History Adventuring

As someone who was born in the middle of the 20th Century, it's very hard for me to imagine a world without amateur human-driven cars, but I often try. I have a good imagination! Today I'd like to time-travel backwards and forwards in Phoenix history. Let's start with the first amateur human-driven car in Phoenix, in 1902. Phoenix history buffs will recognize that car as belonging to Dr. Swetnam, and you're looking east on Washington towards 1st Avenue. I really don't know what the legal requirements were for operating a vehicle like that in Phoenix in 1902, but I'd imagine that it was mostly if you had enough money to do so. It wasn't like being an engineer on a train, or a driver on the trolley, it really was just you, so it stands to reason that you wouldn't have been expected to be a professional driver. And if you've lived in Phoenix anytime after 1902 to the present day, I really don't have to tell you what kind of damage these amate...

As someone who tends to embrace new technology quickly, I like to see if I can look in the other direction, and see a time when a new technology was considered perfectly safe, although now we know better. Let's time-travel to 1908. When I first found the picture at the top of this post, which is in the middle of the intersection of Central and Washington, I had no idea what this guy was doing. It was explained to me, by people who understand this kind of stuff, that he is changing a light bulb, and standing on a piece of wood, to ground himself. Or is it to not ground himself? As you can tell, I have no idea how all of this works, but I darned sure know that I wouldn't do that, it's extremely dangerous! But back then, the average person wouldn't know. If I lived in Phoenix in 1908 I might have read about the use of electricity elsewhere, which really had become fairly common in big cities. And if you tried to explain to me how something that was completely invisi...

As someone who is trying to hang onto a youthful, if not middle-aged, attitude about life, I often think about what it means to be too old to trust the new technology. I live in the 21st Century, and my experience has been that people tend to draw a line against new technology at a particular age. I've seen people draw that line at thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, wherever they feel necessary to say that they can't possibly trust any particular new technology, whether it's self-driving cars, or cell phones. Of course, this makes me wonder about old-time Phoenix. There are many examples of new technologies in old-time Phoenix, but my favorite one is the "horseless carriage" - what we would call an automobile, or car, today. And when I imagine what people are thinking in the 1904 picture at the top of this post, I try to read the mind of the man in the horse and wagon. He wouldn't have trusted those darn things! You wouldn't get him in one of those, no s...

Yesterday I began my journey to find out more about Estrella Station, by going there (or where it used to be, nothing is left). It was a station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, established in 1881. No, there's nothing to see there, maybe some old concrete foundations, so it takes a LOT of imagination to see it the way it was. Let's time-travel. I started with an entry from the 1935 "Arizona Place Names" book. According to that book, it was established in 1881, a few years before trains even arrived in Phoenix, which was platted in 1870. As close as you could get to Phoenix on a train at that time was Maricopa. The Post Office in Estrella was established in 1919, and after taking a look at historic aerials I determined that the buildings still existed in 1947, but were gone by 1961. Historic aerials images are copyrighted, so I won't post them here, but you can go over to their website and take a look-see for yourself if you want to. It's kinda tric...

I found a Phoenix directory from 1888, and the ads are just wonderful. They really get me in the mood for time-traveling, so let's go visit the new blacksmith shop, which is on the corner of Center (Central) and Adams. It's 1888, and Phoenix has really been growing since it began eighteen years ago. I hardly recognize the place. And look! A new blacksmith shop! And let's see, according to this directory, we need to look for a Mr. A. McDonald. I suppose he'd be the one clanging on the anvil over there. But it looks like there are many men working here, it's a big shop! The ad says that they're the most competent workmen in the territory. Let's call at the place. What? No, this is 1888, that isn't what "call" means, they don't mean on the telephone, they mean to go visit them. It's the W.J. Carrier and Company. It's OK, you're with me. What? Very funny. Should we ask for some horseshoeing? I suppose we should have a horse...

Lately I've been thinking about birds. Maybe it's because I watched the Alfred Hitchcock movie recently, and maybe it's because I've been watching documentaries on Netflix about birds. But really, I've always been interested in these little creatures. And today while I was walking to McDonalds for my coffee, I made a point of looking up, and seeing what I could see on a Sunday morning. Yes, I have a lot of friends with great expertise in identifying birds, but they really haven't been of much help to me over the years. My interest in birds is the same as my interest in Phoenix history, ordinary stuff, or what one of my friends calls "extra-ordinary". I'm looking at things that most people don't see at all, like the little impromptu bird bath created this morning in a parking lot. I stopped in the parking lot to take that picture, and if anyone saw me, I'm sure they would have wondered why in the world I was doing that. Those are common...

As someone who is interested in time-traveling, I'm often asked if life was better "back in the day", or not. It's an excellent question. And as as some who likes to see things from different points of view, that's where I start when answering that question. The point of view that I always start with is mine, a 21st Century man - so let's compare today with the 1920s in Phoenix, Arizona. This is a very complicated subject, so let's narrow it down to some things that really matter: cars, beer, and money. I just love the style of 1920s cars, and I'm sure that since the streets weren't very crowded, there would be no need for seatbelts, which wouldn't be in cars for another forty years. Gasoline was cheap, but it had lead in it, so it was very toxic, but nobody knew anything about that. Nowadays cars have safety features, airbags, and air conditioning, and so I'm inclined to prefer the modern cars. Especially because of air conditionin...

It was a particularly beautiful morning today and I decided to go for a ride, with no particular place to go. I stopped for a coffee at Thunderbird Road and 83rd Avenue in Peoria, and since the Burger King was closed for remodeling, I went to Dunkin' Donuts across the street. And as is typical of most of the places in Phoenix that have outdoor seating, even on a gorgeous day, with the temperatures in the seventies, most people were sitting inside. I suppose the people in there, if they noticed me, knew that I hadn't lived in Phoenix all of my life. I spent about a decade in Southern California, where I developed a taste for al fresco dining, and I sit outside every chance I get. So I had the outside all to myself, and as I sipped my coffee, the Musak blared into my ear, stopping every once in a while to do a commercial, which repeated so many times in the short period that I was there that it really was the main reason that I left. I heard, over and over, that Dunkin' ...

I've always had a fascination with the canals of Phoenix, and the one that's closest to me is the Arizona Canal, which runs from east of Scottsdale all of the way to Peoria. And if you've driven around Phoenix much, you've crossed it many times, and probably never even noticed it. It's been there since 1885, and it carries water from the Salt and Verde rivers into the Phoenix metro area. It's the water that's used to irrigate, and it's also your drinking water. The coffee that I'm drinking right now as I write is is that water. Yes, of course the drinking water is cleaned up - there are water processing plants along the canal. Looking east along the Arizona Canal in the 1930s, just south of Camelback Mountain. When you consider how long the canal is, you're probably wondering if it was a bit of a barrier for people who wanted to cross it, and it was. This was true of all of the canals, including the Grand Canal, which runs parallel t...

A part of Phoenix that has always fascinated me is called Sunnyslope. It's north of the Arizona Canal, and goes several blocks east and west of Central Avenue, and up to the slopes of the Phoenix Mountains. And I've often had to defend it, and I'm here to do it again. The first time I saw Sunnyslope was in 1989, when I had just moved back to Phoenix from Los Angeles. And I was shocked by the amazing mountain views, and just how, uh, less-than-fashionable the neighborhood was. This puzzled me, as anywhere in Southern California with a mountain view is premium property, with gates and fine-trimmed lawns. While I was working for the marketing department of Bank One in the early 90s, I found an old map of the Phoenix area which had identified the Sunnyslope area as "blighted". That's a word that isn't used anymore, but really, the term applied to what I saw in Sunnyslope. My girlfriend lived adjacent to Sunnyslope, near the Pointe, and I would ofte...

I've been saying, "It's too late for me to die young!" for a long time now, and of course that gets me to thinking about old-time Phoenix, and what dying young would have meant. Let's time-travel back to 1896. Of course people didn't live as long then as they do now, but based on the chart at the top of this post, it looks like at 64 you wouldn't get lumped in with the "died of old age" crowd. If I'm reading the chart right? I don't know what they write on death certificates nowadays, but my best guess is heart failure, or something like that, not just "old age". One of my favorite quotes is "this man died from living too much!" Anyway, in spite of the modern annoyances today such as cell phones and robot-calls, you really had a better chance of death back then from many things that today we don't even think about, like having the flu. There were risks of course, and I'm often amused by old-timers who re...

It's hard for me to imagine the city that I love without palm trees. And unlike Los Angeles, which is slowly losing theirs, with no plans to replace them, Phoenix gets more of them every year. The species of palm in the picture at the top of this post is a date palm. Date palms were widely planted in Phoenix to produce dates. In fact, if you go over 44th Street and Camelback, you can see some trees that go back to the 1920s, which are still producing dates. I don't care for the taste of dates, but I understand that they make a great date shake. But most of the palm trees planted in Phoenix weren't planted for dates, they were planted for beauty, the same way that flowers are planted. Speaking for myself, I love the look and feel of palm trees. Even on a very hot day, watching them gently sway makes me feel cooler, as if I were in the islands. I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and saw my first palm tree growing out of the ground outside when I was 19. I exited th...

One of the things that I really enjoy is to find an old photo of Phoenix and then with the help of my friends match it up to exactly where the photo was taken. It's not easy in Phoenix, as the buildings tend to be replaced every few decades. But sometimes there's something there that goes waaay back, like to the 1950s. I found one yesterday, and it's a trailer park over by the freeway. The Sun N Sand Trailer Resort, Colter and the Black Canyon Freeway. The sign goes back to 1959, and at some point they took the word "trailer" off. As long as I can remember, the words "trailer park" had meant a place where I'd rather not be. I saw my first one in 1977, across from the apartment complex where I lived in Phoenix when I was 19, and it still makes me a little bit ill to think of it today. Sometimes I would cut through there, and what I saw is exactly what springs to mind when you hear the words "trailer park". I won't go into detai...

As someone who has a fascination with Phoenix, people will often ask me about neighborhoods. They might say, "Is it nice?" or "Was it nice back in the day?", and I know what they mean. They wonder if it was, or is, expensive, or ritzy. Well, most of the time they mean that. But I listen to these people and in my mind I substitute the word "desirable". And when I do that, I see neighborhoods through many different perspectives. Speaking for myself, a desirable neighborhood for me when I first moved to Phoenix meant at the very least a place I could afford. It also meant a place where people wouldn't complain about my noisy little car, a place where there were other young people like me, living the best they could on slender means. As I got older and more successful, a desirable neighborhood was a place with a garage, and a Homeowner's Association. Of course you can take the concept of a desirable neighborhood to an extreme, and consider anywh...

It's 1921, we're in Phoenix, and we're looking at the paper. It looks like the Sugar Loaf and The Bon Ton Basketeria have some specials on Friday and Saturday. Let's time travel-travel! I declare! Prices just keep going up! I don't know how a body is expected to afford this! Lookie here, eggs for thirty cents a dozen. And they call that a special price! I remember when they didn't cost more than a dime! Prices have sure gone up since the war! And who would pay fifteen cents for that awful Kellogg's Korn Krisp? What? Oh, that's for two boxes, I guess that's reasonable. Not that I would eat anything like that. And nine cents for Palm Olive soap! What do they think, that I'm made out of money? My grandpappy taught me how to make my own soap, anyway. Who would pay good money for soap? That hundred-pound bag of sugar for $9.80 sounds reasonable. Could you carry 100 pounds? I wonder if they'd sell me ten pounds of it for 98 cents? Pro...