How Cactus Road in Phoenix, Arizona got its name


The very first road that I ever drove on in Phoenix, back when I was 19, was Cactus Road. I was heading south from Flagstaff and somehow that name just seemed absolutely perfect. I grew up in Minneapolis, so the thought of seeing a road that was named Cactus just tickled me. And yeah, there are some cactuses (cacti?) there, but really that's not where the name came from. It came from the little town of Cactus, which has left without a trace, unless you count the road that once led to it.

I love learning about Phoenix history, and something names can be a real clue. Like Los Angeles, Phoenix grew by having a lot of little towns grow together. Sometimes the names of the towns remain, sometimes it's just the name of a community, and sometimes the towns retain their independence.

I wish I could tell you more about Cactus, Arizona, but all I have is this photo. And of course, it shows up on old maps. It was where Cave Creek Road crosses Cactus, which must have been waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere 50 years ago.


The Sunnyslope area in the 1950s, including the little town of Cactus.
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

  1. bbrownMarch 25, 2016 at 2:36 PM

    Here's a 1937 map that includes it:

    http://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/utils/ajaxhelper/?CISOROOT=shmmaps&CISOPTR=100&action=2&DMSCALE=100&DMWIDTH=458.724&DMHEIGHT=291.58978211871&DMX=1472.184&DMY=2567.4124718257

    A clip from here - http://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/cdm/singleitem/collection/shmmaps/id/100

    Where did you find the gas station photo?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brad HallMarch 25, 2016 at 3:50 PM

      Thanks! Good stuff! I've had that photo (which is a photocopy of a photocopy) for a long, long time and have no memory where I found it! - Brad

      Delete
  2. AnonymousApril 3, 2021 at 8:44 AM

    I grew up in Cave Creek. Went to the Cactus Drive In frequently in the fifties. Too young for a driver's license but we all drove anyway.

    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