Visiting Simon Novinger in 1884, near Phoenix, Arizona


With the help of my top history adventurer, who prefers to remain anonymous, I'm really enjoying the images in the 1884 book "History of Arizona Territory". And today I thought that it would be fun to time-travel and visit Simon Novinger.

This residence was on the 160 acres owned by Mr. Novinger, which is where 19th Avenue between Harrison and Buckeye is now. The technical name for that area is Section 12 Township 1 North Range 2 East or T1NR2E. Here's a map from 1904:



There really weren't any roads that far out of town back then, but you can see that Novinger's place was along the Salt River Valley Canal, often called Swilling's Ditch, so it would have been easy to get to - just follow the canal, which also went past Phoenix (or what we would call downtown Phoenix today). In our imaginary journey, we'll start from Center (Central Avenue) and go west along Van Buren, traveling along Swilling's Ditch. It's a healthy walk, but we're young and strong, and it's a beautiful day!


I'll tell you what I know about Simon Novinger. He was born in 1832, so in 1884 he's 52 years old. He's done well financially, which you can tell by looking at his house, and came to Phoenix right after Hancock laid it out. So I think it's safe to describe him as a leading citizen. Here's a photo of him which I found online at Find-a-Grave:


He died in 1904, which was still early enough to get into the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park, which is at Jefferson and 15th Avenue, if you want to go and pay your respects. My plan is to do so, with a little bit of help from another history adventuring friend. The section is called Porter.


But let's get back to our visit in 1884. This is quite a place! Those mountains back there are the Estrellas, we're looking southwest.


I'll go up and knock on the door. I hope Mr. Novinger is in! Maybe you can go fetch some water from the well. "Hello, Mr. Novinger! I hope you don't mind if we visit you!"




If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

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