Quartzsite Was In the
Center of Everywhere

The small town of Quartzsite is sprawled out about 5 miles along Interstate-10 in western La Paz County, 19 miles east of Ehrenberg. It extends another five miles north and south of the freeway along State Route 95, which follows Tyson Wash across the La Posa Plain north to the Colorado River. The open desert sizzling in summer heat, surrounded by jagged mountains, gives the impression of a way station in the middle of nowhere, but the estimated 1.5 million yearly visitors suggests Quartzsite is the center of everywhere. Residents have been able to make the location on a well-traveled route pay off in a big way while providing visitors with a memorable experience.


History tells us Charles Tyson built a non-military fort at the location in 1856 to protect the water supply from Mohave-Apache (Yavapai) raids. That was the year of the first rush to the gold placers in Yuma County, and very early in the area’s history, leaving little documentation now. Arizona Territory was not separated from New Mexico until 1863. A historical marker at the site gives 1864 as the probable date Tyson hand dug his well. The Quartzsite Historical Society believes Tyson built the still extant adobe stage station in 1866. That year, the California & Arizona Stage Company began running passengers, mail and Wells Fargo express from the end of the Southern Pacific track in California to Ehrenberg and Wickenburg. Ehrenberg, Arizona was a steamboat landing on the Colorado River, supplying the interior via freight wagons. The river towns of Ehrenberg, Olive City and La Paz served miners during the 1860s Colorado River gold rush. Gold had also been recently discovered around Wickenburg and in the mountains south of Prescott. The stage road forked at Wickenburg, with stages going north to the territorial capital at Prescott and south to Phoenix and Florence.

There are four or five types of desert in Arizona. Quartzsite is near the northern limit of the Sonoran Desert, with the Mohave Desert to the northwest. To the southwest, the landscape differs from the desert around Phoenix and Tucson. Traditionally, this sparse cover in Yuma County and southern California has been called the Colorado Desert, though some authorities say it’s still part of the Sonoran. The Chihuahuan Desert also extends into Arizona around Douglas and San Simon. And parts of northern Arizona along the Utah border resemble the Great Basin Desert. Burton Frasher of Pomona published this Real Photo Post Card, likely in the 1940s.

Frasher also preserved this view of Tyson’s Well stage station looking SE with the highway in the foreground. It may not have been called a fort until the 20th Century. Plaster on the walls and a metal roof has helped preserve the long-abandoned adobe structure.

This photo of Tyson’s, looking northwest at the back of the building, probably dates to the 1940s. Additions without the metal roof are crumbling. The tip of the saguaro cactus in Frasher’s photo is visible above the roof at right. Photographer Glenn Edgerton carefully documented much of the Mohave Desert of California and Arizona.

Tyson’s Well stage station continued to provide rest and refreshment to travelers and freight drivers until the railroads came in the 1880s. Martha Summerhayes, wife of an Army officer stationed in Arizona, described travel in those days. Transferred with her husband from Camp Verde to Ehrenberg, she found way stations along the road primitive but welcoming, with one exception. After three days, the Army wagons entered the Colorado Desert and stopped for the night at Desert Station in Bouse Wash. She again found accommodations “clean and attractive, which was more than could be said of the place where we stopped the next night, a place called Tyson’s Wells. We slept in our tent that night, for of all the places on the earth a poorly kept ranch in Arizona is the most melancholy and uninviting. It reeks of everything unclean, morally and physically.”

Tyson’s Well revived in the 1890s when more efficient gold mining methods were introduced to the area. Several families opened stores, taverns and hotels to serve nearby mines. A post office was established as “Tyson’s” in the summer of 1893 but discontinued in the fall of 1895. A year later the post office reopened under the name “Quartzsite.” Quartzite (without the “s”) is a rock of firmly cemented quartz grains. Lacking experience in prospecting, the postal service apparently registered the name as a place where quartz is found.

But the mining boom soon faded and there were less than 20 residents by 1900. Location again came to the rescue about ten years later when the Atlantic and Pacific automobile road was routed through Quartzsite. Cross-country travelers could avoid the Imperial Sand Dunes west of Yuma by heading from Phoenix to Wickenburg, Quartzsite and Ehrenberg. There, they crossed the Colorado River to Blythe on a small ferry boat and went on to Los Angeles. Every year after 1911 more and more cars made the trip.

Looking east about 1915 along the Atlantic & Pacific Highway through Quartzsite, the Hagely Hotel is on the left. German immigrant Anton Hagely (1844-1928) worked as a butcher in town during the 1890s mining boom and stayed on to become owner of a store and hotel. Upon his death, his wife Victoria continued the business. Their son John George (1894-1977) became a Quartzsite Justice of the Peace. Down the street on the same side, with windmill and water tank out front, is Charles V. Kuehn’s general store. Kuehn (1886-1930) was a former stage driver who came to own a store and saloon. He was also postmaster 1914-1923.

Looking west along Highways 60/70, part of nearby Granite Mountain is visible at left behind the store. The Hagely Hotel is the building in center, not with the Shell sign. It has a sign that says “Motel.” Quartzsite had declined a bit when this photo was taken about 1933 by Burton Frasher. By then automobiles made fewer stops on long trips. Maybe just gas and soda pop at Quartzsite before speeding on to Ehrenberg where a through-truss bridge had replaced the ferry in 1928. By then the Atlantic & Pacific Highway had been numbered state route 74. In the 1930s the highway became part of US60 and US70.

In 1856 the US Cavalry imported 33 camels as an experiment to see if they should replace horses and mules in the southwest deserts. But the animals ended up at the relatively high altitude of Fort Verde and were used during construction of the Beale Wagon Road across the plateaus of northern Arizona. The camel corps was disbanded in 1864. One of the camel drivers, a Greek-Syrian going by the name Hadji Ali, a.k.a. Phillip Tedro (1829-1902) but informally known by the more pronounceable “Hi Jolly,” settled in Quartzsite as a prospector. In 1935, in order to publicize US 60, the Arizona Highway Department built this pyramid tombstone to honor the Muslim who was “over thirty years a faithful aid to the U.S. government.” Hi Jolly’s grave is still a popular visit in Quartzsite. Hollywood cowboy actor Buck Conner (1880-1947) is also buried there. Conner was the brother of Mrs. W. G. Keiser (1877-1939) who with her husband operated Beacon Hotel and store for about 15 years in Quartzsite. Highway Color postcard by Bolty, published by Frye & Smith Ltd. of San Diego.

This view of the old adobe stage station about 1965 shows some restoration work, though half of the building has collapsed into ruin since the older photos were taken. The Quartzsite Historical Society completed additional restoration work and opened Tyson’s Well Museum in the building in 1980. Photo by Bob Van Luchene published by Petley Studios of Phoenix.

Quartzsite’s population of a few hundred in the 1930s had declined to just 50 by 1960. In 1965 residents formed the Quartzsite Improvement Association which sponsored the first Pow Wow Gem & Mineral Show in 1967 drawing 74 exhibitors and vendors and about 1,000 visitors. This postcard shows the event a few years later when it drew crowds estimated at more than 12,000. The view is to the southwest with the freeway crossing Tyson’s Wash at upper right, just after passing under Highway 95. South of the freeway are some of the RV camps. The Quartzsite experience blossomed and now offers winter visitors a number of gem and mineral shows in addition to a gigantic flea market. The town incorporated in 1989 and includes a public library, bank, medical centers, golf course and more than 70 RV and mobile home parks. In 2006 more than 2,000 people there were working for the government, with another 2,775 employed in the services industry. The “dry camping capital of the world” and “rock hound paradise” hosts an estimated 250,000 temporary residents each winter.

See:
Arizona Good Roads Assoc., Tour Book (1913)
“Genealogy of the People of Quartzsite” website http://utahrockhounds.com/quartzsitegen/
Richard J. Hinton, Handbook to Arizona (1877)
Hirum C. Hodge, Arizona As It Is. . .1874-1876. (1877)
Palo Verde Historical Museum & Society, Blythe & the Palo Verde Valley (2005)
Martha Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona (1908) quote is from pp. 145-6 of 1911 edition.
Roanna H. Winsor, “Monument to Hi Jolly,” Arizona Highways May 1961.

Phoenix Was Both

Oasis and Mirage

Part Two: The Struggle To Maintain Paradise

(Part One is below, posted 22 Oct 2010)

When the economy crashed at the end of 1929, Phoenix was facing a long hard slog to try to maintain a lifestyle that had only been attained by higher income families. Though Phoenix fared better than most eastern localities, by 1933 almost 10,000 people in the city of about 50,000 were receiving some kind of welfare benefits (p.103, Luckingham, Phoenix, 1989). And there was little money to improve social conditions or infrastructure. Even after war industries brought wealth into the valley, poverty remained a problem. In 1950 the Los Angeles Examiner found a family of seven starving in a labor camp near Phoenix. The father was “a cripple” and sold his blood for food, which ran out before he could sell more. African-American residents in Phoenix were often denied welfare benefits during the Great Depression and had to form their own charitable organizations. Franciscan Father Emmett McLoughlin came to Phoenix in 1933 and spent his life working to improve the south side. He founded a hospital and advocated slum clearance and construction of low-cost public housing. By the 1960s, Phoenix was still unable to provide a decent living for all its residents.

Phoenix could measure up to any American city when it came to bootlegging, drug abuse, illegal gambling, prostitution and public corruption. “Every conceivable kind of illegal activity seemed to flourish in the rapidly emerging metropolis, including white-collar and organized crime” (p.209, Luckingham, Phoenix, 1989). Just before World War Two, the military came to the valley for its good flying weather and built five Army air bases: Luke Field, Williams Field, Falcon Field, and Thunderbird No. 1 and 2. The Navy, in partnership with Goodyear tire opened an aircraft factory and air station. Phoenix and other valley cities were suddenly flooded with jobs and government contracts. But the Army, in order to protect its soldiers, demanded Phoenix clean up vice, and especially, end prostitution. As a result, city leaders at least made their community appear more respectable. But the war did bring lasting change. Factories without smoke stacks, predominately aerospace and electronics plants, began replacing the agricultural economic base.

Looking west along the Grand Canal toward St. Francis Xavier Parish church (1928), probably in the 1930s, illustrates the pastoral landscape created upon application of large amounts of water to the fertile desert soil. When the supply of water ran short forty years later, shady but thirsty cottonwood trees were cut down and the canal lined with concrete. St. Francis, located on Central Avenue south of Camelback Road and a few blocks north of Phoenix Indian School, was also home to Brophy College Preparatory School, still the valley’s leading Catholic high school.

Development of railroads offered the possibility of growing a lucrative tourist industry in the valley. Phoenix got a Southern Pacific railroad mainline in 1926 to replace the branch line from Maricopa, bringing winter visitors without a change of trains. Winter resorts like Ingleside Inn (1910) and Arizona Biltmore (1929), shown here in 1936, catered to an upscale clientele. The Biltmore, located about 8 miles NE of Phoenix, was built by the McArthur Brothers who owned a Dodge dealership on Central & Madison. Albert McArthur, who once worked for Frank Lloyd Wright, designed the building in Prairie School style, constructed of decorative cast concrete blocks. The economic downturn forced the brothers to sell to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr. who built a huge mansion nearby. (See: “A Biltmore Myth,” by Avis Berman, Western Interiors Jan-Feb 2005, pp.57-65)

By 1937, despite the Depression, middle-class families were taking to newly paved highways on cheap vacations. By 1935, Phoenix was located on two cross-country highways, numbered 70 and 80, and two more federal highways crossing the state, north-south Highway 89 and west-east Highway 60. This 1937 ad in Better Homes and Gardens offered a blooming oasis and recommended permanently relocating to Phoenix. The “Valley of the Sun” moniker was adopted in 1934 (p.110, Luckingham, Phoenix, 1989).

Despite the worst economic conditions ever seen, a number of new industries first developed in the 1920s continued to grow in the 1930s, including the highway system, scheduled airline service, bus transportation, motor hotels, radio, cinema with sound and color, self-service supermarkets, iceless refrigeration, and air conditioning. Various air cooling methods began to appear in the 1920s in larger hotels. Some theaters were cooled by blowing air over tons of ice in the basement. Evaporative coolers became common on Phoenix homes in the 1930s. Refrigerated air conditioning, called “dry” air conditioning at the time, was installed in all the Luhrs office buildings in 1932. The Luhrs Hotel became the first refrigerated-AC hotel in Phoenix in 1936. Air conditioning made life in Phoenix enjoyable year-round. “Picture yourself actually leading the sort of leisurely, tranquil, do-as-you-please existence you’ve always wanted, and you’ll have some faint idea of what life is like in this happy, carefree Valley of the Sun Vacationland,” enticed a 1942 Phoenix tourism promotion.

Following World War II, Americans took to the highways in greater numbers and Phoenix was transformed. The main highway from the east, Van Buren Street became lined with a seemingly endless supply of neon marked auto courts, color flagged gasoline stations and cafes surrounded by cars. US 80 left Phoenix on two lanes of concrete with expansion joints along West Van Buren in those days, while US 60 went up Grand Avenue toward Glendale. Today, the site of the Park Lane is a parking lot for the Arizona Dept. of Revenue building.

South Pacific ambience was popular after Hawaii became a state in 1959 and the hospitality industry in Phoenix continued for many years to play upon Hawaiian or Polynesian themes. Examples include Samoan Village, Coconut Grove Motel, Trader Vic’s restaurant in Scottsdale and the Kon Tiki Hotel at 2463 E. Van Buren, shown here about 1962. “A little bit of Waikiki in the heart of Phoenix” opened in 1962 and was popular for decades. Freeways, nationwide chains and franchises eventually depressed the Van Buren hospitality corridor and Kon Tiki was torn down in the 1990s to make way for a parking lot. (See: “Lei’d To Rest. . .” by Dewey Webb, New Times, 15 Dec. 1993; “No Vacancy at Log Cabin Motel,” by Robert L. Pela, New Times, 18 Mar. 2010)

This photo of PHX Sky Harbor about 1965, looking SE shows the $850,000 Terminal One (1952) with circular parking lot and $2.7 million Terminal Two (1962) to the east. Across the runway is the Arizona Air National Guard, Boeing C-97 tanker base. In the middle of landlocked Arizona, a harbor for aircraft officially opened September 2, 1929. The City of Phoenix purchased the facility in 1935. In 1946, largely due to good flying weather, Sky Harbor was the busiest airport in the nation. And there were no accidents of any kind that year. By 1947, TWA was operating 21 flights a day into Phoenix. Terminal One was demolished in 1990, though the tower was saved and relocated.

This photo from about 1957 of the intersection of Washington and Second Streets looking west shows the original City Hall Plaza now occupied by J. C. Penney’s (1953) and Fox Theatre (1931). Within ten years, the big chain stores would begin moving away from the downtown and Washington Street would empty. Today, the block on the left is a parking lot, just as it was during the Depression, 1928-1953. Suburban shopping led to deterioration of the downtown, followed by several attempts to revitalize the urban core.

Phoenix was always a low-density city. But, as the spacious lifestyle attracted more residents, subdivision and strip-mall development spread out for miles. Air pollution, heat islands, bumper-to-bumper traffic and long commutes would eventually threaten the leisurely lifestyle. Phoenix sold its buses to a private company in 1959, only to buy back the failing system in 1971. George Luhrs, Jr., an early high-rise developer and director of the Chamber of Commerce, said in later years that he “preferred gradual growth and was not anxious to see it become a large wicked city, sprawling over a large part of the county, destroying much of the desert, eliminating much of the agriculture and the citrus land.” The population of Phoenix increased 311% during the 1950s, boosted by aggressive annexation.

Black Canyon, the first freeway in Phoenix opened in November 1960 but extended for only seven miles. In this photo, looking south, by Herb McLaughlin, probably from 1963, the McDowell Road overpass can be seen in the distance, before there was an I-10 stack. In the 1950s, Phoenix’s straight and wide streets seemed ideally suited to automobiles while traffic was still light. Freeways were built relatively late, too late some said at the time. In 1973, Phoenix voters said no to an inner loop freeway. Two years later government convinced voters to change their minds. Still, there were only 32 miles of freeway in 1980.

Another building boom downtown began about 1962 and this view looking NE about 1966 shows some of the early projects. At left is First Baptist Church (1929) with the red roof, on the NW corner of Third Avenue & Monroe. Panning right, on Adams Street are two buildings (1928 and one with tall windowless tower 1953) of Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph (now Quest & AT&T), then the tall, black First American Title (1964), 111 W. Monroe, with First National Bank (Phoenix Title & Trust Bldg., 1931) in front, then older buildings along Central Avenue. In the foreground are government buildings along Jefferson Street, the Municipal Complex (1963) with round council chambers, the old City-County Courthouse (1929) with orange roof, and two blocks between Jefferson and Madison filled with Maricopa County Complex (1965). The slim Luhrs Tower (1930) and the Luhrs parking garage are to the right. Hotel Westward Ho with TV tower is at upper center. Uptown Business District high-rise buildings around Central & Osborn can be seen at upper left.

The Salt River Valley really isn’t a valley. The many square miles of wide open and fairly flat land that offered early settlers the prospect of easy farming is actually a series of flood plains along stream beds and alluvial slopes coming down from the mountains. As development expanded floods threatened. Heavy rain flooded Phoenix homes twice in 1963. A deluge of rain came in June 1972, draining away down Indian Bend Wash. Large areas of Scottsdale submerged under five or more feet of water. Storm runoff broke the banks of the Arizona Canal flooding Phoenix neighborhoods all the way to the north Central Avenue business district. A 1993 flood in the Salt River virtually cut off transportation between Phoenix and Tempe. Despite the appearance of an abundance of water, flood irrigation, ornamental fountains spraying into the air, homes on the shores of artificial lakes, Phoenix has long suffered from a water shortage. As Phoenicians worked to build the lush oasis, sometimes their goals remained in the distance, staying just out of reach, like a shimmering mirage on the desert.

Despite all its problems, Phoenix still seemed to have fewer difficulties than other urban areas in the 1950s and 60s. For many middle class families during those years life was good. New homes, mid-century modern designed churches, schools and commercial buildings were going up everywhere. Cheap recreational opportunities abounded. In Papago Park you could climb Hole In the Rock, tour the botanical garden, play golf, go to the zoo, or go just across Van Buren Street to enjoy the rides at Legend City amusement park or watch Major League baseball practice in winter. During those decades, even lower income residents could believe life was improving and civilization progressing. Arizona Highways magazine observed in 1964, “when men like builder John Long appeared on the scene offering three-bedroom homes with swimming pool for $11,600, housing in Phoenix started to change. There is no other city in the United States that, dollar for dollar, can offer the value to be found in Phoenix. Low cost housing remains one of the strongest factors in the changing face of Phoenix.”

Park Central Shopping Center opened in 1957 at 3418 N. 7th Avenue, two miles north of the state capitol, and became the city’s first mall. It was later called Park Central Shopping City, then Park Central Mall and is now known simply as Park Central, with mixed use by offices and small shops. It began a change in the way city dwellers shopped, moving away from the previous practice of walking sidewalks among storefronts and instead, driving a personal automobile to a parking lot in front of a strip mall. Then in the 1960s, enclosed walking malls became the ideal. Now, shopping seems to be returning to strip malls—and something different, big box stores. Phoenix has seen it all, and can serve as an object lesson.

The 1960s building boom saw the first tall buildings on north Central Avenue close to Park Central Mall. This 1963 view of the intersection of Central & Osborn (lower left corner) shows (from left) Executive Towers apartments (completed 1964) at 22 stories (207 W. Clarendon, converted to condos in 1971), Guaranty Bank (1960) at 20 stories, and Del Webb Building (1962) at 17 stories (3800 N. Central, remodeled in 1989). In the foreground is Osborn School, soon to be demolished for the construction of Financial Center (1964, heightened in 1968). Part of Osborn School, half the two-story building in center, was built in 1892. Another high-rise, Del Webb Towne House at 23 stories was added in 1964 in the block north of the Del Webb Building.

This photo taken by Don Keller in September 1963 shows a small portion of the Arcadia neighborhood, looking west, with Arcadia High School barely visible at top (click on picture to see full size) and Indian School Road following the Arizona Canal at top right. Osborn Road is lined with trees, running in front of Ingleside Junior High and what will become Arcadia Park (at right). The “T” intersection at lower left is 56th Street (running left to right) and Earll with a nearly full parking lot at the Motorola plant. Arcadia, at the base of Camelback Mountain northeast of Phoenix and just west of Ingleside, was planted in citrus groves beginning in 1919. You can see remnants of citrus rows in the photo. It soon became an elite location for estates. When this photo was taken, it was an example of one of the finest neighborhoods for middle class families with good incomes, offering spacious lots and large ranch style homes with pools. The line of homes at bottom borders Arizona Country Club (1946). Motorola opened a research and development facility at 56th Street & Earll in 1950. It became an electronics factory 1962-1982. Today it’s an office. And an EPA Superfund Site since 1989, the origin of an underground water pollution plume of cadmium, chromium, arsenic and solvents that has migrated all the way to downtown Phoenix. There is a cleanup process now in place.

Construction continued downtown with more and taller buildings darkening streets. This view from about 1977 shows one of the last rows of old buildings along Washington opposite Patriots Square (1974). The intersection in the foreground is Jefferson and First Avenue. Facing the square (from left) is the former J. J. Newberry 3-story building (1937), a rebuild of the old Monihan Building, the 4-story former S. H. Kress store, the 2-story former site of J. C. Penney and the 6-story Goodrich Building. Looming over this block in the background are (from left) the high-rise Arizona Bank (1976, now US Bank), Valley Center (1972, now Chase), rebuilt Adams Hotel (1975, now Wyndham), and Hyatt Regency (1976) with revolving restaurant on top. There was another pause in downtown construction during poor economic conditions 1976-1986. Then the old buildings in this view were demolished for construction of Renaissance Square (1987 & 1990).

See:

Arizona Development Board, The Arizona Story, (ca1962)

Arizona Highways, August 1943, “Phoenix. . .a frontier town that grew up” (entire issue)

Arizona Highways, April 1957, “Phoenix—City In the Sun” (entire issue)

Arizona Highways, March 1964, “The Changing Face of Phoenix” (entire issue)

Holy Trinity Greek History Committee, Greeks In Phoenix (2008)

Arthur G. Horton, An Economic, Political & Social Survey of Phoenix. . . (1941)

George H. N. Luhrs, Jr. (1895-1984), The George H. N. Luhrs family in Phoenix. . . (1984) manuscript at ASU Library.

Emmett McLoughlin (1907-1970), People’s Padre, (1954)

Lowell Parker, Arizona Towns & Tales, (1975)

Phoenix & Phoenix Union High School, http://www.acmeron.com/index.html

Phoenix - rising out of the ashes, http://www.bradhallart.com/phoenix.htm

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Report on Flood of 22 June 1972. . . (1972)

Van Buren, as it used to be, http://www.sierraestrella.com/vanburen.html

Phoenix Was Both
Oasis and Mirage

Part One: A Flowering Paradise

Reclaimed From the Desert

Soon after Arizona Territory was created from the western half of New Mexico enterprising individuals were drawn to the fertile soil of the Salt River Valley and the remains of ancient canals built there by Native Americans. In 1865, John Y. T. Smith located a hay cutting camp to supply Fort McDowell where 40th Street now meets the airport. About two years later a group of investors from Wickenburg led by Jack Swilling had two of the old canals cleaned out to irrigate wheat fields and supply a flourmill located on high ground about a mile east of where the downtown is today. Both Swilling and a friend named Darrell Duppa likely named the collection of farms and worker houses around the mill “Phoenix Settlement,” predicting a great civilization would rise from the ruins of the ancients. In May 1868, Yavapai County created the Phoenix election precinct in the valley.

Wickenburg and the Colorado River towns of Aubry, La Paz and Castle Dome were experiencing a gold rush at the time and supplies for miners were in great demand. Fresh fruit and vegetables were very expensive or just not available. But with irrigation, the Salt River Valley could grow enough grains, fruit, vegetables and beef to supply the entire territory. A number of individuals recognized this and came to Phoenix Settlement with big dreams of creating a lush oasis in the desert, growing enough wealth to rival any mining town in the territory. The climate would permit more than one harvest in a year. With the Verde, Salt and Gila rivers all coming together nearby, there would be water in abundance. And the central location would make for economical transportation of goods to every corner of the territory. And wealth buys political power. With Prescott and Tucson vying to be Territorial Capital, Phoenix could offer a compromise location half way between the two.

In October 1870, those with money to invest got together and voted to establish a new city called Phoenix west of the Settlement. Streets were surveyed, those running east and west named after US presidents with north-south streets named after Indian tribes. It would be a rigid grid plan based on the axis formed by Washington and Centre Streets. The first street west of Centre was Cortez, conqueror of the Indians, while the first street east was Montezuma, the conquered. Two blocks were reserved for the public, a plaza at Washington and Montezuma with a courthouse square at Washington and Cortez. Oh yes, the following year Phoenix became county seat of the newly created Maricopa County, though the county court would have to rent a room in Phoenix for a few years. Swilling’s settlement, now known as Mill City or East Phoenix, just couldn’t compete. The new Phoenix went straight to the head of the line.

In 1885, when this lithographic birds-eye-view was published in San Francisco, Phoenix was still a small village though promising a big future. The Maricopa County Court House (1884), No. 1, occupies one public square, while the Plaza, No. 13, fills another. The two-story brick Central Grammar School, No. 4, is at upper left, with a public swimming pool, No. 15, near a source of water, the “town ditch,” No. 6, that used to run along Van Buren Street until it was channeled underground in 1927. The first church in town, Centre Street Methodist Church (1871), is marked No. 5 and there is another Methodist Church (No. 3) on Washington Street. The first store in town, Hancock’s (1871), No. 10, is located on the NW corner of Washington and Montezuma. The Irvine Block (1879), No. 14, second brick structure built, is on the SW corner of Washington and Montezuma. The first brick building faces the opposite corner of the Plaza, on the SE corner of Jefferson (next street south of Washington) and 2nd Street. Sacred Heart of St. Louis Catholic Church (1881), No. 19, is at 316 E. Monroe. J. Y. T. Smith’s steam-powered flourmill is No. 12 on Jefferson Street. Notice the telegraph line. Electric power for lights would be available the following year. Much of the north side of Washington Street’s business district burned in 1885 and then again in 1886.

The 1885 lithograph was framed with pictures of important buildings, like this view of the first hotel in town, John J. Gardner’s Phoenix Hotel. Constructed in 1871-1872 of adobe surrounding an inner court with a swimming pool, it typified the early “Mexican style” buildings that were more comfortable in the heat and cheaper to build than wood construction. But brick buildings gave the impression of solid Anglo prosperity so a kiln opened in 1879.

In 1873, a nationwide economic recession dried up investment money and slowed growth in Arizona. Still, the population of Phoenix rose from 240 in 1870 to 1,708 by 1880. Nine years later Phoenix became the capital of Arizona Territory. By then the town of about 3,000 was surrounded by thousands of acres of field crops, cow pasture and orchards. Canals and laterals brought water everywhere. A rail line connecting with Maricopa carried boxcars of grain, dried fruit and fresh vegetables to far away markets. Land development and tourism grew as fast as crops in the field. The Salt River Valley “offers rich inducements to the Capitalist, the Home-seeker and the Tourist” promised a promotional ad (Pacific Monthly November 1906). “The mild winter climate of this valley brings great relief to those who are tired of cold winds, snow and ice.” The dry air also cured lung diseases, giving rise to sanitariums amongst the citrus groves.

A steam powered tractor runs a threshing machine as out in the field a reaper continues to cut, in this postcard view published about 1909. At the time, there were about 125,000 acres under cultivation in the Valley. Roosevelt Dam was nearing completion with the promise of much more water for irrigation. By 1925, more than half of all land under cultivation in Arizona was located in the Salt River Valley. And Arizona ranked first in the nation for acres of domesticated hay (mostly alfalfa), and first for production of grain sorghums per acre.

Construction of this City Hall was completed in 1888 in the middle of the Plaza on Washington between First and Second Streets. City government had been incorporated in 1881. The bell tower was a 1905 addition. Behind the building and to the right you can see the bell tower of the fire station on the SW corner of the Plaza. The City Hall building was a powerful inducement to bring the capital to Phoenix in 1889 since the legislature and the Governor were offered the upper floor until a capitol building could be completed. Economic hard times put off the start of capitol construction until 1899 and it was completed in 1901. City offices moved into one side of a new City-County building in 1929 and old City Hall was demolished. What had been a public square was sold for business development. Fox Theater was built on the NW corner of the block. Years later a new J. C. Penney store was built on the NE corner.

Phoenix had been a fairly controlled city from its inception. Appearance and reputation were important to satisfy investors, property buyers, government officials and visitors. Soon after it became territorial capital, residents looked toward statehood. The wild west image stood in the way. Phoenix formed a vigilance committee in the 1870s to deal harshly with lawlessness. By 1896, the New York Tribune noted that the city of 10,000 required “in the daytime only one policeman, and hardly requiring him.” Multi-story brick commercial buildings and landscaped homes with wide verandas presented a prosperous and peaceful appearance. “The old adobe of the early pioneer is fast disappearing before the march of progress,” reassured Meyer’s Business Directory in 1888. It concluded that “Phoenix has fairly entered upon the road which leads to prosperity,” quoting a report in the Albuquerque Democrat. “Sustained and supported by the vast tract of rich and productive soil which surrounds it on all sides, with abundance of water and a perfect climate, she can look to the future with serene confidence.”

The intersection of Washington and 1st Avenue is shown here about 1907. Without air conditioning of any kind, only electric fans, shopping and working heavily clothed in brick and wooden buildings, Phoenix residents spent most summer days very uncomfortably. Awnings over the sidewalk and on the upper floors of the Fleming Building, and the shades hanging from the front of the Monihan Building balcony were necessities. Parasols shield passengers in open carriages. A few automobiles appeared about this time, but horses were everywhere until after 1910. By 1914 there were 400 automobiles registered in Phoenix.

The first Adams Hotel building (1896), of brick with wooden porches all around, is on the right, a block away, in this view from about 1907. On the left side of the street with blue roof and white spire is Center Street Methodist Church (1871). The Goodrich Building (1886) is at left (with awnings) when it was only one story tall. The business district ended at Van Buren, where the trees are, and a prime residential neighborhood extended a few blocks north.

The 1879 brick schoolhouse visible in the lithograph above, on the block bounded by Van Buren, Monroe, Center and 1st Avenue, was expanded in 1893, again in 1899, and is pictured here about 1908 or earlier. Before the brick building, the first classes were held in one room of an adobe building constructed in 1871 on First Avenue south of Washington and rented by the county court. In 1873 an adobe schoolhouse was built, visible in the lithograph just east of the brick building. An 1889 postcard shows two more school buildings by then, East End School and West End School. The central building was the High School. A high school district was organized in 1895 with high school students sharing Central School with elementary school students, but in 1897 the Churchill mansion on Fifth Street just north of Van Buren was donated. It became Phoenix Union High School. The school district did not maintain the Central School building well and it was demolished in 1920. In 1928 the San Carlos Hotel and the Security Building were built on the site.

This is Washington at First Street, looking west about 1911. The corner of the Irvine Block is at left, with the plaza farther left out of view. At right is the Anderson building, former home of B. Heyman Furniture Company, but now housing the Berryhill Company, stationers. Minus the two towers, the building survived into the 1980s. The site is now occupied by Phelps Dodge Tower. Streetcars made suburban living possible. In 1887, the first horse-drawn streetcars began bringing shoppers to Washington Street at a time when there were few sidewalks and streets were unpaved. Electricity replaced horses in 1893 but the streetcars were still small, four-wheeled conveyances. By the time this photo was taken, larger streetcars were in use. The main line north went up First Street (where one car is turning). Streetcars stopped running in 1948, replaced by buses. Now, after great effort and expense, they are back.

By 1900 Indian street names had been replaced with numbers, Avenues on the west side of Center, Streets to the east. Centre Street became “Center” and finally Central Avenue. This view of Washington (with streetcar) and First Avenue (with mid-street parking) looks northeast from the courthouse cupola about 1918. The Fleming Building (built in 1893, raised to 4-storys in 1896, demolished 1970), with Phoenix National Bank, is at left with a flag. Across the street is the Monihan Building (1889) and at the east end of the block is the 4-story Goodrich Building (raised to 6-stories in 1921). The white building seen above the Monihan Building is the Adams Hotel (rebuilt 1911 after a fire) with “wireless” antennas (2-way radio) on the roof. Panning to the right, you can see St. Mary’s Catholic Church (1915) in the distance, and closer, on 1st Street, Dorris-Heyman furniture store (white, four-story) and part of top floor of Korrick’s (1914) department store (tan color). Postcard published by A. O. Boeres, Phoenix, through Curt Teich American Art company.

Ethnic diversity added value to Phoenix from the start. Clemente Romo and Jesus Otero were among the first businessmen, constructing adobe buildings for their stores. In 1877, half the 300 residents were Hispanic. Jewish merchants, Chinese and Japanese entrepreneurs came early. The first Chinese residents in 1872 opened a laundry. By 1888 there were five Chinese stores and ten Chinese laundries in town. Hachiro Onuki established the first steam electric plant in 1886 (sold in 1889). Isaac Rosensweig opened a jewelry store in 1895. The list of Jewish-owned stores includes firms that led the local economy until the national chains moved in, Diamonds (became Dillard’s), Goldwater’s (became Robinson’s), Korrick’s (became Broadway/Macy’s) and Hanny’s (closed 1986, but 1947 building has reopened as a restaurant). Despite early success for some ethnic families, “gentiles” still pulled a lot of strings, though some spoke with a noticeable British, German or Italian accent. “Mexicans comprise about 10 per cent of the population,” reported the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce in 1897. “Most of the common labor is done by them.” They built the first canals and the first buildings for Anglo owners. African Americans arrived in numbers after 1900. There were 400 by 1911, and their number continued to increase.

The interior of the soda fountain and ice cream parlor established in 1887 by Italian fruit vendor Charles Donofrio is shown when it was in the Ellingson building (1899) at 21 East Washington. Donofrio’s actually used an address for the alley running on the east side, called Cactus Way. The business also sold candy (in the case at left) and flowers and was famous for its crystallized cactus candy. Charles sold to his brother Dominick in 1905. After a 1928 fire, the popular confectionary and lunch counter relocated on Central, between the Hotel San Carlos and the Security Building. The floral business expanded into its own store in the block just south. Donofrio’s food service business closed in 1956, but there is still a florist by the name.

In early Phoenix, residential neighborhoods were developed north, west and south of the business district. The east side was mostly industrial. Land speculators and developers designed the city and controlled growth. As the town grew, someone with money would create a residential subdivision that would soon be added to the city limits. After floodwater reached up to Jefferson Street in 1891, Anglo families moved north, leaving south Phoenix for ethnic minorities. Residential development was dependent upon streetcar transportation. “Home seekers can find no better place than this,” boasted the Chamber of Commerce. “Think of a climate that allows you to live in a tent the year around.” Many of those living in tents were recovering from upper respiratory infections like tuberculosis. But clean fresh air and outdoor living were considered healthful for most anyone in those days.

Bungalow style and mission revival style were all the rage after 1905. This home, pictured in the 1920s, includes elements from both. Though lacking shade trees, it still exemplified the coveted image of suburban life just a short streetcar ride from the downtown shopping district. Streetcar lines crossed Willeta at 5th Avenue, 3rd Street and 10th Street, so the resident of this home would only have to walk two or three blocks to get on a car to the downtown. There is also a garage in back for an automobile.

Roses bloomed in Phoenix every December, but not without thorns. The 1890s brought another economic recession and extended drought. It should have become obvious why the ancients had abandoned their canals.  Confident Phoenicians turned to technocracy for a solution. They formed the Salt River Valley Water Users Association in 1903 and successfully lobbied the federal government to fund a “reclamation project” with Valley farmland as collateral. Just as Roosevelt Dam began to rise on the Salt River, the drought ended and floods returned. The dam stored water for irrigating more land and provided electricity to pump ground water where canal water might not be available. More floods were met with more dams on the Salt, Verde, Gila and Agua Fria rivers.

The population of Phoenix passed Tucson between the 1910 and 1920 census, finally making the capital city the largest in the state. After recovering from the post World War One cotton price slump, Phoenix experienced a building boom. And after the stock market crash of 1929, several of those construction projects already on the drawing board were nevertheless completed. But soon, hard times led to a period of stagnation and deterioration from 1932 to 1941. Commercial construction would wait nearly 30 years for another boom.

Central Avenue at Adams Street, looking south, as seen from Adams Hotel (1911), about 1926. A guest is lounging on the hotel veranda. The ten story Luhrs Building (1924), Central & Jefferson, is the tallest two-tone structure in the distance. The Goodrich building, heightened to six stories, is on the NW corner of Central & Washington. The building with the two towers is the Nicholson Building. The gray building in right foreground, on NW corner of Central & Adams, is the Gooding Building (with Santa Fe ticket office). Seen above the Gooding Building, in the background, is the very top of the County Courthouse cupola with flag, rising over the top of the Monihan Building roof. The taller brown building, with the blue roof, to the right of the Monihan, is the Fleming Building. Of all these buildings, only the Luhrs Building survives today.

At least nine tall buildings were constructed during the 1920-1931 building boom before the Great Depression halted that type of development. This postcard view published in 1929 of Central Avenue at its intersection with Monroe shows the San Carlos Hotel (1928), the taller Security Building (1928), and the still taller Hotel Westward Ho (1929) about three blocks up the street. Like the postcard above, this view is also from a balcony on the Adams Hotel. The two buildings at right (red & green) were soon demolished to make way for construction of the Professional Building (1931). The Westward Ho remained the tallest building in Phoenix until 1960. Shortly after issuing this postcard, publisher Harry Herz moved from Phoenix to Los Angeles.

See:
Thomas Edwin Farish, History of Arizona Vol. 6 (1918)
Kathleen Garcia, Early Phoenix (2008)
Judy Hinz, Phoenix How It All Began (1989)
Bradford Luckingham, Phoenix. The History of a Southwestern Metropolis. (1989)
Herb & Dorothy McLaughlin, eds., Phoenix 1870-1970 In Photographs. (1970)
Robert A. Melikian, Vanishing Phoenix (2010)
Paul Scharbach & John H. Akers, Phoenix Then & Now (2005)
Stan Watts, A Legal History of Maricopa County (2007)

Arizona Once Revered the Swastika

Eighty years ago you saw it everywhere in Arizona. That strange symbol, once venerated, now hated, but always misunderstood. Every Arizona Highway route marker used to carry the swastika emblazoned on an Indian arrowhead. As a kind of talisman, the swastika marked the location of trading posts and shops selling Native American art, and it was a common element of the designs woven into Navajo blankets and Pima baskets. The white man recognized it from the old country and molded it into concrete and plaster where it survives to this day. Back then it was a happy symbol of kind thoughts and good luck for the traveler, not the symbol of hate that brought holocaust to Europe. But now, it’s hard to even look at a swastika, let alone discuss its history in Arizona.


What is that swastika doing on Arizona highway signs? When highways had names, before they were numbered by the federal government in 1926, major routes were marked for motorists by signs with the name or initials and bands of color distinctive to each route. Numbered route markers like we see today replaced these older signs beginning in 1926. Arizona adopted a state boundaries shape with a swastika superimposed on an Indian arrowhead. It symbolized good luck for the traveler. The route marker in center is from a 1926 Rand McNally roadmap of Arizona and New Mexico. The map gave both names and numbers for main highways. The State Route 85 sign at left is from this period 1926-1935 when the number appeared in white on a black band across the shield. In this case white reflectors aid visibility at night. Black numbers alone replaced the black band later in the 1940s. Amazingly, through the war years of 1942 and 1943 an Arizona highway map was on the back cover of the official state magazine, Arizona Highways, every month, showing the state route marker with black band and swastika.


The cover of a brochure advertising the Fred Harvey El Tovar hotel at the Grand Canyon about 1908 was decorated with a Navajo blanket design featuring Greek crosses and swastikas. Nearly every Fred Harvey establishment in the southwest had an “Indian room” with displays of Native American art for sale.

Traveling the National Old Trails highway across northern Arizona in the 1920s meant splattering mud everywhere or kicking up clouds of dust as you bounced over rocks and into ruts. A most welcome sign upon reaching Peach Springs was the promise of “Ladies Rest Rooms” and the good luck/flying feet swastika (see symbolism below). White-border postcard published by D. T. Mallonee of Phoenix for Peach Springs Trading Post and mailed in 1928.

Long before Hitler appropriated the swastika cultures around the world had used and named the design.

swastika - from the Sanskrit word for “well being,” a lucky symbol or omen of good fortune in the Hindu and Jain religions of India, it was often identified with the Sun-Wheel image.

cross cramponnee - An English heraldic term from the French and German languages meaning a cross with a cramp (bend or hook) at each end.

crux dissimulata - “cross dissimulated” (modified), used by early Christians to avoid persecution.

fylfot - supposedly from the Anglo-Saxon language for “four feet,” a heraldic and religious symbol used as a secret emblem or ornament. There is disagreement on the origin of the word, but the fylfot cross came to suggest flying feet or speed of travel.

gammadion - a cross of four capital gammas based on the Greek cross, popular in the Byzantine church.

hakaristi - a word in the Finnish language meaning “hook-cross” and applied to the symbol used by the Finnish air force 1918-1944. The symbol was used by several military aviators on their planes during the First World War and was the personal symbol of the pilot who helped create the Finnish air force. After a Soviet invasion of Finland the country was allied with Nazi Germany for a time during the Second World War.

Hakenkreuz - the German term for the symbol, which translates “hooked cross” from the word for hook or axe.

whirling logs - a term used by Navajo artists and medicine men to explain the design used in sand paintings and rug weaving (see below).

Around 1910 when this postcard was made the swastika was associated with kind thoughts. It was a trademark of several companies around the world and sometimes used on jerseys and ball caps for athletic teams.

Good luck was the most common idea attached to the swastika around 1907 when this postcard was made. “The swastika is the oldest cross and emblem in the world,” explained the back of this card. “It forms a combination of four ‘L’s’ standing for Luck, Light, Love and Life.”

The simplest explanation for the origin of the swastika in so many distant cultures around the world is that it is so simple a design, based on the simple “X” or cross, that humans couldn’t help but invent it to describe the human experience of the four directions on earth. When we stand outside, we naturally face some direction, with another at our back and two more at our arms. But mystically minded Europeans, who ascribe to a secret doctrine or Hermetic type philosophy see much more in the swastika. Joseph Campbell (The Masks of God, 1959) saw the swastika as a whirling image. Some believe the whirling swastika is a representation of the rotating star field visible at night, and by inference the rotating earth. A mechanism well known to the ancients. Frank Russell (The Pima Indians, 1908) thought the “ogee swastika” design in Pima baskets was a whirling or whorl design developed from the fret ornament. In any case, Europeans were very impressed to see swastikas in Native art. Around the beginning of the last century, the swastika became a very common symbol. In Indian Territory (Oklahoma) the National Guard used the swastika as a left shoulder patch for 15 years. In Arizona, the swastika persisted even after the Nazi party came to power in Germany (1933) and only disappeared after the Second World War began. Today, it survives in cast concrete bridges and irrigation gates at Laguna Dam (1909) near Yuma. In Phoenix, the Arizona Department of Agriculture building (1930), 1688 West Adams, includes swastikas as a decorative element.

This collection of Pima baskets from around 1909 illustrates various design elements, including the Latin cross, swastika and double swastika. Note that the proportions of the swastikas do not conform to the European design. But the man riding a horse could only have been used after European contact.

Navajo medicine men create the whirling logs design in colored sand for the tourists. A smaller sand painting is one of the elements of a healing ceremony. Symbolism communicates the sacredness of the four directions and their relation to the harmony of nature. The usual practice is to depict the four directions and the four sacred plants, all encircled by the rainbow goddess with an opening remaining toward the east. Here, they haven’t yet trickled sand to draw the fourth plant.


By 1896, the swastika appeared in Navajo weaving. This blanket dates to 1920 from Chinle. Called a storm pattern, it includes a fret border and both left and right facing swastikas. Navajo artists probably adopted the swastika after Europeans said they saw that design in the sand paintings. (National Park Service photo)

With the beginning of World War Two Navajo and other tribes in Arizona staged public renunciation ceremonies, signing a pledge not to use the swastika in their art. This Curt Teich postcard was published in 1943.

See:
Arizona Capitol Times, “Symbol Of Hate Or Whirling Logs?” February 21, 2003
Laura Gilpin, The Enduring Navajo (1968) swastika not mentioned but sand painting symbolism is explained.
Life magazine, May 20, 1940, p.118, Arizona road signs stir controversy.
Thomas Wilson, history of swastika, pp.757-1030, Report of the National Museum (1894)
http://www.arizonaroads.com/ (pictures of highway route markers)

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)