History Adventuring

Let's go drink some whiskey with Jack Swilling. If the name sounds familiar, you've probably heard of the Swilling Canal Company, which is working on a canal in the Salt River Valley. Yes, it was on the front page of the Arizona Miner yesterday. No, it's not Suilling, that's a misprint, it's Swilling. No, it's not Shilling, either. I hear that he's in town here in Prescott, and I think we'll find him over on Whiskey Row. Come on, we can tie up the horses and walk from here. Jack Swilling in 1867, the founder of Phoenix, Arizona. There he is, at the table back there, let's go introduce ourselves. I'll grab a bottle from the bar, and here are a couple of glasses. I've heard a lot about this guy, and not all of it is good, so don't ask too many questions. He's ex-Confederate, and I'm Union, but the war's been over for years, and I'm a believer in what Lincoln said about "malice towards none". There yo...

History adventuring is a lot of fun. I've been doing it, uh, longer than I care to admit and I hope that I can do it until this old body is finished - which I'm know will be a long, long time! If you're wondering how history adventuring is done, let me tell you that you've already started. That's because it begins in your imagination. If fact, if you don't have any imagination, you can't do it. Luckily, we all have it. For most people it begins at age four, and if you're one of the lucky ones, it never goes away, no matter how much the world tries to beat it out of you. If the world has beaten it out of you, you can regain it, I guarantee that. It just takes a different way of thinking, the kind you knew when you were four. So put away your history books, there won't be a test. Because the history adventuring is just an excuse for imagination. It's just a reference point to get your mind, and possibly your body, moving. You can start anywh...

Like everyone, I enjoy getting a bargain. But as a typical man, I most often have no idea what the price of anything is supposed to be. I do have a vague idea that a box of Kleenex shouldn't cost me $123.00 (which I've seen on eBay) but other than that, I'm no mastermind of prices and bargains. Since I collect old photos of Phoenix, one of my favorite fantasies had to do with how cheap things used to be. I would look at the prices and just marvel at what bargains you could get! And then I made the mistake of starting to research, and found that I was making the same mistake that a lot of people make - I was spending money based on how much money I have today, in the 21st Century. As I write this, I have some change sitting next to me which would easily buy me all the food that I wanted at the New Palace Cafeteria in 1914. In fact, I could invite my friends, and they could have all they want. If someone wanted some fried sausage with mashed potatoes, I would give them...

If you like Phoenix history, you know that Glendale, Arizona was a community created by William Murphy along the western end of the canal that his company built in 1885, the Arizona Canal, which is still there, as is Glendale, Arizona. I live in Glendale. But a lot of people don't know that it started as a Temperance Colony. That is, a place where the sale of intoxicants (beer, wine and liquor) was illegal by local law. Before I go any further, don't panic, Glendale isn't dry anymore. You can buy as much beer, wine, and liquor as you want. And it's been perfectly legal there since 1933, when National Prohibition was repealed. And apparently the beginnings of Glendale as a Temperance Colony were forgotten. As the ad at the top of this article states, Attention is called to the Temperance Colony of Glendale. The location is made upon the choicest fruit lands of the valley. No more beautiful site could be selected. The town is well planned for convenience and securi...

If you live in Phoenix, you know where the Black Canyon Road is. It's the I-17 freeway, which replaced the Black Canyon Highway, which is at about 27th Avenue. But not in old-time Phoenix! In the map above, you're looking at what would be 7th Avenue on the left and 7th Street on the right nowadays. And north of the city limits, which in 1897, was at Van Buren, 7th Avenue was the Black Canyon Road and 7th Street was the Cave Creek Road. Yeah, that one has moved too, about the same distance, to about 28th Street. Of course Phoenix has grown since then. And after many years it gets kind of confusing. Many of the street names in Phoenix have changed as the city grew. And if you think about it, it makes sense. Once you're out of town, the logical thing to name a road is for its destination. And that's how 7th Avenue became the Black Canyon Road, because it was the road to Black Canyon, as 7th Street was the road to Cave Creek. If you look more carefully at the map...

If you live somewhere for a long time, or if you've always lived there, it's natural to become blind to it. Of course the whole world is a wonderful, magical place, but many people stay in exactly the same bored "seen-it-all" attitude that they had when they were 18. I know that I knew everything, and had seen everything, when I was 18, and it was vitally important for me to yawn at everything, because I was all grown up, and so cool. Then I turned 19 and it all went away in a flash. I moved from Minnesota to Arizona and allowed myself to just absolutely stand there in amazement when I got to Phoenix. My jaw dropped when I saw my first cactus actually growing out of the ground . When I saw my first palm tree in real life, I walked up to it and touched it. I was a stranger in a strange land, and I loved it. As I recall there were minor nuisances to deal with, like going to school, and working. But between that I would watch sunsets. I probably missed very few su...

Time-travel with me. Today in my imagination I will be playing football for Glendale Junior College in 1969. In this story I'm a graduate of Maryvale High School and I'm about to run onto Matt O. Hanhila Field, at Glendale Junior College, which is at 63rd Avenue and Olive in Glendale, Arizona. Just to clarify, this isn't me, it's just a story. I was never that tough! Glendale Junior College is only four years old, and I'm glad to be there. It's a beautiful Arizona day, although it's about 100 degrees, but that's OK, I'm tough! I'm born and raised in Phoenix, so the heat doesn't bother me. Well, not much, it may be 101, or it may only be 99, I really don't know. There's the coach, Carl Rollins! He looks like a tough guy, and I suppose he'll push us. He reminds me a little of Vince Lombardi, so I'll be listening to him! I'll admit to being a little nervous earlier today, but now that I'm on the field it feels grea...

One of the worst possible things to have on your property in Phoenix, Arizona is grass. In the long run, you're much better off doing an attractive xeriscape landscape, which will use a whole lot less water and cost a lot less to care for. But doing that takes a fair amount of initial investment, and in the meantime if you have grass, you have to deal with it. I did it for years. If you're from back east, like I am, it will probably come as a surprise to you that most of the lawns in Phoenix are that terrible weed, Bermuda grass. Yes, the stuff you spray to get rid of on your lawn in Minneapolis is what most lawns are made up of in Phoenix. In fact, just about anything green counts as a lawn in Phoenix, especially in areas that get irrigation, which are made up of a wild combination of weeds. As a person from Minneapolis, I learned that when I had a property that was irrigated in Tempe. You simply dump water on it, and whatever is there turns green. Or greenish. It does se...

I've seen some amazing changes in the Phoenix area, and I continue to be optimistic about its future. I've had the privilege of meeting some of the people who see potential when most people would just give up. If you knew Priscilla Cook (she died in 2017), you know what I mean. I've always called these people "unrealistically optimistic", and they're wonderful. I met Priscilla Cook in the '90s when I was out exploring Peoria on my bike. I'd always liked looking around at old buildings, and I had just bought a house in Glendale, and I guess I was just out riding around. This was at about the same time that I discovered Weedville, and I was just looking around. I stopped my bike in front of what used to be the Peoria Central School, in Old Town Peoria, on 83rd Avenue west of Grand, and was just looking around, and poked my head in the door to ask what all of this was all about, and I found that the beginning of a history museum had been formed. Th...

I like living in beautiful places. When I was old enough to leave home, I did. My goal at the time was to just get away from the cold and snow of Minneapolis, and as the years went by I pondered where I should live? Like most young people I was mostly concerned about earning money, so when I graduated from ASU I moved to Los Angeles, which was to me "the big city", where I could make my way. Turns out that LA is a lot tougher than I had thought, and a friend of mine from Phoenix recommended that I go see a business associate of his in Santa Barbara, which is about an hour north of LA. I got the job, but there was no reason for me to stay in my apartment in Los Angeles, so I moved to Santa Barbara, and was there for three years. And in Santa Barbara I fell in love with the idea of living in a beautiful city. If you've ever visited there, you know. And a beautiful city is worth money, make no mistake. Those ocean views and mountain views add up to serious serious Real ...

As a graphic designer, I've always enjoyed looking at ads. When I went to ASU I studied advertising in the Business College, and I remember going to see the Clio Awards, which were shown over by the Art Building every year, which showed the best commercials of the year, chosen by people in the industry. Thirty years later, they're hilarious. I still get a big kick out of looking at old ads. And times really have changed, even in my lifetime, ads aren't quite as tricky as they used to be, new laws have been enforced which at least try to provide "Truth in Advertising". We've gotten used to ads that no longer come right out and lie, and promise things that nobody in their right mind would believe. I grabbed the image above from my collection of old advertising in the Phoenix area, which was for the Oxypathor, which apparently would cure any disease. And it's funny, but it also worries me a bit. I've often joked about "Chamber of Commerce" ...

If you're a hiker, or a tree-hugger like me, and live in Phoenix, Arizona, you try to visit areas of beauty. It can be mountain views, or preserved desert land, it might even be gardens. In my life I've tried to be open-minded about buildings, and parking lots, and plowed fields, and fences, but even though I do go "urban hiking" I much prefer being away from man-made stuff. Luckily, I live in Phoenix where that beauty can still be visited, right nearby. But I understand the need for the land to be put to better use than just beauty. Every view can't be set aside, people need places to live, to drive, to shop, to eat. If the neighborhood where I live had remained original desert, I wouldn't have a place to plug in my computer. But I try to imagine the desert before here before it was put to practical use. My house is on the edge of the original Bartlett Ranch, now called the Sahuaro Ranch, in Glendale, which goes back to the 1890s. Before that, of cours...

If you've driven much in Phoenix, you've probably been on a road called Indian School. And if you wondered if there was an Indian School, yes, there was. It was there from 1891 until 1990, on Indian School Road between Central Avenue and 3rd Street. As a history adventurer, normally I'm pretty casual about misunderstandings about the history of Phoenix. I try to grin and bear it, accept that information gets garbled, things get confused. But the story of this school to the history of Phoenix, Arizona and the Southwest is so important that makes me sad to hear so many people misunderstand. I've been learning and writing about this for years, and the truth is amazing. It's all about an alliance. Walk with me. We have to time-travel back to 1863, when the Five Tribes Treaty of Peace was signed. If you've been to the celebration, which has been held at the Gila River Indian Community every year for over 150 years, you know about this. If not, you have to unde...

I'm getting a big kick helping my friend Russ Williams create the History Adventuring videos. Well, he does all of the work, I just provide the encouragement. He's basing them on the stuff that I've been writing about for years, and he's starting with things that catch his attention. He's already done a video about why Baseline Road is called that, and currently he's finishing up the one on Grand Avenue. Not sure what he has planned for the next one, it may be the Indian School, I really don't know yet. That's how it works! I've offered this type of help to anyone who wants to make use of the stuff that I've collected, and that means the photos I've found, and the information I've found. My only goal is that these things don't end up in the trash, or being forgotten, or locked up in boxes somewhere. I've invested a lot of time, and will give more, but that's it. I don't have pockets deep enough for publishing, or vide...

Several years ago I started collecting old photos of Phoenix. I've always liked old photos, but I've never liked photos without captions. That is, I wanted to know where something was, and when it was. Without that, to me old photos are boring, and pointless. And it has became something like detective work for me. I started posting old Phoenix photos in 2011 on a site called "Google Plus", and little by little the corrections came in. I have to admit that everything looked pretty much the same to me, the old intersections, the old buildings. And I would post something with a description, and someone would say, "Dude, that's not Washington, that's Adams", that sort of thing. Then I'd go and do some research, and if I was convinced, I'd update the caption, and the file name. And I started calling these people Phoenix History Detectives, which I shortened to PhDs. Being a PhD isn't easy. It's earned by having documentation. Since ...

I was talking to one of my top PhDs (Phoenix History Detectives) today about how ridiculous it is that Scottsdale created an artificial image, starting in the late forties, as "the West's Most Western Town", and I thought that, as an old Marketing guy, I would try to explain why that happened, and why it made Scottsdale so successful. First of all, let me clarify that Scottsdale really does go back to the 1800s. It's not quite as old as Phoenix, or Tempe, but it's been there for a long time. It grew up with the Arizona Canal, which was completed in 1885. And like Phoenix and Tempe it began as an agricultural area. And yes, cowboys lived there, and rode horses around and all of that stuff. But Scottsdale became wildly successful because it paid attention to a market that was exploding after World War II, tourism. Scottsdale, Arizona in the 1950s, building its image as the West's Most Western Town. It still looks a lot like this to this day, in Old Town...

As a time-traveler, I'm as interested in the future as I am of the past. And if you want to predict what will happen in the future in Phoenix, all you have to do is understand its past. Personally, I'm not interested in investing. But if you are, I think that I can help. Because Phoenix has been doing the same thing over and over and over since 1870. And since you're an investor, I'd like you to take a look at people who took some big risks, like Jack Swilling, or Dwight Heard. If you've never heard of these people, that's where you should start - they created Phoenix, Arizona. They looked at nothing but dust and dirt and imagined a city. I call these kinds of people "unrealistically optimistic". You may want to learn about William Murphy, who decided to dig a canal in 1885 all of the way from north of where Apache Junction is now to the Agua Fria River, which is west of Peoria. It was a privately-funded canal, dug by hand. Well, they had mules,...

I like gardens, I like trees, I like flowers. All of my life I've sought these things out because of their beauty, because they sooth me. And it all folds into my interest in art, design, aesthetics, and beauty. It just seems perfectly natural to me to invest time and money into this, and expect no other reward than seeing a flower blooming, or to stand under the dappled shade of a tree. And I tend to resist things that I call "utilitarian" - like wider roads, more parking, more buildings, and the things that, well, people need to live, basics of life, like farms. I grew up in the Midwest and I've seen farms. A lot of farms. And while many people consider them scenic, that's probably because they've only seen them from a distance, or they probably don't know many people who earn their living farming. Their main purpose isn't scenery, it's function. And that function is to use the ground in the most efficient way possible to grow things that ca...

On March 12th, 1868, Jack Swilling and his crew completed work on the first modern canal in the Salt River Valley. And that was the very first step towards the creation of the modern city of Phoenix, Arizona. If you've never heard of Jack Swilling, or any of this, it's not surprising. As a "founding father" Jack really wasn't the kind of person that we tend to make statues of. In fact, he's a bit of an embarrassment. If you know about Jack, you know that. He was an ex-confederate soldier, a violent alcoholic, and a criminal. And no, I'm not putting him down, that's just who he was. And since he really hasn't fit in well with the squeaky-clean image that we would like for historic figures, he's kinda been shuffled aside. And I agree that we don't want to glorify people who were like that, but we do want to remember what he did. He created Phoenix, Arizona. Jack Swilling and his adopted Apache son in 1867 I've known a lot of p...

As someone who is learning about Arizona history, I try to get the names right. And that includes subtle details like whether or not the word "the" is used. I've seen the word "Grand" used a lot in Arizona, as in Grand Canyon, Grand Avenue, and Grand Canal. And I've wondered if it it should be the Grand Canyon, the Grand Avenue, and the Grand Canal? I'll tell you what I've found out. 1944 Grand Avenue crossing on Grand Canal, Phoenix, Arizona. Even in old documents, I've seen "Grand Canyon" and "the Grand Canyon" used. The same with Grand Canal and the Grand Canal. I've never seen the Grand Avenue, but streets aren't typically called "the" (although freeways are). On the Grand Canal in 1896, Phoenix, Arizona If I'm writing about the history of Phoenix, I like to say "Grand Canal", as in "the pioneers finished Grand Canal in 1885". To me it just sounds more, well, grand...

My latest journey is to discover more about South Scottsdale, and oddly enough it seems to make sense for me to start with its future. I just spoke to one of my best PhD (Phoenix History Detective) on South Scottsdale, and I think I'm starting to assemble some facts. The first thing that I wanted to know is where exactly IS South Scottsdale? Of course, you could look at a map and divide the city by north and south, or you could look at some report written by some official, but those things never work for me. I wanted to know what someone who knows the area calls it. This wasn't easy, as my friend is a cheerful, talkative fellow who likes to tell stories, but he put up with my interruptions over and over again, as we're old friends. He's lived in South Scottsdale for a long time and cares about the area, so I trust him. I wanted to see it from his point of view. To my surprise, he defined South Scottsdale as going as far north as Indian Bend Road. That is, where th...

I like trees. I look at them a lot, and I'm especially fascinated by eucalyptus trees, which are native to Australia. They grow extremely well in the Phoenix area, but I'd never seen them as a kid growing up in Minneapolis, because it's too cold there. If you had described a tree to me that never shed its leaves, but instead shed its bark, I would have thought you were describing something from Mars. But these amazing trees are very real. And yes, many of them shed their bark, like the one in the pic up there. When I first saw them, here in Phoenix, I would walk up and touch the trunk. I still do. My weird behavior isn't understood by Phoenix locals, who grew up there, but visitors understand. And I will always be a visitor here, a stranger in a strange land. Walk with me. The greater Phoenix area isn't a desert, it's a garden, an oasis. Water has been flowing through this valley for thousands of years, and in the last 100 years or so it's been channe...

If you're a fan of Arizona history, you've heard of the Lost Dutchman mine. People are still looking for it, and it's supposedly in the the Superstition Mountains near Apache Junction, Arizona, which is east of Phoenix. Legend has it that it was the greatest gold mine in the area, with huge chunks of gold, right there, just for the taking. 1909 article about the Lost Dutchman mine. According to the story, the mine was discovered by a man named Jacob Waltz, who was born in 1808 and died in 1891. And whether his fabulous mine ever existed no one knows, but Jacob Waltz did exist, and he was one of thousands of people who mined for gold, silver, and other precious minerals around the Phoenix area. Since his mine was considered lost, it was named after what most people called him, "the Dutchman" and the mine was called the Lost Dutchman mine. So Jacob has been called the Lost Dutchman. Of course, it was his mine that was lost, not himself, but that's the ...