History Adventuring

I love to go see things in Phoenix, especially with friends, but I just hate "tour guides". Now please don't get me wrong, there are some wonderfully entertaining tour guides. Many of these people combine their knowledge with some wonderful humor. In fact, the most popular tour guides are the ones who are comedians - with witty quips, funny stories, that sort of thing. And I respect them, but I just hate to see them get in my way when I just want to see something. To me, it's like someone stepping in front of the Taj Mahal just when I want to see it. Support Arizona history by becoming a patron on Patreon Click here to become a Patron! To me, tour guides are like the amateur comedians that do the "Dumb-Dumb" classes when you get a speeding ticket. They can help to pass the time, mostly with people who really have no interest in the subject. Yes, we know, we're supposed to not speed. But, officer, I was just keeping up with traffic! And I li

If you've ever been in Phoenix in the summertime, you may have wondered "Why would people live there?" It gets HOT in Phoenix. Not warm, not uncomfortable, but life-threateningly, dangerously, fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot. During the big heat wave recently it was like standing on the sun. And there's no other way to describe it, the city should not exist, it's a monument to man's arrogance! And I agree. So, the question is, where should people live? If you're in Phoenix, chances are your first thought is: San Diego! To which I have one word: earthquakes. I've lived in Southern California, and believe me, if you're a worrying person like me, it's not easy getting a good night's sleep thinking about that. Don't get me wrong, I love coastal California, but putting several huge cities on the San Andreas Fault is really just a monument to man's arrogance. Or confidence. Or faith. Support Arizona history by becoming a patron on P

I've lived in some pretty amazing places in my day, mostly because I just knew that there had to be somewhere that wasn't like where I grew up, which has two seasons: Snow, and Mosquitos. I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So I left there as soon as I figured out how to read a map, and which direction was "West". I came to Phoenix, Arizona, when I was 19, got my degree at Arizona State University, and went to Southern California afterwards, seeking fame and fortune. Fame and fortune I never found, but I was amazed by the places I saw, and even more amazed by the people who were essentially blind to all of it. Mine is the world of palm trees and mountains. It's a place of Arizona sunsets. It never snows in Phoenix, and sometimes it gets so hot that it makes your eyes bug out just to walk out of your house. There are lizards on the walls, and there are trees with green bark (palo verdes). And there are palm trees! There are thunderstorms that are beyond ama

As a history adventurer, I love to see ghost signs. A ghost sign is just a sign on an old building that has been left to fade away. Sometimes they are just about impossible to see, but when I see them I know that I'm time-traveling. There are a lot of ghost signs in Phoenix, but you have to look for them. The easiest ones to see are on the eastern wall of the Fry Building, at 2nd Street and Washington. When Dan Majerle opened his restaurant there in the '90s, he made sure to carefully reveal the old signs that had been painted on the brick. If you're wondering they're real, they are. Sometimes ghost signs are faked for effect, but those are real. The building goes back to 1885, and while the ghost signs aren't that old, they're pretty old. Ghost sign on the St. Francis Hotel and Apartments, usually referred to as Steineggers (the original name), visible from the alley south of Monroe between Central Avenue and 1st Street. Sometimes you have to walk d

I just finished reading "Two Years Before the Mast", which is simple narrative story of a young man who spends two years (1835-6) on a ship that sails from Boston, Massachusetts, around the tip of South America, and spends a lot of time on the coast of California. The book is public domain, and you can read it for free. I spent 99 cents to get it on my Nook (an ereader), and I have to admit that it wasn't really catching my attention until it got to places that I recognized, like San Diego, and Santa Barbara. And then the term "Sandwich Islands" was mentioned, so I looked it up. It was what Hawaii was called back then! How about that? When the author visited California it still belonged to Mexico, and Hawaii was still called the Sandwich Islands. If you read the book, you'll see Los Angeles mentioned, as "El Pueblo" when they stop at San Pedro. Of course, the rest of the names you'll know, such as Monterey, and San Francisco. When the

Time-travel with me. It's 1918 and I don't feel so well. I think I'm going to the hospital. Luckily, it's St. Joseph's in Phoenix, Arizona. The hospital is over on 4th Street and Polk, not far from where I live here on Melinda's Alley, and a friend of mine is coming over with his buck wagon. It's a hot day here in Phoenix, but I feel cold. I must have a fever. 1918 article about Mother Paul, the Sisters of Mercy, and St. Joseph's Hospital I've heard good things about St. Joseph's Hospital, I even saw an article in the paper yesterday. Old-timers still call it the Sister's Hospital. I wonder how Mother Paul is doing? She founded the hospital twenty-five years ago, so she must be pleased at how much its grown. I'm sure I'll be OK. I'm young and strong, and the Sisters will take good care of me. St. Joseph's Hospital in the 1940s, 4th Street and Polk, Phoenix, Arizona St. Joseph's Hospital in its newest

I know it's late, but I'm hungry. It's 1917 in Phoenix, Arizona and I'd like to go get a chop at Gass Brothers. Come along with me. It's easy to find, just look at that neon. It's right there on Central, between Washington and Adams, you can't miss it. I'm driving my dad's automobile so we'll be there in no time. I'll park right out front. This is going to cost us some money, but don't worry, I can cover it. The good old days of being able to get a meal for a quarter are long-gone, I know, and the war is driving up prices, too, I'm told. But order whatever you want, this is a special night. I'm going to get a chop. The interior of the Gass Brothers in 1915 Let's sit at the counter. Here comes the waiter, order a cup of coffee for me, I'm going to visit the loo. Tell them to put everything on my dad's tab. Sure, get whatever you want. I'll be right back. Gass Brothers Chop House in the 1930s

People who know me know that I'm a believer in equality. I am a follower of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said that we should judge someone based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. And interesting enough, I fell into a category that a lot of people didn't consider worthy of that equality, a male Anglo-Saxon straight man. And it's how people have treated me that I have judged the content of their character. Because there are things you can't change, the color of your skin, your gender, your sexual orientation. And if those things are held against you, especially in your career, it's horrible. My career started in the 1980s in Los Angeles, in the era of quotas. A "quota" meant that a manager had to hire people based on race, and gender. As a white guy, I knew that I wasn't going to fill any quotas, and it made me nervous. Yes, things have gotten better, but back then this was a road being built with best intentions th

If you're fan of Los Angeles history, you know that the full name of LA is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora, la Reina de los Angeles" (the town of our Lady the Queen of the Angels) and that it was named by Spain. I just finished reading the book "Two Years Before the Mast", and while I can't recommend it as a thrilling page-turner, for someone like me who's interested in California history, it's wonderful. It's just the ordinary day-to-day life of a young man on a ship that sails from Boston, Massachusetts to California in 1835-36. At that time, California was owned by Mexico (they had kicked the Spanish out), but of course the language of the land was still Spanish. The author, who was just doing a couple of years of adventuring before he went to college, describes in wonderful detail what the coast of California was like then, from San Diego to San Francisco. But what really caught my eye was when he was talking about the area that I know abou

I'm hungry, let's go get some Chinese Food. We're in Phoenix, Arizona in 1917, and I know the best place in town - the American Kitchen, run by Yee Sing. 1903 ad for the opening of the American Kitchen I've been going there since it opened, in 1903, and it's great. Yes, of course you can get Chow Mein. I understand it's very popular in San Francisco! And no, I have no idea why Yee calls his restaurant "the American Kitchen". Maybe because he's from China, and this place is in America. Maybe we should ask him. Of course he speaks English! 1906 ad for the American Kitchen It's just north of Washington, on Center Street. Wow, I can smell those Chinese Noodles from here. I'm hungry! I've been helping out the Blacksmith all week, and I've got thirty-five cents in my pocket, so I'm going to get the full meal. You can get a short order if you want to. Boy howdy, that was good! We'll have to go back soon. I got th

Like most people who attended Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, I fell in and out of love many, many, times, but I knew that was too young for marriage. The mention of marriage made some friends of mine accuse girls of looking for their "M.R.S. Degree", and I'd always heard that anyone who got married had to drop out of school. But like so many things I thought I knew, I was wrong. A good friend of mine got married while he was going to ASU. I attended the wedding, which was held in a little "get married under neon lights" chapel on Van Buren. I remember meeting his wife, who spoke very little English at the time. I remember seeing their first born, whose nose I would pull off (if you've never seen the trick, it's done by holding your thumb between your fingers and turning your hand sideways, revealing what looks like a little nose). I would say, "¡Mira, tengo su nariz!" (Look, I have your nose!). My friend stayed in school, w

I could use a cup of coffee, how about you? It's 1899 and we're just west of Phoenix Arizona, and there are a lot of places in town, but my favorite place is Coffee Al's. If you don't mind hitching up Autumn and Rapunzel to the wagon, I'll go see if I can find some money. My parents left some greenbacks sitting around here, and I guess I'll use them in town. Most people only accept silver and gold coins, but these will have to do, hopefully they'll pass, because I need to get a lot of stuff in town. What's this? An old Confederate coin? Wonder if it's worth anything now? Probably not. Let's get moving. The sun's coming up and we're going due east, so I'm going to tip my hat over my eyes and let the horses just find the way. When we get to that area where the Cave Creek floods I'll know that we're almost in town. I understand that those darn fools are building the Capitol Building right there. Here we are, entering

There are a lot of shameful ways that non-white people were treated in the history of Phoenix, and if you really can't find a lot, well, that's not surprising. It doesn't paint a glamorous picture of a place when you mention Segregation, or Jim Crow Laws, or the Ku Klux Klan. But I'm gonna talk a little bit about it here. I'm interested in Phoenix history, and exactly how everyone lived is important to me, even if doesn't paint a pretty picture. No, I'm not trying to spoil an image of "the good old days". I like the West of the Imagination as much as anyone, you know, the Wild, Wild West. But if you know about the era of the west, you know that there's a big difference between imagination and reality. Let's start with the end of the Civil War. What a lot of people don't realize is that not only were Black people freed from slavery, they were given the same inalienable rights that were written into the Declaration of Independenc

It's Friday night and I could use a drink. However, it's 1921, and we're in Phoenix, Arizona, and intoxicating beverages are illegal. The sale of beer, wine, and spirits has been illegal in the United States since the passing of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. And it's been illegal in Arizona since 1915. But that's OK, I know where to go. Walk with me, I know a place. The place I know is called a "Speakeasy". I like to call these places "Blind Pigs", but there are a lot of names for places where you can get a beer, or a glass or wine, or some whiskey. You just have to know somebody, and you know me. Let's go. No, there are no signs, so don't bother looking. I heard from a friend of a friend that there's a Speakeasy somewhere in Melinda's Alley, behind the Adams Hotel. Let's see, I'll knock on this door. The password is "Service and Cooperation". We're in. Yes, there are a lot of peopl

As someone who's interested in history, I'm interested in learning the names of things. It's true that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet", but if you want to learn about roses, you have to start by learning the word "rose", if you see what I mean. I like doing original research. That is, I dislike history books, or pre-packaged stuff. I take the time to look through old newspapers, vintage books, that sort of thing. And in order to find things there, you have to know what they were called back in the day. Of course times change. How we use the language changes, what is acceptable in polite society changes. And I'm OK with what is called being "politically correct", which means to show modern respect by avoiding using terms that have become offensive over time. I'm old enough to remember hearing stuff as a kid that no one gave a second thought to, but would now get you a punch in the nose (and you would deserve it) if

No, you don't have to speak Spanish to live in Los Angeles, or Phoenix, but it's kinda cool if you do. It introduced me to some way cool people, and helped me understand the history of that area, going back to when the only language spoken there was Spanish. You know, the days of Zorro! Like most people, I learned a foreign language in High School. I chose Spanish, and took two semesters of it in Minneapolis, where I was born and raised. And really, that should have been the end of my use of it. There may have been Spanish-speaking people in Minneapolis in the '70s, but I don't recall any. My idea, by the way, was to move away from the snow and cold and go live in Mexico. I never did that, I moved to Phoenix. When I started at ASU I met my first real, honest-to-goodness Spanish-speaking Hispanic person. I'll call him Miguel, because that's his name. He had been born in Mexico and had been in the United States since he was five. He was also the very first

I really don't remember the billboards of Phoenix. By the time I got to Phoenix, in 1977, they were going away. Before that, from what I've been learning from collecting old photos of Phoenix, they were everywhere, the "pop-up ads" of old Phoenix. Of course, there are still billboards in Phoenix, but nothing compared to the amount that covered the valley prior to the 1970s. I'm interested in advertising, and I've studied some history, and apparently there was quite a backlash against how they were making American cities ugly by the 1960s, and there was even the "Highway Beautification Act" of 1965 that included limiting billboards on America's scenic highways. The message was clear: billboards were ugly, and people were tired of seeing them. The reason that I'm aware of the tremendous number of billboards is because I visit the Duke University Digital Collections site, looking for images of Phoenix. The site is dedicated to advertising

Back in the 1970s, I watched a TV show that was called "Happy Days". It was an idealized view of the world of the 1950s, and it seemed so very far away from the modern world. It tied into nostalgia that people were feeling for a time long ago. And a few days ago I realized that Happy Days were set only twenty years previous to the time of the show. And I did the math - and that meant that the Happy Days now would be the 1990s. It sounded ridiculous to me - the world doesn't seem all that different from the 1990s. Does it? For me, the '90s were all about dedicating my life to golf. I had played precious little in California, which was too crowded and too expensive, so when I moved back to Phoenix in '89, that's just about all I wanted to do. I recall vaguely having a job, and doing other stuff, but my mind was always on golf. The foursome in the picture there, Mike Binder, John Boucher, Scott "James" Bond, and myself, at the Foothills Golf Co

The "good old days" is an expression that I hear a lot. I collect old photos of Phoenix, and share them on a Facebook page, and one of the most common comments I see is when someone is remembering the good old days, when life wasn't so complicated, and Phoenix was a better place to live. And it can be any era, it just depends on the individual. I like to time-travel in my imagination to these times, so today I'm going to go back to the 2000s in Phoenix. The good old days! Come along with me. Let's start at my favorite golf course in Phoenix, Cave Creek. I haven't played there for a while, but it's where I would always go. It's a big municipal course, and it's much less expensive than most other golf courses, and it's big and wide. I could always hit 'em far, but just not very accurately, and I like big, wide golf courses. The Cave Creek Golf Course built on top of a landfill, and I've been playing it, like, forever.  When I first s

If I've learned anything from collecting and sharing old photos of Phoenix, I've learned that there were always "good old days". Those were the days when life was simpler, when everything was better, the time before all of the things that are around now changed everything. And the good old days will always be whenever people say they were. Today will be the good old days some day. For me, the good old days in Phoenix were the 1990s. Time-travel with me to a time when people didn't carry around cell phones, when they couldn't get a question answered in seconds on Google. It may be hard to imagine, but it was true. When the 1990s started, there was still a bank in Phoenix called "Valley National Bank". Yes, I know it sounds like I'm making it up, but that's what it was called. I worked there, in the Marketing Department, as a Graphic Designer, and we had just started using Macintosh Computers, which were made by a company called Apple. T