Visiting the Phoenix town Marshal in 1885, Henry Garfias


Let's go visit the town Marshal. Sure, I know him, and you know me, so let's go. He lives over on Papago, a few blocks west of Center Street, on Jefferson. It's the house there with the widow's walk on top of it. Yes, I'm sure he'll let us go up there!

I've known him since he came to town, in '74. He's a good guy, and the best shot I've ever seen. Amazing. He's getting on in years now, nearly 35, so don't say anything to him about that, he may be touchy on the subject.

Hello, Mrs. Garfias! Is your husband around? What a cute baby! Oh never mind, I can hear him in the backyard, practicing his shooting. Do you mind if we go and say hi?

Howdy, Marshal! I'd like you to meet my friend, he's heard a lot about you. Yes, he speaks a little Spanish, but I don't, so if you don't mind, let's keep it in English. Yes, we met Luisa, she's out front with the baby.

And here she is! Thank you, Mrs. Garfias! No, this is fine. Nice place you got here. Can I see the baby? Kitschy-kitschy! What? Sure I'd be glad to hold her. What's her name? Maria? That's a nice name. She's going to see a lot of changes to Phoenix, maybe even paved roads someday!

Me? No, I just work down at the stables. I've seen your husband in action, he's amazing. With lawmen like him, Phoenix has a real chance of becoming a big city some day. Yes, I like it here, I'm going to stay, maybe become a lawman myself one day. Can you teach me how to shoot, Marshal?

Image at the top of this post: the Garfias house in 1885, Jefferson and Papago (now 3rd Avenue), Phoenix, Arizona. From C.J. Dyer's Birdeye View of Phoenix, Library of Congress.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 1, 2020 at 11:27 AM

    Our great grandfather bought this property/house (JJ Hardwick) in the early 1900's and build a theater (Hardwick Theater) on the land. I have a newspaper clipping from it. He also built the Hardwick Hotel down the street. All just history now.

    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