Phoenix 101: History

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.

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).

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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 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.

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).

 

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).

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).