History Adventuring

If you've been on the campus of Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, maybe as a student, or visiting, or going to a game at the stadium, or, like I did today, eating a burger at the Chuckbox , you've been right nearby the oldest church in the valley, St. Mary's in Tempe, on the northwest corner of University and College. If you've gone past it a million times, that wouldn't be surprising either, it's pretty small. But it's been there since 1903, making it the oldest church in the valley. Time travel with me (after you've had your burger, of course) and stand looking at the church in 1903. To the north is Tempe Butte (I call it A Mountain). The streets were dirt. Yes, the school was there, and had been since 1885, but it was called the Tempe Normal School . Nowadays, of course it's the home of the Sun Devils, ASU. Back then it was the home of the, uh, Normals . Really, that was the name of the team back then. That's all I know. The sign

Mission Revival is the name of a style of architectural design that was very popular in the 1920s, and it's still popular nowadays in Phoenix. Well, kind of. In its simplest form, you can describe it as red tile roofs and stucco. Personally, I like the look of Mission Revival. And yes, I know it's an artificial style that was inspired by the Spanish Missions, and the popularity of Zorro movies. Of course, the building has to have a red tile roof and stucco, but true Mission Revival has so much more. Support Arizona history by becoming a patron on Patreon Click here to become a Patron! History Adventuring blog posts are shared there daily, also there's "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, and super high-resolution photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona The Heard Museum, shown above in 1938, when it was pretty new, is a great example of Mission Revival. It's still there, on Central south of Thomas Road (between Oak and Monte Vista). It does every

Every once in a while I hear someone use the term "reverse discrimination", and it just makes me cringe. Discrimination is discrimination. If someone is denied a job on the basis of their gender or the color of their skin, they have been discriminated against. And not only has it been against the law in the United States for almost fifty years, it's just plain wrong, cruel and evil. Equal opportunity is not about discriminating against one group of people, and favoring another group. It's about equality. And equality does not mean "turnabout is fair play" and creating a barrier for someone in a particular group. For people who believe in this, they have missed the point. Yes, discrimination is still functioning with a lot of people in the United States. They have selected groups to favor, and groups to discriminate against. And that brings me to "reverse discrimination". I'm a white guy, so discriminating against me is typically called

Yesterday I visited a wonderful place, the Pueblo Grande Museum at 46th Street and Washington in Phoenix. I highly recommend it. You can, of course, just go there, but I'm not really much for museums. So my visit was different. Usually when people hear that I'm interested in Phoenix history, they want to take me museums, or make me look at history books. And yeah, I like to do a little bit of that, but what I'm looking for, and looking at, is a bigger picture. I'm not a researcher, I'm a time-traveler. I visited the archival area. They have a granite hitching post that had been found buried under the street at the intersection of Jefferson and 1st Avenue during construction of the light rail in 2006. Of course, it's historic (from territorial times) not Hohokam, so I had no idea that Pueblo Grande would have any interest in it. I was amazed, and pleased, to see that they do care. Of course, there's no way to precisely date the hitching post, but it

I love going history adventuring in the Phoenix area, and I do it all of the time. I live nearby Glendale Community College, which is just south of the Sahuaro Ranch (yeah, that's how they spell it), and when I walk over there, it transforms for me into the Bartlett Ranch in the 1890s. I stand there and try to imagine when you could see to Four Peaks in the east and the White Tanks in the west (you can still easily see the White Tanks - it's not that far from them). Just being there is the whole point. I don't necessarily need to take photos, or read plaques, or go into buildings and talk to tour guides. I just like being there, with my feet touching the same ground that the pioneers walked on, and the Hohokam, too. Collecting old photos of Phoenix is my hobby, and I've never been satisfied with "back in the day" or "somewheres". I want to know as precisely as possible when the photo was taken, and exactly where. And I want to visit there, both

John Greenway, a former Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt, helped to develop the fabulous Mesabi Iron Ore Range of Northern Minnesota in the early 1900's and then did the same for copper in Ajo, Arizona. "Greenway was the second man to the top of San Juan Hill and first behind enemy lines...I only envy Greenway. I wanted to be the first there myself, but he outran me!...He was a 200-pounder, slightly over six feet tall, who thrived on embalmed beef and regarded the entire Cuban campaign through intense heat and jungle as nothing more an enjoyable outing..." —  The Rough Riders ,  1899 , Theodore Roosevelt. John Greenway and Teddy Roosevelt as Rough Riders.  That's John Greenway (in the white shirt) at Teddy Roosevelt's right side (To the left of Teddy as you look at the photo). More about the  Spanish-American war . Michael Curley, 1874-1945 . Photo from  The Ajo Copper News , 1954. He became the Superintent of the Ajo mine. When John Greenway was c

While I was attending ASU in Tempe, Arizona, I got to experience what was called the "100-year flood" and the "500-year flood". I have to admit that I was genuinely puzzled as to how a city in the desert could suffer from such severe flooding. I have since learned about the flood of 1965, and just recently about the flood of 1891 (pictured). And once you understand why this happens, you understand why Phoenix was really such a good place to build a city in 1870, and why it still prospers today, out in the desert, with plenty of water. History buffs and engineering geeks know that Phoenix sits at the bottom of one of the largest watersheds on the planet. That is, when it rains, and when the snow melts, up in northeast Arizona, all of that water comes pouring down through the Salt River Valley. And that enormous amount of water has been the curse, and the blessing, of Phoenix, Arizona. Unlike desert cities like Las Vegas, or even Los Angeles, Phoenix, Arizo

When I first started collecting old photos of Phoenix, I had some idea that I would categorize them by certain eras, such as “territorial”. After a while, as my collection became larger, I came to realize that the term “territorial” really didn't work. That would be from 1863 until 1912, which is nearly fifty years. And as much as I resent the term “back in the day”, the old photos of territorial Phoenix all looked pretty much the same to me. Then I started looking closer at images of parades in Phoenix around the turn of the century, and especially something called the Indian and Cowboy Carnival. Take a look at the photo above of Washington looking west towards 1st Street. No, it's not really the Old West, it's a parade showing how the Old West might have looked, in their imagination. It's 1903, and Phoenix had already become very modern. Take a closer look - those are telephone and electrical wires. There are trolley car tracks in the street. Even though it was o

The Arcadia area, on the southern foothills of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, is the warmest area in the valley. If you live in the Phoenix area, as I have for years, that doesn't sound like much of a recommendation, certainly not in summer. But you have to look at it from the perspective of winter visitors, wealthy homeowners, and oranges. • Tourists.  For the past eighty years, a huge amount of the economy in Phoenix has been based on tourism. And, unlike us desert rats, who suffer through the summer, these people do not want to be cold. They are coming from places with snow and ice. And they want to get out into the warm sunshine. So if you could choose anywhere in Phoenix to build a tourist resort that would have the least cold temperatures in the valley, you would build it on the southern foothills of Camelback Mountain. • The wealthy.  As for the wealthier crowd, they can afford to be away in the summer. Many of those big, beautiful mansions in Arcadia are only visit

If you grew up in Minneapolis, like I did, it was easy to recognize a river, or a creek. In the Phoenix area, it's not so easy. That's because in Minneapolis they always have water in them, and in Phoenix, the water only flows seasonally. So you have to look more carefully. If you've done much hiking, you know what I mean. A couple of years ago I started working on figuring out the different rivers and creeks that I have been crossing over in my car for many years now. And the more I learn, the more I see. There are a lot of bridges in my neighborhood, which for me is from Glendale Community College to the Arrowhead area. It's quite a compliment to the Maricopa Country Flood Control District that most of the crossings over the rivers and creeks make them virtually invisible. It's not as if I see a sign anywhere that says, “don't cross when flooded”. You can cross all of the time, the bridges are there, and are just a continuation of the street. But I like

Even though Phoenix is in the desert, a lot of water flows through it. There are always summer thunderstorms, and in the winter what I like to call "Christmas rains", which are usually more gentle. And then in the spring the snow melts in the uplifted areas northeast of Phoenix and flows down to the valley through the Salt River, the Verde, and hundreds of other rivers and washes. Controlling the flooding in the valley has been a problem since the days of the Hohokams, and continues to be a challenge to the engineers of Phoenix. And although the storm drains don't say "flows to the ocean" like they do in LA, the water does. It flows to the Gulf of California. This is how it flows, starting with my little house in suburban Glendale when it rains. When the rain begins, and starts to water my petunias, after a little while it puddles in my backyard. Then it flows along the side of my house and drains out to the front into the street. The Salt River Valley, fro

If you live in the Phoenix area, you may have noticed that the roads that cross Baseline Road do a jog to the west. It's more noticeable on a map, and it has to do with something called "Sections", which is how the area was divided up, long before any of the roads were built. A section is a square mile, and in Arizona, it's determined by its distance from a point at the Initial Monument, which is on a hill right nearby Phoenix International Raceway, at the intersection of the Gila and Salt River Meridian (Avondale Boulevard), and Baseline Road. There's actually a physical piece of metal up there on the hill, and if you have more energy than I do, you may have hiked up there to take a look. The map above, which is from 1892, shows that the sections above and below the Arizona Baseline (indicated by the red arrow), never really lined up correctly. I'm no expert on this kind of stuff, but I'm inclined to believe that the more careful surveying was done

I've lived in Phoenix for a long time now, and one thing that I learned is that very few people here know much about its geography. I'm not talking about being an expert on rocks and minerals (that's geology, anyway), I'm talking about people who assume that when I say “Cave Creek” I mean Cave Creek Road, or the City of Cave Creek. When I say, “no, I mean the creek ”, usually the response is “there's a creek ?” To be fair, places like the Agua Fria River, or Cave Creek, are not really marked all that well on road maps. When people need to travel around Phoenix, they need to know the roads, not the geography. And when I ask someone, I am usually referred to some historic map, or maybe I should go look at a book in the library. And with the huge amount of historic maps and documents that have become available on the internet recently (in only the past 2-3 years), I am getting the answers that I have been looking for. So I will stop asking people and hopefully I

I moved to Phoenix when I was a teenager, and I just love it here. I grew up in Minneapolis, land of ice and snow, and even after all of these years I still marvel at how lucky I am to live where it gets to 70 degrees in winter. I'm also interested in Phoenix history, and have stumbled into a lot of misconceptions about my favorite city. Here are a few things. Some common misconceptions about Phoenix, Arizona • It used to be much cooler in Phoenix. No, it wasn't. Unless you count the last Ice Age, Phoenix has always been very, very hot. Yeah, I've lived here a long time, and I would like to tell the newcomers that “back in the day” it was cooler, but no, it wasn't. I made the mistake of moving to Phoenix in August, in a car that didn't have air conditioning. The weather has always been extreme in Phoenix. It’s in a gigantic desert. And if someone tells you that the tiny ribbons of concrete and the small amount of asphalt paved on the Sonoran Desert has made

When W. F. Brong and Frisco Enright drove their car from Phoenix to Tucson and back in 4 hours 39 minutes and 49 1/2 seconds in 1911 it must have been amazing. And the old-timers must have been wondering what the world was coming to. Let's time-travel. The world that most people knew in 1911, especially in places like Phoenix, moved at a walking pace. That is, about two miles an hour for people, and an average of four miles an hour for horses. Of course, horses could gallop up to 25 miles an hour, and trains went at about that rate, but that was an extreme. Very few people had ever seen anything go faster than that, and automobiles were now able to go double that. It must have been amazing to see automobiles just absolutely flying by on the track at the State Fairgrounds. But the overland races, like the one to Tucson and back, must have really been something that people could relate to. For centuries, the pace of a horse was the measure of reasonable distances. Going thir

In 2011 I took a look at the boxes of old Phoenix photos and collateral that I had rescued when Valley National Bank was taken over by Bank One in 1992. My thought at the time was that it would be a terrible shame to let all of this wonderful history just go into the dumpster. But then I realized that having it sit in a file cabinet in my garage was just about the same thing. So, little by little, I started scanning in stuff. When Google+ was new, I created a "business page" called Phoenix Historical Images. I had created a few web pages before that had Phoenix images on them, but this looked like a great place to put lots of stuff. And it is! If you keep your images to 2048 or below, Google allows unlimited free uploads. I finished scanning in the stuff that I had by the middle of 2012, but then found that I was just having too much fun to stop. People who I had met through the Google+ page started sharing stuff with me, and now it has turned into an ongoing project.