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.
The Miners Monument in Bisbee
"I owe my soul to the company store." Here's Phelps Dodge's store in Bisbee.
Cattle cars await loading on a siding of the Southern Pacific Railroad in Willcox.
Willcox Main Street in 1940. The town's population was 884.
The copper smelter in Miami.
Another smelter, this time in Douglas.
Theodore Roosevelt Dam in 1940.
The Little Colorado River near Springerville in Apache County. In 1940, Arizona's population was 499,261. In 2020, it was 7.2 million.
The Pioneer Mothers Monument in Springerville.
Tourists buy petrified wood. The Petrified Forest National Park was not established until 1962.
Wickiups of Apaches who tend small patches of corn and squash.
Yuma street scene in 1942.
A Yuma wedding chapel. Many Californians came across the border to avoid their state's three-day waiting period between license and ceremony.
RELATED: Russell Lee's Phoenix.
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
I always appreciate your photo research, Jon. You come up with many photos I’ve never seen before and they are not repetitive.
Thanks for running the time machine for us.
I am so thankful that you created this particular post. I am learning late in life (68 yrs old) about Mr. Lee, but will be sure to instruct my AZ-native born granddaughter, Yanabah, age 16 about him, Casey Harris, Sr.
I arrived in the Great Sonoran Desert in 1950. Plan on dying here.
The car on the forest road appears to me to be driving from the area of Heber towards Parson and on.
My Spaniard lady friend of 16 years was born in 1936 in her grandmothers house a few blocks from the Miami smelter.
In 56 i stopped at the Keystone Hotel.
The photos of Springerville remind me of my native wife born in Gallup whose family has lived in Springerville for over 60 years. Springerville is also where the restaurants, Los Dos Molina’s began.
Thank you for the memories
Note: a few of the old fan club may meet saturday. If your interested U can email me at coper1658@gmail.com
Some old photos: Including Glendale High School I attended.
https://vintage-phoenix.blogspot.com/
Great bunch of photos! The Yuma wedding chapel doesn’t look very appealing (more like a gas station), but I would love to go back and enjoyed a meal at the Valley Cafe in air-cooled comfort.
Funny that Bisbee acts like it is a working man’s town when it’s always been a company town. Those cattle cars in Wilcox may have hauled off the Wobblies in 1917.