History Adventuring

Although I do most of my history adventuring in my imagination, with the help of the internet, sometimes I can do part of it IRL - In Real Life. And yesterday I went to pay my respects to Alpha Rudd née Williams. Alpha Williams on her horse Blackie in 1906, 6th Avenue and Van Buren, Phoenix, Arizona It all started over a year ago when one of my PhDs (Phoenix History Detectives) sent me a photo of a little girl in 1906, sitting on a horse by a livery stable in downtown Phoenix. He had gotten it from a neighbor of his who had identified all of the people in the photo. He scanned it in, sent it to me with the information that he had, and then returned the photo to the neighbor. The original post about Alpha Williams is here. This really fired up my imagination, as I wanted to see Phoenix through her eyes, and I did. With the help of other PhDs, I found Alpha Williams graduating from the Normal School in Tempe (now ASU) and becoming a teacher at Creighton Elementary, as Alpha R

As a non-smoker myself, I often cringe at the thought of going back in time and the amount of tobacco use that I would see. I'm old enough myself to remember a time when people were allowed to smoke in airplanes, and most restaurants were divided into "smoking" and "non-smoking" areas. I saw the transition from just about everyone smoking, to less and less and now it's actually rare to see someone who smokes. Of course, like so many things "back in the day", our first thought is "how could they have been doing something that was so bad for them, so dangerous, that caused cancer?" and they answer is that they didn't know. Evidence linking tobacco with lung cancer really wasn't considered definitive until the United States Surgeon General's Report in 1964, and even then, as now, government reports were often things that people were skeptical of. But in my lifetime, which includes that era, when I was a little kid, public

When I first started poking around my garage many years ago, opening boxes that had been there for over a decade, I began the process of sharing photos of historic Phoenix. It was actually just a side-effect of my wanting to spend more time on this new thing called the internet. I'm a graphic designer, but I was slow in getting into web design. But one day I decided to learn it, and it was just about writing a simple script (or code as some people call it) in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and inserting images as jpegs (Joint Photographers Expert Group). Around the year 2001 it was pretty primitive, and pretty simple. So I scanned in some cool old pics of Phoenix, just because I liked them. I created web pages because I learn best by doing, and I did a lot of them. In a few years I had a LOT of them out there, mostly just practice stuff, like web pages for my dog. And when CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) were added to HTML I updated the pages with that. And the two pages that

'G morning, Darlene! May I carry your books? In this story, we're a couple of young people walking to the Central School, which was at Central and Monroe. It's the 1890s. What a beautiful day! So fresh and clean after the rain! Yes, it's muddy. I wonder if they'll ever pave these streets like the big towns I've heard about back east? My grandpappy says that they're fine just the way they are, but he's old, and he doesn't like any of the new things. Me? Sure! I like the new things, I even use "electricity". No kidding, I've even used a telephone. No, we don't have those in our house, but I have a friend who lives on Millionaire's Row, just a few blocks away, whose house has both. Indoor bathtub, too! Really! Of course the old folks don't trust the electricity, or the telephone. My friend tells me that his aunt always goes around making sure that lightbulbs are always in the fixtures, to be sure that the electricity

I'm in love with where I live, and I kinda worry about people who don't feel the same way about their town. And I'm one of those sloppy, sentimental lovers who stands on a table and sings at the top of his lungs about it. I cringe at criticisms, and I focus on the good things. This is where I want to be, in Phoenix, until death do us part, in sickness and in health. And really, if you feel the same way about your town, wherever you are, I'm happy for you. I may not understand the attractions of where you live, but I'm genuinely happy for you. I hope that you remain happy whatever happens, remain true, remain in love. I write a love letter to Phoenix just about every day. On a day like this, in October, it's simply amazing. I grew up in Minneapolis, and October wasn't anything that I looked forward to - I hated the cold. Right now in Phoenix is what I call "Chamber of Commerce Weather" - so perfect that you just want to go outside and be amaz

Well dang me, I've gone and done it again! It's daybreak and I'm waking up on the streets of Phoenix in 1896. I'm gettin' too old for this! Howdy, Sheriff. Yep, I live right here in town. What? No, I'm fine. Yes, I'll move along. By the way, you wouldn't happen to have a chaw of 'baccy? I got rolled last night and my pockets are empty. Yeah, I know that I shouldn't spend the night on Melinda's Alley. It won't happen again, officer. Thanks! Nice sunrise! I must have been celebrating last night, or was I trying to drown my sorrows? Funny, I don't remember. I really don't have to pay it no never mind, anyways. Bit nippy this morning, but it'll warm up! I wonder what month this is? I suppose it's right around October? Something smells bad. I guess it's me. I suppose I should wander up to the town ditch and throw myself in to get cleaned up. I used to swim in that ditch a lot when I was a kid, right north of town,

If you've never lived in a small town, it can be hard to explain. Yes, of course it's nice, and everything is right nearby, but there are drawbacks that make many people prefer to live in big cities. But I prefer small towns, like Phoenix, and Los Angeles. When I say that, people will usually say, "huh?" and wonder if I hadn't looked at the population charts, or the traffic. But for me it has to do with a mentality, which means a particular way of behaving that doesn't allow people to be anonymous, or to hide. Phoenix is my town, and Los Angeles is my town. That is, these are places that I care about, that I'm connected with. These people are my friends and neighbors. No one ever had to tell me not to "flip people off" on the freeway, or to not run off my mouth with obscenities, ducking back into the darkness, hoping that no one knew who I was. I've known a lot of people like that, and they just kinda make me sad. They're "big

A typical criticism that I've often heard of Phoenix is that it's so new. There are very few old buildings, and the city kinda looks as if it were just built, and there's no trace of the old. And it's true. It's been true of Phoenix since it began in 1870, when it must have looked ultra-modern to people's eyes even back then. And that's the way it looked to me when I got there in 1977, from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's still amazingly modern. The neighborhood where I grew up, in Minneapolis, was built in the 1920s. And before you get all excited and imagine that it was some kind of "historic district" - it wasn't. It was just an old neighborhood, and it still is. Our house had been modernized with certain things, like the toilets and the kitchen, but overall it was an old house. And not old like "This Old House", but old like an old car with waaaayyy too many miles on it, all patched up, and not reliable. My high school was o

If you live in the Phoenix, Arizona area, chances are that you live with a Homeowner's Association, or there's one nearby. And there are good things, and bad things, about them. As someone who has lived in a neighborhood with an HOA for over twenty years, I tend to understand the good. But I also understand the bad. And it has to do with rules. The West has traditionally been a place of freedom, where a man can do as he pleases without having to say "please and thank you" to a lot of people telling him what to do. The wide-open spaces invited that way of thinking. The song that says, "Give me land, lots of land, don't fence me in" says it the best. And yet when you have neighbors, the expression "Good fences make for good neighbors" really applies. Rules are like fences. Whether they're municipal laws, or Homeowner's Association rules, it's all the same. It's a bunch of rules that tell people what to do. Speaking for myse

Every city is unique, and the only people who really know a particular city are the people who've lived there. And it's true that all cities have misconceptions that reveal the outsider, maybe the way something is pronounced, or which direction is uptown, or whatever. And I've found that most people are just wise enough to shrug their shoulders and say that "they never lived there, and they just don't know". But Los Angeles is different, there are a lot of people who've never lived there you think that they know it well. And I can't blame people for thinking that they know Los Angeles, even if they've never lived there. Los Angeles is portrayed in movies, in TV shows, in books, and just about every way that you can imagine. So I won't roll my eyes and correct people who see Los Angeles that way, but it does give me a bit of a pain. If you've lived in a city that you know well, you know what I mean. And if you've lived in Los Angele

As someone who loves to use his imagination, I like to imagine what Phoenix would be like in some dystopian future, with the collapse of technology. Let's time-travel into a kind of scary future! So the first question would be about water. Would water need to be brought in from hundreds of miles away? Of course not, water flows through Phoenix, and has for thousands of years. Since most people have no idea how Phoenix works, it's considered a place where people could only live if water arrived from hundreds of miles away. But that's simply not true. People were living in the Phoenix valley long before any kind of "high tech" stuff was around. They were called the Hohokams, and they lived in a very primitive way. They didn't even have iron, they used stone tools. The loss of electricity, and pumping stations, wouldn't dry up Phoenix. There would still be a lot of water right there. The water that Phoenix uses doesn't come from hundreds of miles

As someone who's interested in the history of Phoenix, I realize that it's a very fine line between talking about a businesses and promoting them. In fact, I'm more comfortable talking about a defunct company, like Valley Bank, than one that's still in business. And I think that it gives the illusion that most businesses don't last in Phoenix, and that's not true. Yesterday I went with a friend to Dave's Car Care in Glendale. I just went along for the ride, and to give moral support, and while my friend was talking to the guy behind the counter, I was wondering, "I wonder if that's Dave?" It was. I get a big kick out of meeting someone who's name is on the sign of a business. I guess I expect businesses either to have fictional names, or that someone sold it to someone who sold it to someone, etc. I think I became suspicious of asking if the person whose name is on the sign from watching "Happy Days" in the 1970s, after the

Like the vast majority of the people that I know, including many people who profess to be experts on the history of Phoenix, I know nothing of life south of the railroad tracks. It's strange, but just a few blocks away from an area that I know very well, downtown Phoenix, I can hardly tell you the names of the streets. And since it's a subject that most people don't want to talk about, it's history that gets forgotten, and ultimately is at the risk of being erased forever. I understand. Some of it just isn't very pretty. And things like segregation are parts of the past that many people would like to forget. And since I'm not a "person of color" - I'm an "average white guy", there are many people who resent my even talking about it. But it's like every aspect of Phoenix history, it fascinates me, and recently I've gotten some help with it, so I'm hoping that soon I'll be able to share more. I have a PhD (Phoenix His

As someone who is interested in the architecture of cities and how everything in them functions, right down to the streets, I'm fascinated by how successful cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles have been in protecting neighborhoods from traffic. If you've never realized that, I owe you a thank you, and I feel kinda sad that you've always been on the other side of the equation. Please let me explain. I was out walking this morning in Glendale (a suburb of Phoenix) since it was such a beautiful day. I took the photo at the top of this post as just a typical view. And it's what you're not seeing that I want to point out - traffic. Now don't get me wrong, as I walked along the neighborhood streets there were a few cars this morning, but mostly they were doing the thing that cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles have been designed to do, they are getting out of the neighborhoods and onto main streets and freeways. If you could see way down there to the busy int

Time-travel with me back to old-time Phoenix and let's try to imagine the future. Don't get me wrong, I like it here in the 1940s, but the future is going to be great! The first thing I'd like to see is all of the flooding controlled, and more paved roads. This is ridiculous! Every monsoon season the roads turn into mud and everyone seems to get stranded until the water dries up. We're in the 1940s, we have the technology, let's fix it! Once the war is over, I expect the Army Corps of Engineers to get over here, and do some of their engineering magic. No, I have no idea how they do it, but I know that it can be done. Speaking of which, how about a way to have air conditioning in our cars? I've been reading about it in Popular Mechanics, and it's another thing that would make it nicer living here. Just imagine, getting in your car and pushing a button, and cool air? And I understand all you have to do is mount it on the roof of your car. If I had air c

Like most people who live in big, crowded cities, I'm fascinated by photos that show it back when there was a lot of wide open space. You know, before the freeways were built, before all of the buildings blocked the view, before everything got so crowded, like in Los Angeles, or Phoenix. Of course there's still a lot of wide open space around these places, as anyone who has ever traveled between LA and Phoenix knows, but the photos that fascinate me the most are the ones that show an area that is now so congested that I can hardly breathe, what it looked like back in the day. Don't get me wrong, I love LA and Phoenix, and I have never been tempted to live way out "in the middle of nowhere". I've seen places like that, along the 1-10 freeway, or looking out of the window of a Southwest Airlines plane. And I always wonder why people are living so far away from everything, and then I go and complain about how crowded it is where I live. Go figure! Of cours