The Phoenix, Arizona Historical Images Digital Project


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.

My goal for the Phoenix, Arizona Historical Image Project is twofold - I want to have fun (and I am!) and I want to create archive-quality digital images that can never be trapped in boxes on a shelf in a museum, or in a garage, and can never be thrown in to a dumpster.

If you see anything that you like here on this blog, please share it. Use them any way you want to, write a book, make a T-shirt, get rich, it doesn't matter to me. I have no copyright on these images, these aren't mine, you don't need my permission, nor do you have to give me credit. Just please don't let them get lost or thrown away.

Image above: Valley Center under construction in 1972, Central and Monroe, Phoenix, Arizona. Now called Chase Tower.
Become a PhD (Phoenix History Detective) with Brad today on Patreon!

Click here to become a Patron!
History Adventuring posts are shared there daily including "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona. Discounts for seniors, students, teachers, and veterans.

Comments

  1. Hassayampa SlimJanuary 1, 2016 at 5:26 PM

    Just want you to know that your posts and the images therein are really appreciated and enjoyed. I've been kicking around the Valley for well over half a century, and many of the images bring back memories. Thanks and hope you have a really great New Year.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more