History Adventuring

Since most of the people that I talk to about Phoenix were born after World War II (the generation that was originally called "the Baby Boom", now called Boomers), they can't possibly have much in the way of memories of Phoenix in the 1940s, other than the fact that they were kids. In fact, I was once told, a few years ago, that Phoenix didn't really begin until the 1940s (by someone who was born in the 1940s). And I can understand that point of view. Phoenix didn't really begin for me until the 1980s, when I moved there as a teenager.  Everything that I've learned about Phoenix before that time comes from old photos, from what I've read, and what people have told me. And Phoenix definitely was there before me. In fact, it goes all of the way back to 1870. And even photos from the 1940s seem to be so different from the Phoenix that I know that it kinda freaks me out. Since Phoenix changes so quickly, it can be difficult to imagine what it was like in ...

To my amazement, human scale is returning to downtown Phoenix. And by that, I mean places that people can walk to, places where people can sit outside, places with trees. And it's being done by creating what I'm calling "Ways". Well, that's the best term that I can think of, because they're streets, but not the wide multi-lane streets that Phoenix has developed in the 20th Century, but streets designed for humans. When Phoenix was first laid out, in 1870, the streets were just as wide as they are now, which meant that they were absolutely gigantic. The thought may have been to keep the streets from getting crowded, like the narrow streets back east, or it may have been to allow a wagon to turn around, I really don't know. What I do know is that the scale of the streets started out as being way too big for humans. So the city divided itself into what were called "Ways" or "Alleys". There were a lot of them, like Melinda's Alley,...

Even though Phoenix is in the desert, to really understand it you have to follow the water. And I don't mean lack of it, I mean too much of it. That is, flooding. If you don't live in Phoenix, or if you're new to Phoenix, it may seem strange that a desert city would be in a constant battle with flooding. But it's been the story of Phoenix since the 1860s, and it continues to this day. Let's take a look at the Agua Fria River. As of this writing (January of 2017) there is no flood control on the Agua Fria River. Other rivers in the Phoenix area, such as the Salt River, and the Verde, have been controlled for a long time. Washes that periodically did catastrophic flood damage to Phoenix have been controlled, such as Cave Creek. The Arizona Canal has a Diversion Channel next to it that protects the city of Phoenix all of the way to Peoria from flooding that would be caused by an overflow of the Canal (the water flows south). And there are a LOT of other flood co...

Let's go stay at the Biltmore Hotel in the 1940s. It's waaaayyyy outside of the city limits, at 24th Street and Camelback Road. It's quite a place, and very expensive, so it's lucky we're rich. Actually we're rich and famous, and we want to go somewhere where we can relax and be far away from the crowds, the photographers, the press, and all of that. Got your sunglasses? Let's go! The 1930s have been a rough time, because of the Depression, and the years of World War II weren't very pleasant, either, but now that all of that is behind us, let's go enjoy life a bit. It's January, and I understand that the weather in Phoenix is just gorgeous at this time of year. Sky Harbor in the 1930s We're flying into Sky Harbor. Not much to see, just a landing strip and a few buildings nearby the railroad tracks. It sure is beautiful here in the desert - the air is so fresh and clean. I feel like I'm breathing easier already, even though I...

Today I feel like walking with the Hohokams. Walk with me. If you live in the Phoenix, Arizona area you won't have to walk very far. I'll be walking into my backyard in suburban Glendale. Hohokam is a name that was given to the people who lived in the Salt River Valley (which is where Phoenix is) long before the arrival of the modern people, like the Pimas (Akimel O'odham) or the Apaches. And the word Hohokam simply means "those who have gone". No one really knows anything about them, except that they were here, and that they built gigantic adobe structures, and dug gigantic canals. It must have been amazing to see the ruins, which were a common sight through the 1930s, all over the Phoenix area. If you want to learn more about the Hohokams, I recommend reading the essays of Omar Turney, who was kinda their number one fan. He lived in Phoenix before just about every trace of what they had built was covered up by a modern city. A tiny bit of it is preserved ...

As someone who is fascinated with Phoenix history, I am often saddened by people who look back on "the good old days" and give up on today and tomorrow. I'm not one of those people who wishes that he could "turn back the clock", or "wave a magic wand". I'm interested in being part of the history of Phoenix, and I mean right here, right now, and into the future. Like the pioneers of Phoenix, in the 1860s, I'm "unreasonably optimistic" about the future. When I look back at people like Jack Swilling, or Dwight Heard, I have to wonder what were these guys thinking? Who would live in a place like this? Who would invest? Can you imagine looking out over miles and miles of desert and investing in the Arizona Canal in the 1880s? And how in the world did a gigantic dam get built in 1911? I collect old photos of Phoenix and I know that it often makes people think that I'm one of those people who wishes that Phoenix was the way it use...

I love Phoenix, but it has one serious drawback - it's hot. And I mean crazy hot, like "can't touch your steering wheel if your car has been outside in the sun" hot. It's not quite enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk (I once tried), but it's close. My California friends will visit in the winter, and in the meantime they just offer their sympathy to me for having to live somewhere that gets so hot. Of course, for my friends in Minnesota I explain that it's like the cold there, except that you don't have to shovel heat, like snow. Luckily, there's air conditioning, and shade. Unfortunately, Phoenix is in the Sonoran Desert, which has been dangerously hot since the end of the last Ice Age. But Phoenix has actually been getting hotter since the 1970s, when the trees went away. By the time I got to Phoenix, in 1979, I had no idea that Phoenix had once been a city of trees. I never saw the trees, I've just seen photos of them, and I've ta...

To really understand Phoenix, you have to find the canals. The canals bring water into Phoenix for agriculture, irrigation, and for the daily needs of everyone who takes a shower, or makes a cup of coffee. I'm enjoying some coffee right now, brewed with genuine Salt River water, with a bit of the Verde River added in, for taste. I've known people who've lived in Phoenix all of their lives, or for a very long time, and have no idea what, or where, the canals are. They're water from the Salt and Verde Rivers, which begins as snow melt, is dammed, and then gently released all over the valley. I like to call them the " gentle rivers of Phoenix " and they're always flowing, and have been since the 1800s. And yes, there are fish in them. By the way, I know that a lot of people tend to call anything with water in it a canal. And I know what they mean. Of course there are very few canals - north of the Salt River the two main ones are the Arizona Canal an...

As much as I love Phoenix, I have to admit that the Phoenix that I knew was actually pretty awful. I first saw it in 1977, and by that time it had already become one of the worst air quality cities in the United States, and the downtown area looked like it had been hit with a tornado, there were so many empty lots. But it wasn't until I started collecting old photos of Phoenix that I realized that I had seen Phoenix during its "awkward years". Phoenix is much older than I had ever imagined, going back to 1870. When I first started collecting photos, I would categorize the oldest ones as just "territorial" - but that spanned a big chunk of time, up to 1912. And in that time the Phoenix was transformed from a bare desert to an oasis. And after 1912, it really got started, because of the new dam, Roosevelt, which had been built in 1911. The canals had been built by the pioneers as early as the 1860s (following the path of the abandoned Hohokam Canals), but the...

I finally got to walk around CityScape in downtown Phoenix yesterday. It covers two blocks, with a second story skyway between them, from 1st Street to 1st Avenue. The skyway crosses Central Avenue. I'll try to get back there and take more photos, maybe on a Sunday when there aren't so many people around. Taking photos when people are walking by is a creepy thing to do, and although I'm interested in the architecture, it doesn't look like that. Personally, I prefer that people not take photos where there are a lot of people, and so I try to follow my own advice. And that's the whole point! People! Lots of them, walking around. CityScape has created something that didn't exist when I worked downtown in the '90s, human scale. Safe places to walk. Well, I nearly got creamed by someone on a bicycle, but it's certainly safer than I remember. Since I collect old photos of Phoenix, a lot of people mistakenly believe that I'm wishing for the "goo...

If you're like most people who live in Phoenix, or Los Angeles, when you want to go somewhere, you immediately head for the nearest freeway. There are a LOT of freeways in Los Angeles, and in the past couple of decades, quite a few have been built in Phoenix. As someone who's lived in both places, I understand the logic. Freeways are designed to get cars from one place to another with the minimum of obstacles. Surface streets have stoplights, cars turning, that sort of thing. Freeways do one thing - they move forward quickly. At least that's the theory. When I lived in Los Angeles, over thirty years ago, the freeways looked more like parking lots than anything else. And I understand that it's gotten even more crowded there nowadays! And while the Phoenix freeways certainly aren't as congested as the ones in Los Angeles, they're often jammed down to a crawl, making them an unpleasant experience. Don't get me wrong - I love freeways, and when they...

As someone who's lived in Phoenix, and Los Angeles, I understand it when people say that they don't want Phoenix to end up like LA. And by that they meant smog, congestion, jammed freeways, that sort of thing. Because of that, Phoenix resisted building freeways. When I moved to Phoenix, in 1979, there was only one freeway. One. And Phoenix was already a pretty sizable town, so it was very difficult to drive, for example from Glendale to Scottsdale. The route was to go on Bell Road, as quickly as possible, and stopping every few blocks for the lights. The idea, of course, was that if Phoenix didn't build freeways, it wouldn't get crowded and congested, and have jammed freeways. That was the logic. Another thing that Phoenix resisted was density. Places like LA were congested, and crowded, and Phoenix was wide-open. To this day Phoenix has an incredible amount of open, empty lots all over. Nowadays people speak of "infill", but this would have sounded too...

It's January, and I've been watching the invasion of the Californians at this time of year for over a decade now. They're here for the big car shows in Scottsdale. I used to live in Los Angeles, and I have a lot of friends in California, so I have a great affection for Californians. They're weird, and the best part is that most of them have no idea how wonderfully weird they are. If you've never lived in California, you may be puzzled by their behavior when they descend on the Phoenix area in January. They're only here for a few weeks, so you have to enjoy the weirdness while it lasts. Here are some of the things that they do: • On motorcycles, they split lanes. Yes, it's perfectly legal in California for a motorcycle to pass between cars, between lanes. It's wildly dangerous, and yes, a lot of people get killed doing that. There's really no need to do it in Phoenix, as traffic is rarely as dense as in Los Angeles, but I remember seeing moto...

I love living in the Phoenix area, mostly because of the Chuckbox restaurant in Tempe, which I've been going to, as often as I could, since I was struggling to get my degree at ASU. For years while I lived in California, I dreamed of being able to go get a burger there, and now that I live way on the west side, I don't get there as often as I'd like. It's January, and my California friends will be visiting soon for the big car shows, and I know that it means I'll be going to the Chuckbox, and Gallagher's, and Parsons. Now waitaminute, I'm not advertising restaurants. I just love these places. And I vote them for stay in the only way that actually makes a difference. No, I don't click "like" or forward emails, I go there, I buy stuff. I vote with the one thing that makes a difference: money. Well, actually my California friends take me there, but you see what I mean. I've seen a lot of people complain about the places that they love i...

When I read about the end of Ichabod in 1929, I was reminded how important little things are to a city, a community, and to people. Ichabod was just a tree. And it's hard for me to believe that so many people seem to miss these details, which are ultimately the most important things we have, like people, unique and one-of-a-kind. If you don't know about Ichabod, it was a Eucalyptus tree that was next to the Heard Building in downtown Phoenix, along an alley called "Melinda's Alley", sometimes called "Adams Alley", sometimes "Our Alley". It's between Adams and Monroe on Central Avenue. Ichabod was a big old tree, and the people who worked in the Heard Building were the ones who named it. It was behind the old Occidental Boarding Rooms, which went back to Territorial Days. Whether the tree did or not, I have no idea, but I imagine that it did. It probably saw Arizona become a State in 1912. And in 1929, progress had moved on, and it h...