Visiting J.M. Gregory at the Gregory House in 1884, Phoenix, Arizona


Let's time-travel back to 1884 and go visit James Morgan Gregory at his hotel, called the Gregory House, in Phoenix, Arizona. This drawing is from the book "History of Arizona Territory" published in 1884, and reprinted in 1964. I found it at the Glendale Main Library. And with the help of my top history adventuring friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, I found out some interesting stuff. Let's go!


First of all, let's meet J.M. Since it's 1884, he's 55 years old. He's had an interesting life, beginning with what he considered a humdrum existence in Canada, and including taking the Panama Route to get to California in 1854. Just to clarify, it was a route that you walked, or rode a mule, there was no canal back then. An interesting adventure!


I found more about him on the Library of Commerce "Chronicling America", which has wonderful old newspapers. Here he is mentioned as the Phoenix contact for a San Jose, California nursery, which specialized in fruit trees. And J.M. was also involved with lumber, and as the blurb from the 1884 book says, undertaker's wares.

But let's talk about the Gregory House, which really didn't look like a Hotel, just a nice two-story house with shade trees right on the main street of Phoenix, which is called Washington. It was between 2nd and 3rd Streets. I'll zoom in on the drawing a bit so you can get a closer look.


Looks like there's a Western style "false front", but otherwise it just looks like a big house. Looks like a nice porch there for relaxing, maybe sipping a mint julep or something, or maybe for sleeping if the nights get too warm. We're visiting in May so it may be OK tonight, or we may want to sleep on the porch.


I just noticed the words Milli__ Fanc__ , and I'm wonder what it says, and what that means. Let me know what you think! Those shade trees sure are nice! It's too bad that so many of them had to be cut down when Phoenix really started growing. The streets won't be paved until 1911, so I suppose they get kinda muddy when it rains, but it doesn't rain much in Phoenix!


This article is 1894, when it got improvements, and it's described as "that favorite old hotel". Nice place. Another mint julep?



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