Where to get a bargain in old-time Phoenix - Five Points


Five Points is the intersection of 7th Avenue, Van Buren, and Grand in Phoenix. The reason that it's called Five Points, is that you can go in five different directions from that intersection - 1) west on Van Buren, 2) east on Van Buren, 3) south on 7th Avenue, 4) north on 7th Avenue and 5) northwest on Grand.

Let's time-travel back to Phoenix in 1913. This is waaaayy out on the edge of town. And there's no trolley to that destination, so it's kinda difficult to get to. You can walk there, or you can take one of those new fangled "automobiles", or you can ride a horse. But since there's no trolley line to there, it's not as convenient a place to shop as most other shopping areas in Phoenix, so it's a place for bargains. Kind of like Outlet Stores are nowadays.

In the 1913 ad at the top of this post, it looks like walking there was being encouraged. And they're showing why you should be able to get bargains at Five Points stores. Even though it's only five blocks from the Post Office (which was on Van Buren and 1st Avenue), it's out of the "high rent district". Other benefits were live, energetic merchants, and hitching posts to tie your team (of horses). And there was a Post Office there, too. Post Offices were very important back then!

Let's walk over to Five Points. Everybody's doing it now. We can go to the Famer's Exchange, the Missouri Clothing Store, Five Points Barber Shop, the Cowboy Corral, the Variety Store, the Blue House, Five Points Livery, Osborne Concrete Company, Five Points Painting Shop, L.C. Eblen Hardware, the Golden Star, Henderson Brothers (I need a fly swatter!), the Log Cabin Bakery, Smith and Mason Blacksmiths, W.E. Atkinson, the Arizona Bottling Works, William Wetzler, and the J.D. Halstead Lumber Company.

Thanks for visiting Five Points with me today! My ankle hurts, so can I ride your horse back into town?

O.S. Stapley at Five Points in the 1940s. As of this writing, the building is still there, on Grand north of Van Buren.


1894 ad for Five Points Saloon. Pepper's whiskey and the coolest and freshest glass of draught (draft) beer in the city at 5 cents.


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