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.
Chandler:
Guests at the San Marcos Hotel in 1929. It was the centerpiece of the town founded by veterinarian Alexander Chandler in 1912 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
Another view of the hotel grounds (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
Fast-forward to 1960 and color shows the flowery, shady grounds.
Chandler High School, 1924 (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
Dorothea Lange photographed this adobe building in Chandler, 1937, during the Great Depression (Dorothea Lange/Library of Congress).
Another photo of "Okies" on the move, temporarily camping in Chandler.
The Chandler town square in 1957, from a postcard. Even in the late 1970s, when I was sometimes stationed there on the ambulance, Chandler was small and compact, surrounded by agriculture and far from the rest of the metropolitan area.
A 1952 map shows tiny Chandler far from any other Valley towns. It was much the same in the 1970s. (Brad Hall collection).
Litchfield Park:
The Wigwam resort, opened in 1929, was the centerpiece of Litchfield Park. The town was founded by Paul Litchfield of Goodyear Tire and Rubber. During World War I, Salt River Valley long-staple cotton was used for making tires.
The Wigwam staff in the 1930s (both photos McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
Peoria:
The Peoria Santa Fe station. Like most Valley towns, the railroad and agriculture were its lifeblood. Settlers from Peoria, Illinois, founded the town in the 1890s. Today it's far more populous than its namesake.
This 1905 map shows the distance between Peoria and Glendale on the Santa Fe Railway from Phoenix (Brad Hall collection).
The Peoria Police station.
The Wilhelm Garage at 8245 Grand Avenue in Peoria, 1940s (Brad Hall collection).
It's 1949 and Peoria's movie theater is showing a double feature.
The Peoria water tower visible from Grand Avenue in the 1970s (Brad Hall collection).
Related: Valley towns.
———————————————————————————
My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
Good posts, Jon
Scottsdale as a town was sorta OK
As a sprawling city it sucks.
But thats what humans do, Destroy!
I have an old High school pal that
was once considered the “King of Buckeye”
Apparently he has lost and made big buck’s in Buckeye area land investments.
I’ll send him your photos.
Around 1958 he and I were going to start a business to cut back on long drives to Nogales. We failed to get it up.
Back in the day Dripper Dodd a black male that lived at 18th Street and Broadway and ran a stable of whores
use to pickup his heroin supply on Lower Buckeye Road and about 107th avenue from a old white dude named Forest Akin that lived at about 800 west Vineyard. Dripper and Forest both died of old age.
And that’s history.
Cal,
What you never heard of “Top if the World”?
Way closer than Calle Canal.
Ramjet
Keystone Hotel.
Got a push from a cop when the car wouldnt start.
Interesting photos. Fast forward 20 years from the 70’s and by the time I was sometimes stationed in Chandler on an ambulance in the 90’s, it was definitely not small and compact. It was only slightly less sprawling than today and basically contiguously fully developed with Mesa, Tempe, and Gilbert, with the only undeveloped buffer existing on the south with Sun Lakes.
That Peoria, AZ (where I was also sometimes stationed) is significantly bigger than it’s namesake was unknown to me, but not at all surprising. I’d still bet that more people nationwide when asked where Peoria was would say “Illinois”, and have never heard of the AZ version.
If folks from Illinois left the Sonoran Desert it would be a good thing. Particularly those that come for six months and complain a lot.
Rogue, I did a semester of student teaching at Chandler High School in 1973. I believe the city’s population was still under 20,000. (The U.S. Census recorded 13,763 in 1970, vs. 252,000 in 2019.) I lived in south Scottsdale and commuted McKellips to Alma School and then south to the west side of Chandler, cutting over to the campus. There were at least four miles of agricultural lands along two-lane Alma School between Mesa and Chandler: I remember a lot of corn and cotton, and some citrus.
Cal — what u never hear in a whorehouse you hear on the golf course? Bite,you cock sucker”😂😂😂. Sorry,R.C.
I remember when their was nothing north of Shea and Scottsdale. Rd. And we had a meeting on the top of a Bank at camelback And scottsdale rd. announcing McCormick Ranch and we looked at each other and thought “ who the heck would want to live that far North”😂😂😂
Welcome to Troon.