Rogue Columnist

Charlie Keating's Phoenix

Everybody who was anybody in Phoenix has a favorite story about Charles H Keating Jr., who died this week at 90. Here's mine. By the time I came back in 2000, Keating, the disgraced imprisoned former S&L kingpin, was once again a fixture around town. I would run into him at Durant's, where he was cordial but declined my invitation to sit down sometime and tell his story.

One day the restaurant was packed and Keating couldn't get seated. He confronted the day manager, the fabulous Mari Connor, and said, "Do you know who I am?" Without a second's hesitation at a restaurant that had hosted governors and mobsters, Connor said, "No, but I'm sure they can seat you up the street at Alexi's. Otherwise, the wait is thirty minutes."

Time wounds all heels.

I was gone from Phoenix during Keating's glory days of the 1980s. He developed Dobson Ranch in Mesa and Estrella Mountain Ranch in Goodyear among many other projects. The most impressive physical monument he left behind was the Phoenician resort. The name says much about the time: Phoenix was still the center of "the Valley's" economic universe. It would never happen today; the resort claims it is in Scottsdale, even though it in the city. And for all the criticism heaped upon it, the Phoenician to me remains a beautiful place — built within the existing urban footprint — with an apt, evocative, allusionary name.

The capitol

Arizona never had a state capitol building as such. The charming building at the end of Washington Street topped by a copper rotunda was opened in 1901. It was the territorial capitol. Designed by San Antonio architect James Riely Gordon, it was intended to convey the sense that Arizona was ready for statehood (which happened in 1912).

Gordon wanted a much larger building, with a more prominent rotunda and wings for both houses of the Legislature on each side of the building. Yet problems with funding meant the project had to be cut back in size with the massive segments for the Legislature discarded.

In 1918 and 1938, the building was expanded to the west employing the same architecture as the original territorial capitol. Some of the later construction was done by Del Webb's company. It increased the total square footage from the original 40,000 to a final 123,000.

It was home to the Legislature until 1960, when the current House and Senate buildings were constructed, and the offices of the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general until 1974.

In that year, the Brutalist Executive Tower was built (Brutalist is not a pejorative but rather a style in the architectural vernacular; it still has its champions) which now looms over the original capitol, which has been turned into a museum. The AG's office was consigned to a long, unworkable building on Washington east of the capitol before moving to Central Avenue.

Class in Phoenix

When I was growing up in the 1960s, my mother told me Phoenix was a much less class-conscious city than those back east. Consider Boston, where it was said, "The home of the bean and the cod, Where Lowells speak only to Cabots, And Cabots speak only to God." Phoenix was more of a meritocracy. In the 1960s, Phoenix was largely a middle-class Anglo city.

Merit she had in abundance: A piano prodigy from the age of four, studied at the Eastman Conservatory, was a concert pianist — all before I came along. But we didn’t have money and things were always tight. Still, she and my grandmother raised me in a middle class neighborhood north of downtown, in the house on Cypress Street (above), long before this became one of Phoenix's first historic districts.

And what she said was true. Our across the street neighbors and friends were wealthy, heirs to the Fred Harvey fortune, but they never put on airs. From the rich children in Palmcroft to the poor ones near Roosevelt Street, we all attended public school at Kenilworth.

Drug stores of old Phoenix

Growing up in the neighborhood north of downtown Phoenix in the 1960s, later to become Willo, I was bracketed by drug stores. Ryan-Evans was on the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and McDowell Road in a shopping strip including the Sprouse-Reitz five-and-dime store. My Florist was across the street with its dazzling neon sign.

At Central and McDowell was McCreary's Drugs. Farther south at Third Avenue and Roosevelt was a Rexall. And another drug store was located at Fifth Avenue and Thomas. Most had soda fountains. Alas, I lack photos of these boyhood haunts. But let's take a tour of Phoenix’s ubiquitous small drug stores before they were supplanted by a handful of giant chains. Above is Sun Drug at First Avenue and Monroe in 1947. At right is First Methodist Church.

Birch's Drugs at Third Street and Roosevelt, part of a thriving block of shops and long before urban pioneers reclaimed the area as Roosevelt Row (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Walgreen's, before it became one of the giant chains of today, on the northwest corner of Central and Washington in the 1940s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

 

Sedona

The challenge of writing a history of Sedona is that Arizona's population is 7.4 million. As a result, most people associate the city with resorts, art galleries, restaurants, and shopping at Tlaquepaque or in Uptown Sedona, hiking through the red rock country, and Oak Creek Canyon, all easily accessible on wide highways. A few may recall the incident in 2009 where a self-help guru killed three people, baked to death in a sweat lodge.

And the "spiritual vortices." New Age tourism is big business. Bell Rock, Airport Mesa, Cathedral Rock, and Boynton Canyon are considered to be vortexes of unique power. The "Harmonic Convergence" was held here in 1987. Sedona also offers a film festival and chamber music program.

In the 2000s, I did several book signings at the Well Red Coyote bookstore (now sadly gone) and gave speeches to Kiwanis and Rotary. It was an easy hop up Interstate 17 and Arizona 179 from Phoenix.

The problem for me is that it's not the Sedona I remember as a child, when the state had 1.3 million people. Sedona was harder to reach, with far fewer people, and a charming row of shops, including a restaurant called The Turtle. The Red Rock Country was empty and majestic. I'm grumpy company on a road trip.

Tucson through the years

The Old Pueblo was founded in 1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence was signed two-thirds of a continent away, by Irishman Hugh O'Conor working in service to Spain. The presidio he established survived repeated Apache attacks, isolation, and Mexico's takeover after it broke away from the Spanish Empire. If not for the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, Tucson would have remained in Mexico.

As of 2022, Tucson was Arizona's second most populous city — for now, at least, it's 546,674 vs. Mesa's 512,498. But it has some of Arizona's richest history. Let's take a photographic tour (click for a larger image):

Mission San Xavier del Bac in 1915. It was founded just south of the future Tucson by Father Kino in 1700.

Barrio Libre, 17th and Kennedy streets in Tucson, circa 1890 (Library of Congress).

Another view of Barrio Libre (Library of Congress).

Many of Tucson's historic barrios have been spruced up in recent years.

The 2023 to Yuma

For most people, Yuma is a stop by the Colorado River at the California border on Interstate 8 for gas and fast food, or for retirement in one of the hottest cities in the United States, to be enveloped in agriculture that moved down from the Salt River Valley without the rich, alluvial soil of American Eden.

But Yuma is much more: Rich in history, it's the place along with Tucson where American settlement began. Where boats could come up the Colorado delta unhindered by dams upstream. Now, with a population of nearly 96,000, it's worth our time.

Gallery (click on photo for a larger image):

Fort Yuma in 1875.

Horse-drawn water in the 1890s (Library of Congress).

The first locomotive in Arizona, Yuma 1877. The Southern Pacific built east across the state.

Yuma's handsome Southern Pacific depot.

A Pullman porter and conductor await passengers on the SP early in the 20th century (City of Yuma).

A street-level view of the SP depot, since demolished.

Bars of old Phoenix

Phoenix once had an abundance of locally owned taverns, from fancy spots to dive bars. I used to reminisce about them with the late John Bouma, managing partner of Snell & Wilmer, over lunch at Durant's. I knew a few: Kren's and the Anchor on McDowell, the Pueblo on Scottsdale Road, the Can Can at Third Street and Roosevelt, and Jerry's Treasure Island on Thomas Road. I had my first beer at the Pueblo bar on Scottsdale Road.

But Bouma was a veritable encyclopedia of old Phoenix bars. Among them, Rocky's Hideaway, Chauncey's, Mister Fat Fingers, the Velvet Hammer, the Blue Grotto, and the Ivanhoe, where the plan to bomb Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles was finalized.

Here are a few:

The Clown's Den on Camelback Road around 23rd Street.

The Band Box at 19th Avenue and Campbell, this night featuring Mike Condello's band and Pat McMahon (Brad Hall collection).

Chez Nous at Seventh Avenue and Indian School Road. During business hours it was so dark it took a few minutes for your eyes to adjust to the blackness.

Magoo's at 19th Avenue and west Van Buren Street.

The resorts of old Phoenix

Before the Sanctuary, Boulders, or Phoenician, the city embraced a tourist experience beyond the hotels downtown, motels along the highways, or dude ranches. They were resorts offering amenities that couldn't be found elsewhere in the Southwest. First came the Arizona Biltmore (above) in February 1929, months before the big stock-market crash. Next, during the Great Depression, was the Camelback Inn in 1936, financed by John C. Lincoln and Jack Bell Stewart.

All fed into a reviving economy, location on a transcontinental railroad, and the Chamber of Commerce's "Valley of the Sun" tourism campaign. Contrary to urban legend, the Biltmore wasn't the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, but rather his student, Albert Chase McArthur. McArthur paid Frank Lloyd Wright $10,000 to use his patented block design, (but it turned out Wright didn't actually own the patent). Soon, William Wrigley Jr. bought the resort and built the famous mansion on a nearby butte.

Let's take a tour. Because TypePad, which hosts Rogue Columnist, is buggy on photos, I'm going to bunch out the gallery, below, without captions. You'll see the Biltmore — including its pre-construction site — Camelback Inn, Royal Palms, Chandler's San Marcos, and the Wigwam near Litchfield Park. Hope you enjoy. Click on a photo for a larger image.

Drive-ins in old Phoenix

Midcentury Phoenix was remade by the automobile age. One of the keystones was drive-in restaurants. Sit in the car and eat. Or sit on benches. Drive-ins were essential to the tradition of Cruising Central — an essential way for teenagers from different high schools to meet each other and find new steadies.

Regular readers know that the McDonald's at Central Avenue just south of Indian School (above) was the first franchise location outside of California and the first with Golden Arches. Opened in 1954, it was the only McDonald's location in Phoenix for years.

Let's visit a few, from the 1930s to the 1960s.

The Coffee Pot Drive-In at Seventh Street and McDowell in the 1930s.

The Village Inn at two-lane Central and Thomas in the 1940s.

Gizmo at 13th Street and McDowell Road in the late '40s. Not much business when this photo was taken.

The historic districts

The A.C. Redewill House, built in 1914, in the Willo Historic District after a rainstorm rolled through leaving clear blue sky. We lived there in the 2000s.

In a city better known for tearing down its heritage, including the irreplaceable Fox Theater, some precious victories have been won. Among them: the Orpheum Theater, Professional Building, Luhrs Tower and Luhrs Building, and — for now, at least — Union Station.

But some of the best preservation victories are the Historic Districts, 35 in all as of 2023, and rebranded as Historic Neighborhoods. And most of them are: distinctive, authentic, walkable, rich in history. The earliest began as a response to the Papago Freeway Inner Loop. Its construction required the demolition of 3,000 houses, many irreplaceable historic dwellings.

Even with the concessions of running the freeway underground from Third Avenue to Third Street, the coming of the Papago put everything from Roosevelt Street to McDowell Road at risk. From Thomas to Roosevelt and Central to 15th Avenue was once a continuous neighborhood. Only Palmcroft had a name. But the freeway cut it in half and people wondered if blight would spread as far north as Thomas.

Buses in old Phoenix

Old Phoenix had busses, too — kisses. But as for transit on wheels or intercity travel, it had those, too, spelled right. Click on the photo for a larger image:

The "Hellzapoppin" group arrives in Phoenix by bus for the Rodeo of Rodeos in 1939 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

The Greyhound Bus Depot at 29 E. Jefferson in the 1940s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

The Santa Fe Trailways bus depot on Jefferson in 1944 with the Pantry Cafe and Jack's Liquors. The Santa Fe Railway operated this subsidiary to compete against intercity buses, which were cutting into its ridership (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

 

Copper Square

The Morenci mine in eastern Arizona, with one of the largest copper reserves in the world. It's owned by Freeport-McMoRan, formerly Phelps Dodge (Tom Blackwell photo).

One of the misbegotten efforts to revive downtown Phoenix in the early 2000s was to rename it. "Copper Square" was the monicker chosen on the, er, thinking that people in the metropolitan area didn't even know where the city's downtown was. Phoenix had nothing to do with copper — aside from the low dome of the Territorial Capitol and an occasional freight car going through with equipment to the mines — and thankfully the name went away.

But the story was far different for Arizona. Copper was one of the "Five Cs," along with cotton, citrus, cattle, and climate and for decades the most profitable. Arizona has by far the largest concentration of copper deposits in the nation — including Butte, Montana — and second only to southern Peru and northern Chile. Copper mining also produces such byproducts as gold, silver, and molybdenum.

Arizona is the only state with an elected Mining Inspector. His office estimates more than 100,000 abandoned mines dot the state. About 10 major copper mines remain today, with controversy over efforts to start the Resolution Mine near Superior.

No wonder the Grand Canyon State is also the Copper State.

Let's take a tour through the years (click for a larger image):

Jerome, a classic mining town, on Cleopatra Hill in the 1930s (Library of Congress). 

 

The United Verde Mine in Jerome produced 2 billion pounds of copper, silver, and gold from the 1880s to 1953 (Library of Congress).

An ore train passes through Jerome's Hopewell Tunnel circa 1920s (Library of Congress).

 

'Rim to River'

I don't do book reviews on this blog, but I'm making an exception for Tom Zoellner's superb Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona.

It deserves space on your Arizona history shelf along with Thomas Sheridan's Arizona: A History, Philip VanderMeer's Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix, William Collins' The Emerging Metropolis: Phoenix: 1944-1973, Marshall Trimble and Jack August's works, and, I hope, my Brief History of Phoenix.

The book has urgency because Arizona matters more than ever. It holds 7.2 million people, compared with the mere 1 million when I was born. It's the third most populous state in the West behind California and Washington, and Phoenix is the fifth most populous city in the nation. Facing a historic drought, state leaders are unwilling to stop the second-biggest driver of the problem: Sprawl. The biggest, climate change, is sure to bring rough justice to the Grand Canyon State. The politics are as extreme as the weather. 

Parades in old Phoenix

From frontier days onward, who doesn't love a parade? Phoenicians certainly did. (Click on the image to enlarge).

Date unknown, a military parade on Washington. That looks like the Ford Hotel on the left.

 

It's 1899 and the Chinese Division parades through Phoenix in the Winter Carnival. The name is obscure, so I welcome information in the comments.

The Indian and Cowboy Carnival Parade goes down Washington Street in 1903 (National  Archives).

Aviation in old Phoenix

A year before statehood, a balloon went aloft to take this photo centered on Second Street and Adams (click for a larger image).

Fighter ace Lt. Frank Luke, a Phoenix native, gained fame in World War I as the "Arizona Balloon Buster" for his success against German observation balloons as well as enemy aircraft. Here he is with 13th confirmed kill. He was shot down and fatally wounded two months before the end of the war. German soldiers buried Luke in the Murvaux cemetery; Americans retrieved his body two months later. He received the Medal of Honor and Luke Air Force Base is named after him. 

Amelia Earhart visiting Phoenix at the South Central Airport in 1931 (USC Libraries).

An aerial view of the land Phoenix purchased for its new airport in 1935, called Sky Harbor (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Hospitals of old Phoenix

Good Samaritan Hospital facing McDowell Road in the 1930s. Its history can be traced to Lulu Clifton, a deaconess in the Methodist Church who established Deaconess Hospital in 1911. In 1917, it was moved to remote 10th Street and McDowell and renamed Good Samaritan in 1928 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Deaconess Hospital in the early 1920s before it was renamed.

The east wing of Good Sam in the 1930s. The shady, grass cooled grounds of the hospital lasted into the 1970s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

A color postcard shows the hospital in the same era.

 

Parks of old Phoenix

The original townsite set aside room for a park (plaza) on Block 23, site of today's downtown Fry's supermarket. You can click on each image for a larger view.

It became City Hall park, Phoenix's first, with a gazebo and shade trees (Brad Hall collection).

In 1905, the park was welcoming people for a concert. Easy access was provided by the Washington Street streetcar (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

 

The Central Arizona Project

The Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant, which draws water from Lake Havasu and vaults it 3,000 vertical feet over the Buckskin Mountains on the way 336 miles to Phoenix and Tucson. Wilmer and Charlie Reed were the lead lawyers in winning the landmark Arizona v. California lawsuit, guaranteeing the CAP. The plant accounts for 50% of the $4 billion CAP's energy use (Central Arizona Project photo).

In 1922 the Colorado River Compact — cornerstone of "the Law of the River” — was signed by states of the Upper and Lower basins. Arizona didn't ratify it until 1944, complaining it apportioned water to the basins rather than to individual states (Library of Congress).

Parker Dam, completed in 1938, impounding the Lake Havasu reservoir. California put the first "straw in the river" here with the Colorado River Aqueduct. It was conceived by the legendary William Mulholland and completed in 1939 (Library of Congress).

 

The famous in old Phoenix

For a frontier town grown large, old Phoenix had its share of visiting statesmen, heroes, and celebrities. Here are a few (click for a larger image).

President William McKinley visited the capital of Arizona Territory in 1901, a few months before his assassination.

Dr. James Swetnam Winton with the first automobile in Phoenix, 1902.

President William Howard Taft passes Melinda's Alley in 1909.

Theodore Roosevelt at the Heard home in 1911, here for the dedication of Theodore Roosevelt Dam.

More Phoenix in the 1930s

Phoenix went from Depression to a recovery earlier than most places thanks to abundant New Deal investments. Have a look in the photo time machine (click for a larger image):

The privately funded Agua Fria River Project, shown in this 1932 map, was derailed by the Great Depression. It sought to bring water to cultivate land all the way to the White Tank Mountains.

One part of the Agua Fria Project survived as the "Frog Tanks Dam," under construction in 1926. The dam, later the Old Waddell Dam, was located on the Agua Fria River northwest of Phoenix. William Beardsley, a champion of the project, hired civil engineer Carl Pleasant to design the dam. Today, the dam has been replaced by a higher, longer structure that holds back a larger Lake Pleasant as part of the Central Arizona Project (McCulloch Bros.Collection/ASU Archives)

Thomas and Grand Avenue in the 1930s, the Alhambra Garage and a nearby grocery, with a Holsum Bakery truck making a delivery (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Boehmer's Cut-Rate Drugs in the Monihon Building at First Avenue and Washington Street in 1937. My fictional private investigator Gene Hammons has his office in this location (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

The old High Country

Before land swaps and subdivisions in the pines, before a Super Walmart in Payson and wildfires started by the likes of Valinda Jo Elliott, the Arizona High Country was wild and lightly populated. Click on a photo for a larger image:

Loggers working between Heber and Overgarrd in the late 19th century.

Pack mules heading into Payson, 1901 (ASU Archives).

The Payson General Store (ASU Archives).

 

Russell Lee's Arizona

Russell Lee (1903-1986) is a photojournalist best known for his work with the New Deal's Farm Security Administration. Some of his work documenting Depression-era Phoenix is iconic. He also worked around Arizona circa 1939-40. Here's a sample from the Library of Congress:

An unknown location in the Apache National Forest in far eastern Arizona.

The Bird Cage Theater in Tombstone.

Office of the Tombstone Epitaph. It is the oldest continually published newspaper in Arizona.

Main Street in Bisbee.

Grand Avenue

Grand Avenue never lived up to its splendid name. It continued as U.S. 60 from Van Buren Street northwest, picking up the companion Santa Fe Railway at 19th Avenue on the way to Wickenburg and eventually — in pre-Interstate days — to Los Angeles. Let's take a tour through the years. Click a photo for a larger image.

In 1892, this map shows Grand Avenue running to Glendale, Peoria, and beyond.

This 1915 map shows how Grand was the only street to break the ordinary street grid of Phoenix.

Narrow and under a shade canopy, here's Grand Avenue in the 1920s. Joseph John's Grocery at 1007 Grand (McCulloch Brothers Collection/ASU Archives).

Grand near Lateral 4 near Thomas Road, looking southeast, in the 1930s (McCulloch Brothers Collection/ASU Archives).

Another view of Grand and Thomas, circa 1930 (McCulloch Brothers Collection/ASU Archives).

The same location looking northwest in the 1940s (McCulloch Brothers Collection/ASU Archives).

 

More Valley towns

Another look at some of the distinct towns and villages of the Salt River Valley before the blob of sprawl consumed them. Click on a photo for a larger image:

Avondale:

Avondale street scene, 1946 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Avondale Market and Schneider Drugs, 1945 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Another view of Schneider Drugs, 1945 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Coldwater Drug Store featuring Phoenix's famous Donofrio's ice cream in the 1940s (Brad Hall collection).

The Avondale Southern Pacific depot, circa 1926 (Arizona Archives Online).
 

Buckeye:

Downtown Buckeye in the 1920s. Founded in 1888, it was originally named Sidney after the hometown of settler Malie Jackson. It was changed to Buckeye to honor his home state of Ohio (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Buckeye's Southern Pacific depot in an undated photo. The platform is for unloading boxcars. In 1926, completion of the SP Northern Main Line placed Buckeye on a transcontinental railroad.

Depression-era housing for cotton pickers in Buckeye.

Buckeye Union High School, built at Buckeye High School, built in 1921.

When Scottsdale was real

After I finished grade school at Kenilworth north of downtown Phoenix, we moved to Scottsdale (population 68,000) so I could attend Coronado High School. My mother was alarmed by news that a gang of teenagers had kicked a West High student nearly to death. I lucked out, going four years and graduating from one of the nation's best public secondary schools, with a superb fine arts program and academics. And I got to see Scottsdale before it became so rich and big and fake, Silicone Valley with its plastic surgery and a city limits reaching all the way to the Tonto National Forest.

Here's how "the West's Most Western Town" was in those decades. Most of the gallery is thanks to Brad Hall's collection. Click on a photo for a larger image:

Brown Avenue in the 1950s. Scottsdale's population was a little more than 2,000 in 1950.

The Lulu Belle at Scottsdale Road and Main Streets.

Main Street in the 1950s. It was much the same in the 1970s:

 

The art of American Eden

In the first half of the 20th century, the produce of the Salt River Valley traveled to customers in the east via refrigerated boxcars (reefers), iced before they left the Warehouse District packing houses and others in Glendale and Peoria, and along the route. But the wooden crates and later cardboard boxes were decorated with vivid illustrations that advertised the produce — and created a distinct art form. Almost all were done by anonymous artists.

Here is a sample. Click for a larger image:

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.

And completed in 1901.

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.

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.

 

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 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Glendale flooded in 1915 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

The same location in the 1920s (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Main Street seen in the 1930s when the town's population was about 3,700 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

Looking north on 58th Drive, including Safeway, the Plaza Theater, and city hall in 1942 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

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

First Avenue (58th Drive) looking north (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

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.

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).

The Rialto Theater on Washington Street west of Central in 1921 (McCulloch Bros. collection/ASU Archives).

The Orpheum Theater in 1943, highlighting stars Frank Sinatra and Randolph Scott (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 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.

 

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.

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).

 

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). 

Arizona Territory, 1895.
 

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.

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 (Photographer unknown).

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

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

Alfalfa fields in 1923 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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).

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.