Gold Lured Route 66 To Oatman

Only a decade after automobiles first appeared on streets visionaries in the industry made plans for transcontinental highways to supplant rail lines. The already well-traveled northern Arizona transportation corridor offered an obvious route to California. Beginning in 1911, The National Old Trails Road Association led a campaign to improve existing wagon tracks that followed the Santa Fe Railroad from Gallup to Flagstaff to Kingman and Needles. But at the same time rich gold deposits were discovered in the Black Mountains west of Kingman. So instead of following the easy route along the railroad from Kingman down the Sacramento Valley and around the southern end of the mountains then on to the Colorado River, the automobile highway set out across the valley and into the rugged mountains. Vehicles would have to struggle up exhausting grades and twist around hairpin turns. But twenty mule team wagons and then the first slow motor trucks could bring supplies and miners to more than a dozen new gold rush camps, bringing back concentrated ore and ingots. Though an easier route following the rails, known as the Yucca Cutoff, would remain an option, the main road to California braved the mountains in order to follow the money. And when the money dried up, the highway left town.

Gold had first been discovered in the Black Mountains at the Moss Mine in 1863, the year Arizona became a territory separate from New Mexico. Threats from Indians, however, kept miners away until Fort Mohave on the river could corral the natives. Transportation of ore and mining machinery became more profitable with the coming of the railroad to Kingman in 1883. Prospectors then searched every ravine and hill. A fabulously rich gold vein was discovered in 1900 in a remote gulch along a wagon road 25 miles west of Kingman and named the Gold Road Mine. About five miles south, near a prominent geographic feature called Boundary Cone, the Vivian Mine was discovered in 1902. A camp called Blue Ridge appeared along the road between the two mines near some promising quartz outcrops. Nearby in 1904, another rich vein of gold was discovered and California investors organized the Tom Reed Gold Mines Company. The Oatman mining district was created and another town began to grow at a wide place in the road between Blue Ridge and the Tom Reed mine.

A Fred Harvey Company postcard issued about 1917 shows substantial buildings on both sides of the single main street, including the largest hotel, the St. Francis, with 3-story porch at left of center. Behind the St. Francis, the top of the head frame is visible for the United Eastern shaft number one. Shaft number two is on the hillside. The view is looking northeast. (I’ve added color to the black & white original.)

This view of Oatman’s main street looking southeast shows a circa-1920 Velie touring car apparently headed east on an endurance run. The St. Francis Hotel is the tallest building on the right side of the street. Next door, with two-story porch is the much smaller Oatman Hotel (not the same as the present Oatman Hotel). Most of the buildings on that side of the street were lost in the 1920s to fire or demolition. Velie automobiles were produced 1908-1928 in Moline, Illinois. (California Historical Society photo at USC library)

The new mining camp was named Oatman, in honor of Olive Oatman, victim of a tragedy called the Oatman Massacre, an incident widely reported across the US and long remembered in Arizona. On the way to California in February 1851, Apaches attacked the Oatman family along the Gila River 11 miles north of the present Sentinel service stop on Interstate 8. Thirteen-year-old Olive’s parents and four siblings were slain. Her younger brother Lorenzo was thrown over a cliff and left for dead, while she and her younger sister were taken captive. The younger sister died in captivity and Olive was sold to the Mohave tribe, supposedly living in the Black Mountains near the future site of the town that would bear her name. Lorenzo survived and with the help of a man in Yuma was able to free Olive five years later. The bother and sister went to live with family in New York. Thus the glittering wealth and even the name of the new town in Mohave County attracted much attention.

The Tom Reed vein was hard to follow making production sporadic. But anticipating payoff, another group of seven men studied the geology, formed the United Eastern Mining Company and had a shaft sunk on the north side of town. Within a few years they had mapped out the underground vein and were profiting handsomely. The Big Jim Company was then formed and tapped into the same vein southeast of the Tom Reed. These three mines became the largest and wealthiest, producing most of the $36 million up to 1931, mostly in gold, that would come out of the district. The Tom Reed produced a million dollars in gold from 40,000 tons of ore in 1909 alone, its first year of sustained production. From 1908 to 1913, gold and silver valued at more than $13 million came out of the Tom Reed workings. The United Eastern produced $10.8 million and the Big Jim, which soon came under United Eastern control, extracted $3.8 million. After costs, these mines provided more than $8 million in pure profit for investors, in a time when miners worked for $3-$5 a day at most, lodging could be had for $1.50 a week or less and meals cost pocket change. The Gold Road mine produced another $7.3 million up to 1931. As a result, the Oatman district has been the richest gold producer in Arizona.

This real photo postcard of the recently closed Tom Reed mill was first published in 1933 by Burton Frasher (1888-1955) of Pomona, California. The power plant at the mill (probably in the foreground) also supplied electricity for the town of Oatman. The mill’s water supply, piped in from the mountains in the background, also supplied the town. But while the Tom Reed also owned several buildings, Oatman was not a company town like Ajo.

At the south end of the business district there is a flagpole in the middle of the street, where the street makes a turn toward the west. Where the pickup truck is parked used to be the largest store in town. Next to the Arizona Hotel and café is Oatman Drug Company and soda fountain. The Honolulu Club is in the Desert Inn building at right. Only the drug store building survives today. It was restored around 1963 for filming of the movie How the West Was Won. This view is cropped from a black & white real photo postcard issued about 1935 by Gallup Studio of Chloride (later Kingman).

The second boom beginning in 1913 seemed to seal Oatman’s prosperity and the population in the vicinity soared to 8,000 or more. Wooden miner’s shacks spread up the steep slopes on either side of the single main street, following the pattern of Arizona mining towns like Morenci, Bisbee and Jerome. But, title to the land didn’t pass to residents because of the precedence of mineral claims. Oatman citizens filed for an official town site early in 1916, to include 75 buildings and 300 residents but were turned aside by the federal government and the county court. While the main street had a handful of substantial commercial buildings, much of the profit may have benefited suppliers in Kingman and Needles more. A weekly newspaper in Oatman began publishing in 1914 but only lasted a handful of years. While the newspaper once reported three churches in town, for most of its history Oatman had none. Today, after languishing for at least 50 years, little glitter remains.

Frashers Fotos of Pomona made this view of Route 66 looking west about 1936. About four miles from Oatman the oiled dirt road is winding down the west side of the summit toward Gold Road. A few years later, the highway department graded a pull-off and viewpoint on the hill at left from which three states could be seen (Arizona, California & Nevada; compare 1942 photo at oldhiways.com/Route66.html). The Colorado River is in the distant valley. The climb over Gold Road Grade was harrowing for many drivers, and cars in those days tended to overheat. For a few dollars, a gas station in Gold Road offered to tow cars over the summit.

Burton Frasher visited Oatman in 1933 and 1934 and probably several times more since it was on the main highway. He probably photographed this view looking southeast from a hill near the United Eastern mine in 1934. Most of the commercial buildings on the west side of the main street are gone. The second Oatman Hotel (1924) is on the east side of the street with the dark roof. Above the roof, farther down the street can be seen a row of windows in the Arizona Hotel with the façade of the Desert Inn just to the right. The Tom Reed mill is to the right of center.

Arizona Highways published this colorful view of Oatman in the 1940s, looking northwest from near the Tom Reed mill. The rear of the 3-story plus basement Desert Inn is right of center, where Route 66 turns toward the west. The United Eastern No. 2 shaft is on the hill above the Inn, and the bluish building on the hill at top left is the schoolhouse.

 Government action eventually put an end to the boom and led to closing of all the mines. Over a number of years, the United States moved in the direction of price controls on gold and away from using the precious metal as a currency standard. At the same time, two world wars stifled gold mining in favor of strategic metals production. Both the United Eastern and Big Jim had to close in 1924 after the post World War One recession. Then the Great Depression made operation of the larger mines unprofitable. The Tom Reed closed in 1932. Big Jim had resumed activity only to close again by 1934. Families moved away and the population of Oatman dropped. Small businesses turned to servicing highway travelers with food, lodging and gas.

 During the good times following 1924, tourists could afford to travel The National Old Trails Road in automobiles. Despite the rough terrain, traffic through Oatman increased every year. In 1926 named highways were replaced by a system of numbered federal routes and Oatman became a service stop on Route 66. At least two auto courts (motels) offered cabins for the night, while a number of garages sold gas and oil and made repairs. But with decreased gold production, highway engineers prepared to re-route US 66 away from the Black Mountains. World War Two put highway construction on the back burner, but it also greatly inhibited leisure travel. The last small gold mines were ordered closed by the federal government in 1942 to divert resources to war production. After the war, engineers looked to the Yucca Cutoff. In 1952, Route 66 bypassed Oatman and the population quickly dwindled to less than 100. Thirty years later, Interstate 40 replaced Route 66 and nostalgia for cars with tail fins brought tourists back to what remained of the once thriving gold rush camps. Burros had been a valuable means of transport to remote mines but stray animals wandering Oatman’s main street were a nuisance in 1917. By 1977 they had become a novelty for tourists and Oatman’s most recognizable ambassadors.

Norton Allen did this map for the May 1952 issue of Desert Magazine to locate a river pebble gathering area for rock hounds. At top it shows Arizona Highway 68 from Kingman through Union Pass to Bullhead City. Then there is US 66 through Sitgreaves Pass to Gold Road and Oatman. I believe construction began in 1951 on the Yucca Cutoff and it opened as Route 66 in 1952. It was rebuilt again in the 1960s to become Interstate 40. When finally entirely replaced by the interstate, Route 66 was decommissioned as a federal highway in 1985 and Arizona remnants were returned to county maintenance. Recognizing its historic and recreational value, the Arizona Department of Transportation marked the remaining portions of the original alignment as Historic Route 66 in 1987. In 2005 these were designated a National Scenic Byway and then an All-American Road in 2009.

By the 1960s when this photo was taken from the schoolhouse hill, a few people were moving to Oatman for the solitude, the climate, the location and to serve the increasing tourist travel. Trailers provided inexpensive housing for most, but one big stick-built house is under construction on the hillside. Fifty years before, people settled here because of the quartz outcrop seen at top center, called Elephant’s Tooth, a sure sign of gold. Along the main street only three big buildings survive. Beginning below left, they are the Oatman Theatre building (tan false front), the Oatman Hotel (2-story with four arches) and the drug store building (long metal roof below Elephant’s Tooth).

When this view was made in the early 1970s, to leave the Interstate for Oatman was a fun thing to do. You could feed the feral burros, still get cold beer as in the old days or laugh at the old west parodies at Fast Fanny’s Place. Below Elephant’s Tooth at left is the post office. The Z-Inn Hotel is in the theater building, and the Oatman Hotel is the two-story structure farther down the street with the metal roof. Once the Hotel Durlin (1910s), then Hotel Everett, then the Ox Yoke Hotel (1930s) and finally Oatman Hotel, it no longer offered rooms, just food and drink, with a museum on the second floor.
See:
Spencer Crump, Route 66, America’s First Main Street (1994)
Roman Malach, Oatman (1975)
“Oatman, the Wonder Gold Camp,” E. H. Schiek & Co., Market Service Bulletin 160, February 1925. The Los Angeles investment broker had just opened an office in Oatman. Digital copy by Arizona Department of Library & Archives.
Stanley W. Paher, Northwestern Arizona Ghost Towns (1980)
James E. & Barbara H Sherman, Ghost Towns of Arizona (1969)
Philip Varney, Arizona’s Best Ghost Towns (1980)
Michael Wallis, Route 66, The Mother Road (1990)

Ambos Nogales Face Across the Border
After the Spanish conquest of Pimeria Alta, the road from Tucson south became an important economic link for the pueblos, missions and ranchos in the Santa Cruz River valley. One fork in the road headed southeast for Arispe the provincial capital. Another fork went southwest for the seaport of Guaymas. The road to Guaymas left the Santa Cruz River at Calabasas and followed Potrero Creek to a walnut grove (los nogales) in a pass through the hills. In 1841, the Elías family received a land grant from the Mexican government to establish a ranch at Los Nogales. Following the 1853 Gadsden Purchase from Mexico of Tucson and all the surrounding country south of the Gila River the boundary survey party placed a monument marking the border at Los Nogales in 1855.

Twenty years later, as two transcontinental railroads prepared to cross the Territory of Arizona, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe made plans for a rail connection with Guaymas. William Ray Morley surveyed a route through Los Nogales in 1878 and the following year the Sonoran Railway was formed in Mexico as a subsidiary of the ATSF. In 1880, San Francisco merchant Jacob Issacson built a trading post in Nogales pass. The Santa Rita Hotel opened nearby a few years later. Within days of the hotel opening, October 25, 1882, the young daughter of surveyor Morley drove the last spike linking Guaymas with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Benson. It was the first rail line linking the US and Mexico. A Post Office was established in the Issacson store for the community of “Issacson,” sometimes also called “Line City,” right on the border. But when the railroad built its depot there it chose to name the stop Nogales.

In those days, the railroad depot, stores and saloons were built straddling the border. If one lived in Nogales, Arizona or Nogales, Sonora it made little difference socially. Twin bilingual communities grew up along the railroad with lively business districts. However, the matter of land ownership and political borders were of great importance to the courts and government. Ambos (“both”) Nogales was a problem for nearly everyone, it seemed, except those who lived there. A significant portion of government revenue at the time came from charging customs duties on the passage of goods between foreign countries and the US. And eventually citizens of one country would be denied the right to live and work in the other country. Smuggling of goods and persons was the natural reaction, bringing a never-ending series of violent episodes to bracket each period of relative peace. As 2010 ushered in the second decade of the second millennium, the so-called “border wars” have again flared where once only walnut trees swayed on a warm breeze.

Even before railroad construction was complete, Mexican residents in Arizona and American railroad workers got into a brawl over women, fueled by mescal “smuggled across the line” according to The New York Times (25 May 1882). There were powerful economic reasons for building saloons astraddle the border. A customer could move to the south end of the bar and enjoy duty-free liquor. Illegal immigrant labor was also a government problem in the 1880s as Chinese crossed at Nogales to work at lower pay for the railroads and mines. Politicians came to the rescue in 1882, passing the federal Chinese Exclusion Act to outlaw most Chinese immigration to the US. Nevertheless, twenty years later Treasury Department special agents arrested Nogales customs officials for allegedly allowing Chinese to pass in return for bribes (NY Times 25 August 1901). Later, Mexico would try to expel its Chinese, forcing them to flee to the US. All Chinese entry into the US was eventually outlawed until 1943. Meanwhile, smuggling of cigars, liquor, firearms and cattle continued unabated until the Border Patrol was created in 1924.

International Avenue was born running east and west after the federal governments of Mexico and the US ordered the dual towns of Nogales divided along the border and buildings cleared for 60 feet on both sides. This view, looking west, appears to have been issued about 1915, after the production and sale of alcohol had been outlawed in Arizona. There was no fence down the middle of the street until the following year, only a line of power poles. But residents were still required to cross at two entry points, one in the foreground at Morley Avenue and the other farther west at Grand Avenue. The publisher of the postcard has drawn a line following the un-trod dirt in the middle of the street, but in reality the line existed only in people’s heads.

This is Morley Avenue viewed from the public park looking south about the same time as the view above (this postcard was mailed in 1916). Morley was the main business street in Nogales in those days. Grand Avenue would join it in a few years. The International Hotel is at left; by the 1930s it had been replaced by the El Paso Store. And the Kress building had replaced the gable-end storefront. The two-story brick building on the left side of the street became J. C. Penny’s. The Santa Cruz Valley Bank & Trust is on the corner of Morley and Park Street, one of three banks in town at the time.

This fine schoolhouse was provided for pupils in the US and another larger school served the more populous Mexican community.  The first public school in Nogales, Arizona, Elm Street School, opened in 1883.  This building by the same name, located at the north end of Terrace Avenue, was built in 1899 but burned in 1915.  It was replaced by a one-story mission style Elm Street School that survived until very recently.  The location is now a parking lot for Sacred Heart Catholic Church.  The older church building is visible behind the school.  This “PCK Series” postcard was printed in Germany about 1907 for International Drug Store, doing business for many years in the International Hotel building on Morley Ave.

In 1885, Henry Ossian Flipper, the first African-American graduate of West Point chose Nogales, Arizona as home, a refuge from his bad experiences in the army. Within a few years he found himself defending the deeds in court of all landowners in Nogales against the Mexican land grant claims of the Elías and Camou families. Nogales residents won their case in a Tucson court in 1893 and then again in the US Supreme Court. But Congress exercised its authority over land ownership along the border in 1897, when it ordered a 60-foot strip along the border in downtown Nogales cleared of all structures to suppress customs fraud. Mexico cleared its side and International Avenue was the result, a wide street running contrary to geography, diagonally across the railroad and the main north south streets of ambos Nogales. A delicate process transferred baggage of train passengers under the watchful eyes of customs inspectors. First Class passengers could ride across while those in coach left the train to walk across and board again after passing through customs. The Nogales District customs service had been established in April 1880, with the office in Nogales supervising all crossings in Arizona.

Still, the community prospered. An electric power company and ice plant opened in 1892. The city was incorporated in 1893. In 1897, the Southern Pacific leased from the ATSF the New Mexico & Arizona Railroad which had reached Nogales from Benson. Santa Cruz County was created in 1899 and a courthouse built in Nogales (1902-4). The first hospital also opened in 1899. In 1904 there were 122 telephones in town. But political unrest in Mexico escalated until revolution broke out in 1910, the first of several revolutions over the following dozen years. A survey to build a fence down the middle of International Avenue began that year and troops were quickly sent to Nogales, Naco and Douglas. A full-scale border war commenced.

This small but stately courthouse was constructed of granite, facing Morley Avenue with Court Street at right, using drawings by architect James Vandevort. Astrea, goddess of justice, tops an aluminum-clad dome (statue is out of view). Pictured here about 1939, it eventually became one of the oldest courthouses in Arizona still in use before it was turned into a museum.

Revolutions in Mexico to free the enslaved peons from wealthy landowners and provide them with ownership of their farms led to unrest along the border. The US Army established Camp Stephen D. Little just outside Nogales in 1910 and stationed troops there until 1931. The camp was officially abandoned in 1933. When this postcard was issued, maybe about 1914, there was still no fence in the middle of International Avenue, but soldiers on both sides marched up and down to maintain the boundary marked by the obelisk monument. The view is toward the east, at the Morley Avenue crossing, with Mexican buildings at right. The Mexican soldier is probably one of the revolutionaries that occupied Nogales, Sonora at the time.

Early in 1913, rebels attacked Mexican federal troops in Nogales, Sonora forcing the soldiers across the border into Arizona as bullets broke windows on the US side. The Sonoran town remained under revolutionary control until 1916 when Pacho Villa’s army took it. Villa’s threat to also attack the Arizona town prompted a gun battle with US troops that left many Mexicans dead. Mexican officials reported several killings of Mexican citizens by US soldiers and customs officers late in 1917 and into early 1918. In August 1918 a US Customs guard killed an alleged Mexican smuggler crossing the border fence. American and Mexican customs guards began shooting at each other. This was followed by a five-hour firefight between armed civilians on both sides of the border. Mexican and US troops arrived that night to join the fray. A US cavalry charge across the border killed a US Army Captain. The Mayor of Nogales, Sonora was killed. Of course, accounts of the whole incident differ. A few days later an armistice was declared and Arizona Governor Hunt met his counterpart from Sonora the following month to agree on a permanent armistice. Peace slowly returned to ambos Nogales from 1919 on, disturbed only by a regional rebellion in 1929 that saw Mexican government airplanes bomb Nogales, Sonora. Many middle and upper class Mexican families temporarily moved to Arizona to avoid the conflict.

During the prosperous 1920s, Nogales continued to host American tourists crossing from the “dry” USA to “wet” Mexico for libation. “Across the street is Mexico,” trumpeted the advertisements. Tourists knew what that meant. Patients with lung disease also found some relief in the dry climate at local sanitariums. Cattle and produce shipments from Mexico continued to cross the border, along with mining machinery and finished goods from the US. Then the economy collapsed, plunging ambos Nogales into severe depression in 1930. The situation was made worse by new tariffs imposed on all foreign goods aimed at protecting American jobs. The Mexican government had to respond in kind. With the coming of World War Two, however, Mexico became a valued ally and the border practically disappeared. The US still required Mexicans to get a visa to cross but Americans could go south freely, often to get gasoline or tires and any other commodity in short supply or rationed in the states. Following the war, US customs inspectors adopted a policy of “greeting guests” to the US that put a nicer face on enforcement. They were unarmed from 1948 to about 1968 and there were no deaths of customs inspectors during that period.

This birds-eye-view seen from a hill in Mexico was published in Mexico as a postcard in the late 1930s. Looking west down International Avenue with its chain-link fence, the two border crossings were still relatively simple constructions. A third reopened in 1956 farther west at Sonoita Avenue. Just beyond the Grand Avenue crossing is the new US Customs Service building (1934), replacing offices located in the Post Office federal building since 1924.

The Resort Hotel Esplendor opened in 1928 on a hilltop a few miles north of Nogales. The following year the economy collapsed into the Great Depression, leaving the resort to change hands several times in the following decades.  This postcard shows the place about 1952. I think the hotel became the Sheraton Rio Rico Resort in the 1960s, and then the Rio Rico Resort and Country Club. If so, it benefited from a $5.5 million renovation completed in 2004 and now looks nothing like it once did. It’s now the Esplendor Resort at Rio Rico, located 12 miles north of Nogales.

All during this time while residents of ambos Nogales kept close ties and cooperated almost as a single city, living conditions on the US side of the border improved more than in Mexico. Poverty and access to goods and services came to differentiate life on either side of the line. Still, commerce benefited. In the 1950s duty collected at the border passed $1 million for the first time and then rose to $55 million by 1980. Truck traffic across the border first exceeded rail traffic in 1958 after the Sonoita Avenue gate reopened to handle increased cattle and produce shipments. Rail passenger service had ended in 1951 but a modern highway to Guaymas had been completed in 1935. When Nogales celebrated its centennial in 1980, it had become the largest port of entry for vegetables in the world. In addition, American corporations set up a “twin plants” system of maquiladoras to exploit cheap labor just “across the street.” Manipulation of currency markets led to several devaluations of the peso to sweeten the mix. A growing list of illegal drugs kept smugglers in business. The result can be seen today. Ambos Nogales are connected by long lines of trucks transferring produce, and secret drug tunnels under the street, but also divided by heavy military and civilian policing of an iron fence with increasing loss of life on both sides.

This view probably from late in 1959 (that’s a 1960 Chevrolet Impala at right) shows the still thriving business district on Morley Avenue, looking north at the intersection with International Street (formerly Avenue). Many old buildings constructed before 1925 are still in use (and survive today), Franklin’s, S. H. Kress & Company, J. C. Penny, J. J. Newberry. Directly across the street from Newberry’s is the Ephraim building (1905), site of an early mercantile company and still owned by the family. The La Ville de Paris building (1901) at right is covered over by a modern slab façade. The trees way down the street on the left side are at the park.

This aerial photo was taken above Nogales Sonora with International Street and the border running across the center. The Mexican port of entry is the white tent-like concrete structure (International Arches, 1962, designed by Mario Pani’s firm, with architect Hilario Galguera supervising). In contrast, the rectangular US entry building spans the street. The older US Customs Service office is to the left. At far left is the Sonoita Avenue crossing for trucks. Two streets head away from the main gates, Arroyo Boulevard (left) and Grand Avenue (right), diverging farther north. To the right of these streets is the double-track railroad crossing the border and passing by the park. Next on the right is the older commercial district on Morley Avenue. At upper left is the old Nogales High School, and the courthouse with aluminum dome is just to the right of upper center. (click on picture for full size to see these details.)

Many visitors to Nogales in the 1960s will remember the curio shops in Mexico, filled with velvet paintings, colorful serapes and sombreros with dingle balls. Tony’s was the “Center of Quality” at 85 Obregon Avenue according to this postcard published by Petley Studios of Phoenix.
See:
Alberto Suarez Barnett, “Nogales” website http://www.municipiodenogales.org/English/history/history.htm
Allen T. Bird, Resources of Santa Cruz County (1916-17) Univ. of Ariz., Bureau of Mines Bulletin No. 29
Jane Eppinga, Nogales: life and times on the frontier (2002)
Pimeria Alta Historical Society, Voices From the Pimeria Alta (1991)
Alma Ready, A Very Small Place (1989) Santa Cruz County bibliography
Miguel Tinker Salas, In the Shadow of the Eagles (1997)
Alan Weisman & Jay Dusard, La Frontera (1986)

Mesa Replaced Farms With Charm To Become Arizona’s Third Largest City

Like most cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area, Mesa profited from an agriculturally based economy until after World War Two. But military bases established nearby during the war stimulated a shift toward manufacturing in the east valley. In 1959, for the first time manufacturing employment in Mesa exceeded agricultural employment. By 1975, factory jobs outnumbered farm jobs 12 to one. Mesa’s history illustrates the transformation experienced nearly everywhere in the Salt River Valley.

The location of Fort McDowell on the Verde River in the northeast valley in 1865 suppressed Native American opposition to white settlement. Anglo farmers were then free to reconstruct ancient Indian canals and plant crops in the fertile alluvial soil stretching from the confluence of the Verde and the Salt to where the Salt River joined the Gila. The town of Maryville was established north of the Salt in the east valley in 1865 and then abandoned for the Phoenix settlement created downstream in 1868.

In 1877 and 1878 two parties of Mormon settlers arrived from Utah at a crossing on the south side of the Salt River opposite the site of Maryville. Enjoying the protection of the military and finding no prior legal claims, the land was theirs for the taking. The first party established a United Order commune, engineered an irrigation ditch from the river and laid out on paper the town of Utahville, also known as Fort Utah, later Jonesville (1880) and Lehi (1884). The second party chose their own site on higher tableland about a mile and a half south of Utahville. Rather than a communal village, a more enterprising “Mesa City” was created out of Section 22, with 132-foot wide streets separating 10-acre blocks. And a longer Mesa Canal brought Salt River water to the mesa top.

Early Mesa pictured about 1883 shows the A. F. Macdonald home and gardens at lower left and at right the “relief society hall” (bishops storehouse? with flat roof), a hotel and store (on corner) and new city hall and jail (pitched roof). Macdonald, Mormon Stake President and first mayor, was sent to Mesa from Utah to iron out difficulties. He left in January 1885 to establish a colony in Mexico.

Bringing the abundant supply of Salt River irrigation water to the top of the mesa transformed the desert into an oasis, providing a source of agricultural wealth. Within a few years, Salt River Valley farms could feed all of Arizona and export a surplus to the rest of the nation. This unidentified canal is pictured about 1908.

Two more immigrant parties from Utah arrived and residents began building institutions to perpetuate their values. They placed importance on education, musical and performing arts and the “pioneering spirit,” by which they meant hard work to overcome hardship and make a better life in a harsh environment. Like Lehi, Mesa also valued common wealth for the common good. An adobe schoolhouse was built in 1882 and The Zenos Cooperative Mercantile and Manufacturing Institution store by 1884. The 300 residents incorporated a city government in 1883. Due to a naming conflict, US Post Office regulations first sent Mesa City mail to a post office named “Hayden” (at Hayden’s Ferry or Tempe) six miles to the west. In 1886 a Post Office still located in Tempe named “Zenos” (one of the names originally suggested for Mesa) received mail for Mesa. The “Mesa Post Office” was finally established in Mesa in 1889. By then the population had doubled.

Commercial life centered around the intersection of Main and Macdonald, seen here about 1908, looking west. On the SW corner (at left) is the Mesa City Bank, which later became Mesa Drug Company. The next building west is LeSueur, Gibbons & Co. mercantile, established in 1905. It later became LeSueur-Botkin Co. and finally sold to Bayless mercantile of Phoenix in 1926. The building was then replaced by the Nile Theater.

Beyond the accumulation of wealth through land sales and agriculture, one of the goals of settlement in the Salt River Valley was to provide a comfortable Anglo lifestyle as typified by this Mesa home pictured about 1908 surrounded by shade trees, palms and oleanders. A hundred years later lifestyle seemed the most important function of the community.

Churches and schools were valued centers of social life in early Mesa. Pictured on two vertical postcards from about 1909 are the LDS Tabernacle (1896) on SE corner of 1st Avenue and Morris, Methodist Church (1893) also on 1st Avenue just east of Center, First Baptist Church (1895) on 1st Avenue at Macdonald, South Grammar School (1890) at 2nd Avenue and Center, Mesa High School (1908) also at 2nd Avenue and Center and old North Grammar School (1899) on Center and 2nd Street. All of these buildings are gone now.

By the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Mesa had acquired a small ethnic minority population of Hispanics and African Americans. Moreover, many Pima and Maricopa Indians worked in Mesa and lived on a reservation north of the Salt River established in 1879. Following a statewide trend, Mesa elementary schools became strictly segregated in 1910. A separate grade school was built for Hispanic children (1910) and another for Blacks (1920). Highly assimilated minority children could attend the single high school established in 1899, with its own building constructed in 1908. Chinese, Japanese and Lebanese families opened businesses in Mesa during those years. With the start of World War Two some Japanese in Mesa were sent to concentration camps while others were allowed to remain in Lehi but were forbidden to venture south of Main Street, into a military exclusion zone. Hispanic students were integrated in 1940 and Blacks were allowed to attend the first Junior High in 1952. The 1954 US Supreme Court ruling ordered an end to school segregation everywhere.

The Phoenix & Eastern Railroad reached Mesa from Tempe in 1895 and the Southern Pacific eventually put Mesa on its mainline to Phoenix in 1926. The city got electric lights in 1898 and telephones in 1902. Building the Apache Trail (1904) and Roosevelt Dam (1905-1910) boosted Mesa’s business community. In 1914, the University of Arizona established an experimental farm west of Mesa that lasted until 1983. The city hosted the annual Arizona Citrus Show 1931-1959.

Citrus and Egyptian cotton became the leading crops 1907-1920, then cotton prices plummeted after the First World War leaving Mesa in a brief but severe depression. Soon after good times returned the city was again hit hard by the Great Depression after 1929. Suffering ten years of depression, property values in 1940 were only half that of 1920. But Arizona’s mining towns fared even worse. Beginning in 1940, Mesa almost doubled its population with each new census. That year it was the fourth largest city in the state, just behind Douglas. Prosperity returned with the industrial buildup for World War Two. Two airbases were sited nearby in 1941, Falcon Field and Williams Field. Falcon Field was turned over to the city at the end of the war, but Williams Air Force Base continued operations until 1993.

To provide narrow store fronts with the most customer parking automobiles parked head-in at both curbs and in the center of Main Street when this postcard was issued about 1927 (the autos at left are in the middle of the street). The view is looking east toward the intersection with Macdonald. The green sign marks Everybody’s Drugs on the corner with the lamppost. At right is the Nile Theater. Built in 1928, it closed as a theater in 1951. Recently it has been a church and is now called Mesa Underground, a venue for rock music.

This is the intersection of Main & Macdonald about 1939, looking northwest toward Everybody’s Drugs in a rebuilt remnant of Chandler Court (1908). Dr. A. J. Chandler designed and had constructed a horseshoe-shaped, single-story office complex with the first big evaporative cooling system in the Valley. The remaining half seen here was restored in 1984, though nothing like the original building. Established in 1906, Everybody’s Drugs closed in the late 1990s. Parking in the middle of the street was eliminated about 1935. Carrying highways 60, 70, 80, 89 and 93 until the 1970s, Main Street funneled all transcontinental highway traffic from the east into the Valley, giving Mesa the nickname “The Gateway City.”

Mesa’s Main Street began a long line of services for travelers: filling stations, cafes and motels, that stretched all the way through Tempe, beginning again on East Van Buren Street in Phoenix. By 1960 the strip development had extended farther east to Apache Junction. This postcard of the Winter Garden Motor Court, located at 131 East Main, was mailed in 1951.

After World War Two, Mesa became a popular destination for tourists and families looking for jobs and a southwestern suburban lifestyle. The 1950 census found Mesa the third largest city in Arizona, a position it has retained ever since. Annexations of agricultural land helped. The city limit doubled the original square mile in 1930 and increased to six square miles in 1950 then 125 square miles by 2000. Promoted as “The Charm City,” by 1952 tourism had become Mesa’s largest industry. Winter visitors parked trailers by the thousands in dozens of mobile home “villages.” Air conditioning, car-friendly streets and suburban shopping attracted permanent residents. Aerospace factories provided high paying jobs, a rocket engine research facility in 1957, Talley Defense Systems in 1960, Motorola in 1966 and Hughes Helicopter in 1982. And there was a payoff. Agricultural land became more valuable when developed for commercial, industrial or residential use.

The same block on Main pictured above is seen here about 1953. Stapley’s Hardware (at right) opened in 1895, profited by providing supplies for Roosevelt Dam construction and eventually added 11 locations across the Valley. Owner, O. S. Stapley was a member of the Arizona constitutional convention in 1910 and then served as state senator. Great grandson Don is a county supervisor.

Residents enjoyed the shade in the Citrus Grove Trailer Park at 1007 W. Main in the 1950s. After the allure of trailer life faded subdivisions were built over cotton fields, with wide ranch style homes at first, but finally townhouse styles with narrow facades. (I have colorized the original black & white postcard image.)

Looking south on Macdonald in the first block below Main about 1956, the Pioneer Hotel began in 1894 as the Alhambra, finest in Mesa. It burned in 1921, was reconstructed the following year and received a large addition in 1951. It survives as a public hotel operated by Transitional Living Communities. Pat’s Bicycle Shop was next door from 1947 to 1957, when it moved to 929 East Main. The still family owned business moved to Gilbert Gateway Towne Center near the airport at the end of 2009.

From 1950 until the present Great Recession Mesa’s economy grew at a spectacular rate. Dobson Ranch, the first master-planned subdivision, opened in 1973 and the Superstition Freeway in 1977. Forty-two new grade schools were built 1950-1990, by which time Mesa Unified School District No. 4 was the largest in the state. Population increased 89% between 1980 and 1990. At the same time, some of the best farmland on the planet was lost to development. One million cartons of citrus were shipped from Mesa in 1995, but only 220,000 last year. At the same time, many square miles of Sonoran desert were bulldozed for development. In recent years, some of those structures built over the desert or in place of crops have themselves fallen to the wrecking ball.

Rendezvous Park, Mesa’s first municipal park, was located at 2nd Street and Center. That’s 2nd at lower left, with Center running left to right across the top of the postcard and University across the upper left. The round building, Rendezvous Recreation Center, was built in 1925. Major improvements were made in 1938. This aerial view from the mid-1960s shows a major league spring training game in progress. The Chicago Cubs practiced here 1952-1965 whereupon they moved to Scottsdale. The Oakland Athletics came in 1969. Most of the park was razed in 1976 to become the site of Mesa Community Center. The Athletics continued spring training at the new Hohokam Park until 1978. The following year, the Cubs returned to Mesa.

The seventh operating temple of the LDS Church was dedicated in Mesa October 23, 1927. It’s still an unusual design, inspired by Solomon’s temple, without a spire. This view is to the northeast, with Main Street running across the top of the postcard and the intersection of East 1st Avenue with South Lesueur at lower left. Landscaping has changed since this photo was taken in the 1960s and there is a new visitor center on the north side.

Looking northwest above downtown Mesa about 1969, the 5-story Valley National Bank (1959), on the NE corner of Main and McDonald, is the tallest building. In the next block north on McDonald is City Hall (now the Arizona Museum of Natural History), with Queen of Peace Catholic Church (red roof) across the street to the north. At lower right, on Main, the El Portal Hotel (1928) was demolished in 1972 and Mesa City Plaza occupies the site. Valley Bank sold to Bank One in 1993, which was then acquired by Chase. A $6 million renovation completed in 2005 turned the bank building into One Macdonald Center offices, with a US Bank on the ground floor. This part of Mesa used to be the commercial center of the original square-mile city limit bounded by University and Broadway, Country Club and Mesa Drive.

Mesa’s first strip-mall shopping center anchored by a locally owned Wright’s grocery opened in 1954 on Broadway and Mesa Drive. The first indoor mall opened in 1968 on west Main at Dobson, close to Tempe. Tri-City Mall offered 55 shops anchored by J. C. Penney’s, six multiplex screens, and several restaurants. It closed in 1998 and was largely demolished, replaced by Tri-City Pavilions strip-mall. That’s Webster Elementary School, 202 N. Sycamore, behind the mall.
see:
Lisa A. Anderson, Alice C. Jung, Jared A. Smith & Thomas H. Wilson, Mesa (2008) Images of America Series
Mesa Public Schools, Our Town (1991)
D. L. Turner & Catherine H. Ellis, Latter-Day Saints in Mesa (2009) Images of America Series

Wealth Came To Arizona On Rails

Historically, railroads have been tremendously helpful tools in the building of Arizona, far more important than statistics imply. The Twentieth Century began and ended with about 2,000 miles of rails in Arizona, only about one-hundredth of the nation’s total miles. But tracks were all over the Arizona map, serving nearly every sizable city. The only existing county seat never served by rail is St. Johns in Apache County, though an industrial railroad now comes within about 10 miles. The county seats of Bisbee and Prescott lost their rails and the populous communities of Bullhead City and Lake Havasu City are far from a railroad since they were relatively recently settled. Native American reservations have mostly been bypassed by railroads along with other forms of economic development. But in Arizona rail lines sometimes snaked their way into seemingly inaccessible mountains and canyons to bring raw materials to factories, the products of industry to market and goods to stores. In the past, all the big copper companies and lumbering concerns operated their own railroads. And tourists could visit Arizona landmarks or just pass through on two transcontinental rail corridors linking the coasts. Moreover, a number of tourist excursion railroads have come and gone over the years.

Before railroads, slow 20-mule team freight wagons jarred cargo over rocky trails or got stuck in the mud. Remote villages or mining camps often had to transport building materials, supplies and even water on burros. Railroads offered convenience and thereby transformed Arizona Territory. When transportation of heavy products en mass was required, say, tons of copper ore, heavy machinery or building stones, railroads made the task easy and profitable. The speed of rail transportation provided pleasurable travel over great distance and made it possible to rush fruits and vegetables to market before spoilage or transport cattle without great loss of weight. The only difficulty was raising capital to build a rail line and then providing revenue without a concentration of population.

The first railroad to reach Arizona entered in May of 1877 at Yuma. Federal government red tape delayed use of the line at first, but a Southern Pacific Railroad engine finally snuck across the river under cover of darkness on the morning of September 30, 1877. Congress then tried to delay further construction by giving the Texas & Pacific Railroad an exclusive franchise to build across southern Arizona. The bill didn’t pass and the Southern Pacific reached a business agreement with the Texas & Pacific. A year after entering the territory, the Southern Pacific of Arizona Railroad was formed as a subsidiary of the SP and construction resumed in November 1878.

The Southern Pacific crossed the Colorado River and ran down the middle of Madison Avenue in Yuma. The Texas & Pacific Railroad had dibs on the best location for a bridge, between Fort Yuma and Prison Hills, but hadn’t begun to lay rails when the Southern Pacific reached Yuma in 1877. The SP’s first wooden bridge was damaged by flood in 1884 and destroyed by fire the following year. A replacement wooden bridge survived the flood of 1891 but was eventually replaced in stages from 1895-1899 by a stronger steel structure seen here about 1912. Foot traffic also used the bridge, while wagons and automobiles crossed the river on a ferry until 1915. That year a steel highway bridge was placed between the two hills and the single-span railroad bridge still in use joined it in 1923. The bridge pictured here was then dismantled for scrap.

After bridging the Colorado River at Yuma, the Southern Pacific Railroad had relatively easy going across southern Arizona. Staying south of the Gila River, Maricopa Wells offered an abundant water supply for thirsty steam locomotives headed for Tucson. By the time this photo was made, about 1910, passengers could switch trains at Maricopa station and head for Phoenix on the Phoenix & Eastern Railroad, crossing the Gila and then the Salt River at Tempe.

Improvements in track and signals allowed trains to run as fast as 70-90 miles an hour by 1940. This Southern Pacific fast freight is transporting livestock. Through various business maneuvers the SP came to own most of the track in southern Arizona by 1955. But the company fell on hard times and was purchased by the Rio Grande in 1988 and then taken over by the Union Pacific in 1996.

While the SP of Arizona spanned the southern territory by 1881, the Atlantic and Pacific crossed the northern plateau region by 1883. The Atlantic & Pacific was backed by a partnership between the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the St. Louis & San Francisco (Frisco). Only two rail enterprises would build most of the lines in the territory under various subsidiaries. Mining and lumber companies built most of the other railroads in Arizona.

The second transcontinental rail line to cross the territory entered northern Arizona from New Mexico in 1880. The first major obstacle was Canyon Diablo west of Winslow. Bridging the chasm held up progress for six months. This fragile structure nearly 600 feet long carried trains more than 200 feet above the normally dry stream until it was replaced by a stronger bridge in 1900 and finally the present structure in 1947. This view from about 1888 shows a typical Atlantic & Pacific Railroad passenger train of that time, short and slow. But traveling at 15-35 mph in the 1880s was much faster than by any other means.

The Atlantic & Pacific had to build across the mountainous terrain with difficulty, winding down Johnson Canyon between Williams and Ash Fork in order to come down off the Colorado Plateau. One tunnel, 328 feet in length was necessary, followed by two steel bridges. In this view from about 1909, the California Limited of A&P’s successor, the Santa Fe Railway, chugs slowly uphill, headed east toward Williams. Beginning in 1912 the line was double-tracked and the second track bypassed Johnson Canyon to the north. Thereafter, only westbound trains used the tunnel, coasting downhill toward Ash Fork. The bypass was double-tracked in 1960 and the line through the tunnel abandoned.

Today, most of the track in Arizona is still owned by only two huge companies. There are a handful of small general carrier lines still operating, and a number of short industrial and excursion lines. But rail service by these smaller companies is contracting. Several lines have recently halted operations. And between 1990 and 2008 many miles of track were taken up. Statistics conflict depending upon whether you count only “route miles” or add miles of double track, sidings and yard track, but Arizona now has about 1,900 route miles, of which 1,300 miles are owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific companies.

Bisbee’s Copper Queen mine built the Arizona & Southwestern railroad 36 miles to Fairbank (west of Tombstone) in 1888-1889 and connected with the SPRR at Benson five years later. After Phelps-Dodge acquired the mine, it recreated the railroad as the El Paso & Southwestern in 1901, building to Douglas that year and El Paso the next. This wooden depot was replaced in 1913 by a grand structure that still stands. The EP&SW was acquired by the SPRR in 1924. The name was dropped in 1955 and service ceased by the end of 1961. The tracks were taken up beginning in 1963 and the depot is now home to the Douglas police department.

A Gila Valley, Globe & Northern mixed consist has stopped for its portrait December 1, 1898, the first train over the new line to Globe. There is a combination express and passenger car on the end. Like most Arizona short lines years ago, the railroad from Bowie to Globe and Miami offered passenger, express and general freight service in addition to its primary function transporting ore and copper. The GV,G&N eventually became part of the Southern Pacific Golden Empire, then was sold in 1988 to once again carry the Arizona Eastern name. It is currently a general carrier owned by Iowa Pacific Holdings. (colorized Arizona State University Library photo)

On the Morenci Southern Railroad tracks had to quickly drop in elevation south of Morenci and it was necessary to make five big loops and pass through three tunnels. The train pictured around 1902 is heading south and will soon be on the track seen down in the gulch to pass under the trestle it is on at present. From 1900 to 1922 the narrow-gauge line ran 18 miles from Morenci to Guthrie where it connected with the Arizona and New Mexico Railroad.

The Magma Arizona railroad, built in 1915, connected the Arizona Eastern Railroad at a point NW of Florence with the Magma Copper mine at Superior. It was the last industrial shortline in the US to use steam power. Locomotive No. 5, seen here in the 1960s, had been acquired new and made scheduled runs until 1967. It was last used in 1971 during the filming of the movie How The West Was Won. The Magma Arizona line has been mothballed since 1995.

Three Flagstaff sawmills once operated logging railroads. In addition, sawmills at Williams, Standard (west of Show Low) and McNary operated their own railroads. All these lines are now gone, replaced by log trucks, except the Apache Railroad (see below). This photograph shows a Southwest Forest Industries train shortly after World War Two when steam locomotives and a steam powered loader were still in use.

Apache Railway locomotives 100 and 200 haul a load of logs to the Southwest Forest sawmill at McNary about 1960. The Fairbanks-Morse H10-44 yard switchers were built in 1947. Though the sawmill closed more than 30 years ago, the Apache Railway is still busy connecting a paper mill west of Snowflake with the Burlington-Northern Santa Fe main line at Holbrook.

see:
ADOT, 1978 Arizona State Rail Plan
ADOT, State of Arizona 2007 Railroad Inventory and Assessment
David F. Myrick, Railroads of Arizona series, five volumes 1975-2001.
John W. Sayre, Ghost Railroads and Ghost Towns of Central Arizona (1985)
Russell Wahman, The Historical Geography of the Santa Fe Railroad In Northern Arizona (1971)
Russell Wahman, Narrow Gauge To Jerome (1983)

Lake Havasu City: Arizona’s West Coast Playground

When Parker Dam was completed in 1938 and Lake Havasu began to fill, it not only provided water for California’s west coast cities, it also created Arizona’s “west coast” beaches. Birds flocked to the new habitat and Havasu National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1941 all up and down the eastern shore of the lake. Despite the remote location, a couple from Needles saw the recreational potential and purchased land for a fishing retreat on Pittsburgh Point, a peninsula jutting out from the Arizona shore into the lake’s widest part. Using its wartime license, the Army Air Corps also came to the peninsula in 1943 and bulldozed an emergency landing field big enough for Flying Fortresses. The two gravel runways and 1,030-acres were designated Kingman Emergency Field S6, or “Site Six,” an auxiliary installation for Kingman Army Air Field and the Yucca Aerial Gunnery Range south of Kingman.

The military also recognized the recreational potential. In 1944, it built a rest and recreation facility for airmen on leave. When the war ended, the entire facility was declared surplus and Vic and Corinne Spratt moved from Needles to manage Site Six as a fishing resort. But their attorney had to prove to the military prior ownership of the land. Fortunately, war surplus aircraft were cheap in the 1950s, so guests could fly into what was now called Havasu Airpark, with former army barracks turned into living quarters, grocery, restaurant and bar. There were no roads into the entire area in Arizona except rough jeep trails, but access to the California side had already brought powerboat racing to the lake.

Pittsburg Point seen from the air in the mid-1960s, looking NE toward the Arizona shore that is developing into a new city, and the Mohave Mountains (used to be called the Chemehuevi Mts.). Site Six facilities are in the foreground, with the trailer park and motel recently added. The two angled runways, one now paved, remain from the WWII emergency field. A shorter third runway of dirt, crossing the paved strip, had been added in the 1950s. Bob Petley of Phoenix took the aerial photograph and published it as a postcard.

One day in 1958, Robert McCulloch suddenly flew in and purchased Site Six on the spot. Before the war, he had worked in the aircraft industry. Now he was a wealthy owner of an oil company in Los Angeles that encouraged use of its gas and oil by also manufacturing chain saws and outboard boat motors. He told the Spratts and other landowners that he needed a test facility for McCullough outboards. But when he talked about plans for a fabulous city on Lake Havasu, with private airplanes in every garage and world-class resorts on every beach a lot of people thought he was crazy. Even his business partner, C. V. Wood, Jr., who designed fantastic recreational landscapes at Disneyland thought the idea of an economically sustainable city in the remote desert was naïve, perhaps even risky.

Site Six resort, photographed by Max Mahan about 1965, shows two Lockheed Constellation airliners parked at the terminal. McCulloch added recreational facilities beginning in 1963. In center, right to left, are the circular Lake Havasu Travel Trailer Park, a boat launch ramp, two-story Lake Havasu Motel and parking lot and a cove leading to the McCulloch test facility. The airport was later abandoned, replaced with a strip on the north side of town.

Wood master-planned a city built around recreation and retirement living with chain saw and boat factories for high-paying jobs. McCulloch started networking to acquire 16,000 more acres of land owned by the federal government. Several complicated land deals eventually transferred ownership or provided leased land on which to build a city. In 1963, for a little over $73 an acre, McCulloch purchased 13,000 acres given by the federal government to the State of Arizona. In 1964, Arizona native and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall issued a Lower Colorado River Land Use Plan that recommended expansion of Site Six for recreational use as a Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife concession, after “withdrawal from Wildlife Refuge classification” and transfer to Arizona State Parks Board management. McCulloch Properties, Inc. was created as developer and concessionaire. The following year, the Parks Board entered into a 50-year lease with the federal government for more than 13,000 acres along Lake Havasu’s Arizona shore to create the largest state park. Mohave County even designated the whole area an official Irrigation and Drainage District to facilitate development. In 1986, the US Department of Interior gave Pittsburg Point land to Arizona in exchange for state land taken for the Central Arizona Project canal. Lake Havasu State Park was divided into two units following the land exchange.

In 1964, two Lockheed L-049 Constellations began free flights for prospective buyers who would spend two days touring the town site. Flights left numerous cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and Dallas. From 1963-1978 a total of more than 2,700 flights brought 137,000 prospective buyers to Lake Havasu City. Lockheed L-188 turboprop Electra airliners replaced the Connies in April 1968. By then, the Nautical Inn resort had opened on Pittsburg Point, along with a state beach and marina. The growing town would soon have two golf courses, together with stores, schools and public buildings on the mainland opposite the peninsula.

Two Lake Havasu City airliners are parked on the ramp about 1965 with the control tower and terminal at right. McCulloch purchased a total of five Lockheed L-049 Constellations between 1964 and 1966 so that at least two could be flying at any given time. The aircraft had been built 1945-1947 and previously used by the US Air Force, Air France, KLM and TWA. One of the planes, N90831 built for military service in 1945, ended up at Pima Air Museum in Tucson, and has been restored to its former TWA livery.

Lake Havasu City still needed some centerpiece that would attract the attention of the whole world. Robert McCulloch hit on an idea when he noticed the city of London England put its namesake bridge up for sale in 1967 because it was sinking into the Thames due to the excessive weight of modern traffic. He and Wood arrived in London in April 1968 with $2.46 million and the deal was an instant sensation. “London Bridge falls to the Apaches,” said the London Daily Express. “Arizona Says ‘We’ve Got It,’” shouted the Evening Standard. By a marvel of modern engineering the bridge that had spanned the Thames since 1830 would be dismantled stone by stone, transported by ship to California and then trucked to the Arizona desert. The Lord Mayor of London helped McCulloch and Wood lay the first stone September 23, 1968 and thousands attended Grand Opening Day, October 10, 1971.

Actually, only the handsome facing stones made the trip to Arizona, still a 10,000-ton load. The rough-cut stone and rubble fill was left in England. Crews built a precisely sized reinforced concrete bridge on dry land where the peninsula narrows. When the facing stones arrived each numbered stone was returned to its place, attached to hangers on the concrete core and cemented in place with bentonite. After the concrete core was completely covered, it looked just like the bridge from London, all five graceful arches wearing a 130-year-old patina of grime. Then, an artificial channel was dredged under the new bridge, making Pittsburgh Point into an island. This view, looking NW, shows the recently completed bridge, English Village and channel with the beginnings of landscaping.

By 1970, the city of more than 4,000 enjoyed a new paved highway connecting it with Interstate-40 to the north and Parker on the south. The Outboard World Championship race with a $60,000 purse was held off shore that year, along with the National Water Ski Speed Championships and the London Bridge Regatta featuring 200 yachts. Hollywood star Charlton Heston won the Celebrity Tennis Tournament held at Lake Havasu City in March 1970. And Lake Havasu State Park drew more visitors than any other that year.

With London Bridge as centerpiece, Lake Havasu City adopted a merry old England theme, a marketing strategy used elsewhere, like Solvang, California’s Danish village and Payson, Arizona’s Swiss Village. Recently, however, new resorts on Lake Havasu have been designed around a south seas Polynesian style.


Tourists leave the English Village on the Miss Havasupai II for a 45-minute ride, probably in the 1980s. They could make a similar trip on the Dixie Belle, patterned after a Mississippi riverboat. The lake was named after the Havasupai tribe, which has a small reservation in Havasu Canyon tributary to the Grand Canyon. There is probably no connection to the boat, but the tribe selects a Miss Havasupai and Little Miss Havasupai at an annual beauty pageant.

Through the 1980s and 90s “Arizona’s Playground” city continued to grow, almost 16,000 residents in 1980 and more than 24,000 by 1990. It passed Kingman and rivaled Bullhead City to become the largest community in Mohave County. College students began coming in increasing numbers to Lake Havasu to party. On a holiday weekend, traffic jams of boats might clog the bridge channel or a popular cove. But as the searing desert sun bleached the old stones of London Bridge, some of the luster faded from the older resorts. Still, a room could cost $100-$300 a night. There would be a $1,000 fine for “illegal camping,” and only one free boat launch ramp. How far removed from the days when Site Six was largely enjoyed by those few families with a private airplane. Recently, employment in the hospitality industry has declined, while jobs have been added to businesses serving the permanent community. Many residents just love the dry heat and access to the lake. Robert McCulloch knew they would. The population has now passed 54,000.

See:
Leonard Downie, Jr. “Two New Town Mirages” The Washington Post (1971) available online at “APF_Fellows” website (Google it)
Economy of Lake Havasu City (2008) Ariz. Dept. of Commerce
Paul Freeman, “Abandoned and Little Know Airfields” (2010) website: www.airfields-freeman.com/AZ/Airfields_AZ_W.html (copy & paste URL)
US Dept. of Interior, The Lower Colorado River Land Use Plan (1964)
Frederic B. Wildfang, Lake Havasu City (2005) Images of America series history