable environment for displaced farm families, and the United Producers and Consumers Cooperative, with about 12,000 members, mostly farmers.

But the trip yielded much more, including some iconic images of Phoenix as the Great Depression was loosening its grip and war was looming. Born in Ottawa, Illinois, in 1903, Lee died in Austin in 1986. 

I've written about Phoenix in the 1940s here. Below is some of his work from the Library of Congress. Click on an image for a larger view.

Welcome sign outside of town, with the meeting days, times, and places of service clubs.

Central and Washington, with Lerner Shops, movie theaters, and streetcar tracks.

The famous saguaro streetlamp across from the Hotel Westward Ho. Only one was made, outside the Chamber of Commerce.

'See me AZ'

This is the name for a new campaign to reduce pedestrian and bicyclist deaths on the streets of metropolitan Phoenix. As KTAR reported, “ 'See Me AZ' aims to educate people on research that indicates most crashes occur when drivers, cyclists or pedestrians don’t see each other."

I'm not hopeful.

However it's counted, Phoenix and Arizona rank high among the most deadly places for pedestrians. Fifth worst in the nation in 2018, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. Deaths totaled 106 for the first six months of 2020 (Colorado 39; Washington 47). The federal Traffic Safety Administration ranked us fourth worst in 2018. A compilation by the Arizona Republic found a stunning 1,202 pedestrians killed by motorists between 2014 and 2019.

From the late 1940s onward, Phoenix streets were widened, especially to move vehicles quickly out of downtown (collateral damage was the loss of thousands of real shade trees). McDowell Road, shown above in the 1960s, is now two lanes or wider. This remains one of the scariest avenues for pedestrians or watchful drivers, especially between 56th Street and 24th Street, where the night swallows the inadequate illumination from too few street lamps.

The result today is that metropolitan Phoenix is a collection of real-estate ventures connected by wide highways called "city streets." Where Thomas Road crosses Central, it's about twice as wide as a major downtown street in Seattle. The "walk" signal lasts barely long enough to accommodate those wishing to cross and drivers frequently turn without looking. On any given day or hour, the Phoenix Fire online regional dispatch log shows "962 w. pedestrian" (a 962 is the radio code for auto collision with injuries).

Police and fire in early Phoenix

Henry Garfias, the son of a Mexican general, was elected Phoenix's first town marshal in 1881. Already famous for apprehending the stagecoach "ghost bandit" as a county deputy, Garfias (above, courtesy of Duran Lugo) was said to have shot dead several outlaws as marshal and brought order to Washington Street's Whiskey Row (16 saloons and four dance halls). Thus was born the Phoenix Police Department.

The department operated out of the old City Hall until it received a more modern space in the City-County Building in 1929. Call boxes were used throughout the city for officers to check in. Phoenix equipped its squad cars with radios in 1932. You can learn more about PPD's history from the Phoenix Police Museum, located in the 1929 Police Headquarters at 17 S. Second Avenue. My new novel, City of Dark Corners, is set in the Depression-era department.

The Phoenix Fire Department came from passage of a bond issue in 1886 to establish a volunteer fire service with modern equipment and an improved water supply. Still, two hose companies (one Anglo, one Hispanic) competed until Frank Czarnowski joined them together as the Phoenix Volunteer Fire Department in 1888. By 1922, it was a paid, full-time department.

Here are some early photos (click for a larger image):

A Nott steam fire engine, one of Phoenix's first (City of Phoenix).

Horse-drawn apparatus at Fire Station No. 1, First and Jefferson streets, in 1908 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Locked and loaded

Carl Muecke illustration

America's, er, national conversation follows a predictable trajectory every time some psycho shoots up a place leaving multiple innocents murdered.

From the media and everyplace to the left of center: Finally we'll get gun control! Why does anyone need a gun, much less an assault rifle?!? America is the only country where anywhere near this level of Gun Violence happens! What was the motive — white supremacy, systemic racism? Why can't we have a leader like New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern, who quickly implemented strict gun control after the 2019 shootings in Christchurch?? Don't dare send 'thoughts and prayers' when we need to be passing legislation! The Second Amendment is about the states' militia, not an individual's right to own a gun!

From the right: Mostly crickets (except for this National Review broadside). And except at election time, when the prospect of Democrats "taking away their guns" makes the right vote for the likes of Donald Trump.

Then we go back to the status quo ante until the next mass murder, forget, and the cycle repeats. If we can't get even modest gun restrictions after Las Vegas (58 innocents murdered) in 2017, Orlando (49) the year before, Virginia Tech (32) in 2007, and Sandy Hook Elementary School (26, including 20 children) in 2012, it ain't gonna happen.

Toward a desert aesthetic

Once upon a time defining beauty in Phoenix was relatively easy. The old city was shady, grassy, and well landscaped. From there moved circles of citrus groves, flower fields, pastures, and farms in one of the most fertile alluvial river valleys in the world, and finally stark beauty and abundance of plant and animal life in the wettest desert in the world. No other city looked like Phoenix. It was magical and lovely.

Now this is largely gone. Even in the historic districts ahistorical desert landscaping is creeping. For most of the metropolitan area, built an acre an hour, the look is concrete, asphalt, gravel, and shadeless palo verde trees. Oh, and "shade structures" that provide little shade. Lookalike faux Tuscan tract houses in "master planned communities" offer postage-stamp lawns and wide driveways (the old driveways in Willo were two strips of concrete). Tens of thousands of shade trees have been felled, whether by diktat of the Salt River Project or to create the six-lane-plus highways called "city streets."

Curiously, these single-family houses are built on the same layout as most American homes. But with gravel instead of a lawn. No wonder the temperature has risen 10 degrees over the past 50 years and the summers last longer. When I was given a tour of Verrado — where David Brooks saw the future — the developers bragged how they had copied Palmcroft, for that was the kind of living their surveys showed buyers wanted. But it doesn't work, for this sunblasted development in Buckeye lacks the real Palmcroft's beautiful trees, grass, hedges, and flowerbeds.

Rural scenes of old Phoenix

Before "master planned communities," freeways, gravel, palo verdes, and endless pavement, Phoenix was closely surrounded by groves and farms, shade trees and virgin desert. It lasted until the 1960s and 1970s. I remember my grandmother taking me for a picnic on a dirt road surrounded by fields and beneath a cottonwood tree. Here are a few of the photos (click for a larger image):

Arizona willows or ash trees line Central and Southern avenues, 1930 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Another view of shady Central at Southern in 1930 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Lincoln Drive west of Scottsdale Road in 1935.

Orangewood Avenue in 1939 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Degrading by degrees

When the Republican-controlled Legislature isn't busy with voter suppression laws or bills to further the National Rifle Association wish list, it can still make time for brilliance such as this: Allowing community colleges to award four-year degrees.

Legislation to make this possible has passed the state House, the furthest it's gotten in years of being repeatedly introduced. It might pass the Senate. Moving the proposal this far required compromises with the Board of Regents. As Howard Fischer of the Capitol Media Service reported:

The colleges can’t just get into the business. Instead, it requires studies to determine if the colleges, supported largely with local tax dollars, can hire the necessary faculty and sustain the programs. There also has to be a determination that the degrees offered will meet needed fields and whether they would “unnecessarily duplicate” programs already offered elsewhere. And there’s no authority for new property taxes.

There’s an extra hurdle in HB 2523 for the colleges in Pima and Maricopa counties. They could initially offer only a limited number of four-year degrees, defined as no more than 10% of total degrees offered for the first four years and 15% for years five and beyond.

The new pintos

I operate the Arizona History Shop for journalists, amateur historians, and curious civilians — free and an email or phone call away. It's sometimes shocking how little Arizona's millions know about their (mostly adopted) state. The situation is even more startling with the East Coast media.

Today's exhibit is a story in the New Republic. Headline: "Arizona’s Democratic Senators Are Already Angering the Left." Subhed: "The activists who sent Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema to Washington aren’t happy with their early moves in office." Kelly and Sinema voted for an amendment that would prohibit undocumented immigrants from receiving pandemic stimulus checks. TNR reports:

Latino advocates aren’t happy about it. “We are extremely disappointed by the vote that they have taken to strip stimulus funds from immigrants in the Covid stimulus bill,” Hector Sanchez Barba, executive director of the Phoenix-based group Mi Familia Vota says. “So we are sending a clear message, early in the game with a new administration, that this is unacceptable. We immediately mobilized our people on the ground, we immediately reached out, but we’re going to use all the political capital that we have. We’re going to use everything that we’ve been building in terms of political power to keep all the politicians accountable.”

Mac

When today's Arizonans think about the state's most important U.S. Senators, they go to Barry Goldwater and John McCain. A few will remember Carl Hayden, one of the longest-serving members of the Senate and, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, third in the line of succession to the White House.

Yet Goldwater, although the father of the right-wing takeover of the Republican Party, had a thin layer of legislative accomplishments, and McCain did almost nothing for the state he made his home. Hayden was undeniably the most important figure in winning the Central Arizona Project in Congress.

The Arizona Senator who casts the longest shadow of accomplishments is nearly forgotten: Ernest McFarland. First elected in 1940 when he defeated incumbent Henry Fountain Ashurst, Mac was an important partner with Hayden in fighting for Arizona's share of Colorado River water. His most significant accomplishment was sponsoring the GI Bill, which provided benefits for returning benefits for returning World War II veterans, including educational benefits.

Mac was the father of the GI Bill. He also served as Senate Majority Leader from 1951 to 1953, followed by Lyndon Johnson.

Supersized

It's difficult to find another major metropolitan area where most of the suburbs are as populous as in Phoenix.

Consider: The "town" of Gilbert alone held more than 254,000 people as of 2019. It's only the fifth-largest municipality in metropolitan Phoenix, but larger than all but two cities in Los Angeles County: LA and Long Beach. Mesa is the 35th largest city in America, at more than 518,000 — larger than Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Minneapolis and a host of better-known cities.

This is very different from the pattern in most metros. Older eastern and Midwestern areas consist of large numbers of small suburbs and a large center city. That star may have dimmed, as in Detroit or St. Louis, but none of their planets are anywhere close on population. The same is true in Atlanta, with a relatively small city of 507,000 in a metro of 6 million, but no individual suburb comes close. Charlotte, the 15th most populous city in the country (886,000), essentially annexed its entire county.

Phoenix's populous suburbs weren't always this way. These were once individual towns in the Salt River Valley, separate from each other, with different histories, dependent on agriculture and railroads. Above is Main Street in Mesa 1940, when the population was 7,200. This separation was evident well into the 1960s.

Prepare for disappointment

First the good news. The monstrous Trump is out of office — can you even imagine our situation if he had prevailed or swung the election through the courts or Congress? We have a decent, competent president who is restoring dignity, normality, and good sense to the highest office in the land. As the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin noted, Biden has already made 50 things better.

Biden must act fast — on subduing the pandemic and pushing through a major stimulus that includes big investments in infrastructure. Not just "roads and bridges" but passenger railroads and rail transit. America is the only advanced urbanized nation without high-speed rail. He must bring the economy back.

People need to feel the improvement directly. Otherwise, Republicans will win the Congress in 2022 and the administration will be stymied as happened in six of Obama's eight years.

The bad news is that Republicans will try to defeat Biden at every turn. They are suddenly clutching their pearls about the debt and deficit (which they didn't care about when they were giving tax cuts for corporations and the rich that added so much red ink). Trump's Supreme Court and lower-court appointments will be another major impediment. Also, the wokesters on the left will be a problem for Biden. Defund the police and other moronic slogans helped cost the Democrats seats in the House in 2020.

So the table is set. Optimists see Biden as the second coming of FDR, as they saw Obama as the new Lincoln. Maybe. We desperately need to move the country forward, finally, rather than being stuck where another GOP administration comes in and undoes the work of its Democratic predecessor. One step forward, two steps back.

Please discuss in the comments.

 

 

 

 

When Midtown cooked

Midtown wasn't planned. It simply escaped...any coherent city planning, zoning, or vision. Some say it was Phoenix's attempt at Los Angeles' Wilshire Boulevard, the nearly 16-mile avenue from downtown LA's financial district to Santa Monica. Maybe. But Phoenix never had the economic power or urban assets to support its version of Museum Row on the Miracle Mile, Century City, Koreatown, Beverly Hills, Westwood with UCLA, and subway lines. Wouldn't want to become another LA.

The two are comparable in that both were the sites of a majority of post-1960 skyscrapers. In Phoenix, it began with the building above. A turquoise-skinned International-style box, the Guaranty Bank Building opened in March 1960, designed by architect Charles Polacek and built by contractor David Murdock (who lived a remarkable life). At 252 feet, it dethroned the Hotel Westward Ho as the tallest building in Phoenix and the Southwest. On the top floor the Cloud Club offered a spectacular view.

Over the next thirty or more years, this was the heart of the city. For better and for worse.

The Camelback Towers was also complete in the photo (a mile north at Pierson). Park Central Shopping Center had replaced the Central Dairy in the late 1950s. Del Webb's Phoenix Towers at Central and Cypress Street, one of the few co-ops in the city, opened in 1957. Twin mid-rise office buildings were opened two blocks south of Thomas; they eventually included U-Haul's headquarters. Midtown, still unnamed, was coming together haphazardly. The central business district, including most shops and department stores, were still downtown (Fillmore to the railroad tracks, Seventh Avenue to Seventh Street).

Cold Civil War Turns Hot

Remember, remember the Sixth of January! For the first time since the foolish War of 1812, the U.S. Capitol was invaded. In this case, the attackers were not the redcoats but American citizens, whipped up by the president to overturn certifying the Electoral College that he lost.

Rogue readers have made some excellent points on the open thread which I put up this past week. I urge you to read them.

We have a mob president who not only specifically incited the putsch but then declined to respond to lawmakers' desperate pleas for help inside the besieged Capitol. These are not debatable points but objective facts. So is the fact that the FBI warned of a "war" planned to halt certification of the election.

Hitler used a beer hall. Trump used social media.

Arizona played a big role, from the Barbarian King Jake Angeli in his horned cap, as part of the mob to the likes of U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar helping organize the rally that led to insurrection. The event has a body count: Five dead, along with the members of Congress huddled in fear, then evacuated — House members were shut up in a room where some Republicans refuse to wear masks and at least one (a Democrat) getting COVID.

Insurrection open thread

Proud Boys march in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning. Soon a rightwing mob, incited by Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol. (Elvert Barnes photo).

I feel obliged to put up a forum for commenters in the wake of the unprecedented assault on the U.S. Capitol and our experiment in self-government by the extreme right, virtually under orders from President Trump.

A longer take will come next week. In the meantime, a couple of thoughts.

First, I've hardly been alone in warning that this event was coming (beginning with my first column after the 2016 election). This is what Trump is all about. As I wrote on Facebook, the surprising thing is that some people seemed genuinely surprised by the events of January 6th, 2021.

Second, it might not have been a coup. But it's not over yet.

I yield the floor to your comments.

 

 

 

Arizona's pandemic economy

The longest economic expansion in history crashed into recession this spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment skyrocketed to Depression-era levels before recovering...some. Industries such as airlines, hotels, tourism, restaurants, and brick-and-mortar retailers were savaged.

I've written about this extensively in my Seattle Times columns. But let's narrow the lens to Arizona and Phoenix with help from the invaluable data collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). Click on the chart for a larger view.

Unemployment:

 

Population growth (by numbers and year-over-year percentage change:

Phoenix's historic schools

Once upon a time, schools weren't built to resemble prisons with walls and steel fences, along with no shade and heat-radiating concrete and gravel. Even in early Phoenix, most were built to inspire. In 1873 (above) an adobe school at Central and Monroe was the beginning of better to come. Here are a few — click on the photo for a larger view:

Central School, shown in 1899, replaced the adobe structure. The town's population was about 5,500.

Monroe School at Seventh Street and Monroe, 1914. The building was preserved and is now the Children's Museum of Phoenix, alas without the shade trees and grass.

'The homeless'

I use quotation marks because this term encompasses many distinct — sometimes overlapping — conditions. Its continued use makes it difficult to seriously explore this phenomenon, much less propose constructive actions ("solutions" aren't possible). Worse, it makes the situation appear simple: All they need are homes. In fact, it is among the most complex and intractable of social problems.

In the Depression, many people who lost their homes and farms were consigned to shantytowns outside cities ("Hoovervilles") or long trips to uncertain new places, immortalized by Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. They were not welcome many places, including Phoenix, which couldn't even care for its own, much less provide for "gas moochers." But this was a temporary emergency, eased by the New Deal and cured entirely by the demand for jobs in the ramp-up to World War II. Interestingly, crime was very low during the Great Depression.

At the other end of the spectrum were hoboes, vagrants, and bums riding the rails, living off the land and handouts, sometimes settling in the skid rows of cities. In Phoenix, this district was called the Deuce. They had cheap single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms, cheap grocery stores, cheap bars. This population was almost exclusively male. Vagrancy laws were strictly enforced. They could find temporary work in such places as the Phoenix warehouse district's produce sheds.