HISTORIC PLACES

ORPHEUM THEATRE
Phoenix
It all started with Gustav Walter. Walter, a German impresario, dreamed of building a cross-country “Orpheum Circuit” of theaters for vaudeville acts. He opened the first Orpheum in San Francisco in the 1880s, but he didn’t make it out of California before running out of money. To settle a reported $50,000 liquor bill, Walter sold his interest in Orpheum to Morris Meyerfeld, who expanded the chain nationwide. Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre, featuring Spanish Baroque architecture, opened in 1929. It changed hands, and names, several times before falling into disrepair. The city purchased the building in 1984 and began a $14 million restoration, which lasted until 1997. Today, the Orpheum hosts a wide variety of performers; this year’s highlights include Man of La Mancha and West Side Story.
 

LOCATION: 203 W. Adams Street, Phoenix
CONSTRUCTED: 1929
ARCHITECT: Lescher & Mahoney
INFORMATION: 602-534-5600 or www.orpheumphx.com/

1929: Orpheum Theatre construction is completed at a final cost of $750,000.

1949: Paramount Pictures buys the theater and renames it the Paramount.

1968: The Nederlander Organization takes ownership of the theater, planning to make it a stop on the Broadway circuit. It becomes Palace West.

1977: The local Corona family leases the theater to show Spanish-language films. The theater’s interior, including its murals and moldings, is painted black to make it less distracting while movies are playing.

1984: Phoenix buys the theater building and begins an extensive restoration.

1985: The Orpheum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

1997: The Orpheum, now with a seating capacity of 1,364, reopens with a performance of Hello, Dolly! starring Carol Channing.
 

YUMA TERRITORIAL PRISON
Yuma
“Lawless” is one of the first adjectives that come to mind when imagining Arizona and the rest of the Wild West in the second half of the 19th century. But you would have had a hard time telling that to one of the 3,069 people who did time at Yuma Territorial Prison between 1876 and 1909, when overcrowding forced the Territory to move all of Yuma’s inmates to a new facility in Florence. Yuma High School burned down the next year, and the school leased part of the prison complex, built on a bluff overlooking the Colorado River, for the next three years — acquiring its memorable mascot, the Criminals, in the process. (And you thought your high school felt like prison.) A county hospital, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, hobos and Depression-era homeless families all spent time on the property before the late 1930s, when Yuma residents began to push for the prison’s preservation as a state park. The city gave the prison to the Parks Board in 1960, and the site was made a state historic park the following year.
 

LOCATION: 1 Prison Hill Road, Yuma
CONSTRUCTED: 1876
BUILDER: A. Luther
INFORMATION: 928-783-4771 or www.azstateparks.com

1876: The first seven inmates enter Yuma Territorial Prison and are locked in cells they built themselves.

1909: The last inmates are transferred to Florence after the prison becomes overcrowded.

1910: Yuma High School leases four buildings on the complex after the original school building burns down.

1924: The Southern Pacific Railroad demolishes part of Prison Hill to build new tracks.

1939: Local residents begin fundraising to preserve the prison complex and build a museum on the site of the mess hall.

1960: Yuma sells the prison complex to the Parks Board for $1.

1961: Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park opens to the public.

HASSAYAMPA INN
Prescott
The November 19, 1927, edition of the Prescott Evening Courier heralded the November 5 opening of what was then called the Hassayampa Hotel. Constructed for $300,000, the hotel, the paper said, “represents … the first definite step towards a greater Prescott.” The hotel was built to bring first-class accommodations to Prescott, and it was a true community undertaking: At the urging of the mayor, Morris Goldwater (Barry’s uncle), more than 400 citizens bought $1 shares in the project. A night in one of the guestrooms cost $2. The price has gone up a little since then, and the interior has been renovated, but from the outside, the red-brick building looks much the same as it did in its early days. The Hassayampa has hosted distinguished guests from Georgia O’Keeffe to Clark Gable, but legend has it that one of its first guests — Faith Summers, a newlywed whose groom abandoned her at the hotel — still haunts room 426. (Because she’s still upset with her husband, she appears mostly to female guests.)

LOCATION: 122 E. Gurley Street, Prescott
CONSTRUCTED: 1927
ARCHITECT: Henry Trost
INFORMATION: 928-778-9434 or www.hassayampainn.com

1923: The Congress Hotel, on the future Hassayampa Inn site, is destroyed in a fire, leading supporters to push for a new hotel made of brick, rather than wood.

1927: The Hassayampa Hotel, the “Grand Jewel of Prescott,” opens. Today, it retains its original covered passageway and a vintage elevator.

1979: The Hassayampa Inn is added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1985: The inn undergoes a multimillion-dollar renovation. It now features 67 guestrooms, down from the original 78.

HUBBELL TRADING POST
Ganado
The Long Walk, the U.S. government’s forced relocation of some 9,000 Navajos in the 1860s, had a lasting effect on the Navajo identity and way of life. When the Navajos returned to Arizona in 1868, they no longer had their crops and livestock, so trading for goods, already a key component of the Navajo economy, became even more vital. Enter John Lorenzo Hubbell, who bought what would become Hubbell Trading Post in 1878. As a link between the Navajo Nation and the rest of the U.S., Hubbell supplied Navajos with many of the items to which they were introduced during their internment in New Mexico, such as flour, sugar, canned goods and tobacco. Hubbell was 23 when he bought the property. He later married a Spanish woman named Lina Rubi, and they raised four children in the house they built at the site. Hubbell eventually created 30 trading posts in Arizona, New Mexico and California, and his descendants operated the original post until it was sold to the National Park Service in 1967. It’s now part of Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site. The site includes nearby Hubbell Hill, where most of the original Hubbell family is buried.
 

LOCATION: From Flagstaff, go east on Interstate 40 for 134 miles to U.S. Route 191. Turn left (north) onto U.S. 191 and continue 38 miles to State Route 264. Turn left onto SR 264 and continue 0.5 miles to Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, which is on the left.
CONSTRUCTED: 1883 (trading-post building)
ARCHITECT: John Lorenzo Hubbell
INFORMATION: 928-755-3475 or www.nps.gov/hutr

1878: John Lorenzo Hubbell purchases what would become Hubbell Trading Post from another trader and opens for business.

1902: Congress passes a law excluding Hubbell’s land from the Navajo Nation, which had expanded around it.

1930: Hubbell dies at age 76. His children continue running the trading post.

FARAWAY RANCH
Chiricahua National Monument
The Chiricahua Mountains are a long way from Sweden — and a lot of other places, too. But that’s where Neil and Emma Erickson settled, in a small cabin at the entrance to Bonita Canyon, when they came to the United States in the 1880s. The couple struggled with farming, so Neil worked in Bisbee as a carpenter, often leaving Emma alone at the ranch for months at a time. After Neil found work closer to home, the Ericksons set about expanding their family and their home. By the 1920s, Faraway Ranch had all the modern comforts needed to run a guest ranch, and early visitors paid $2.50 a night to stay there. Hiking and bird-watching were popular activities, and after dinner, the Ericksons’ daughter, Lillian, regaled guests with Wild West tales that were at least partly factual. And what about the ranch’s unique name? It comes from the Erickson children’s complaint that their home was “so god-awful far away from everything.” Including Sweden.
 

LOCATION: From Tucson, go east on Interstate 10 for 71 miles to Exit 336 (an I-10 business route). Stay straight on the business route and continue 3 miles to State Route 186. Turn right onto SR 186 and continue 31 miles to State Route 181. Turn left onto SR 181 to enter Chiricahua National Monument (a $5 fee is required). After the entrance station, follow the signs to Faraway Ranch.
CONSTRUCTED: 1880s (original cabin), 1915 (two-story structure)
ARCHITECTS: Neil and Emma Erickson
INFORMATION: 520-824-3560 or www.nps.gov/chir

1886:  Emma Peterson buys a two-room cabin along Bonita Creek. She marries Neil Erickson the following year, and the couple moves into the cabin and rears three children there.

1898: The Ericksons expand the cabin into a two-story, board-and-batten-style frame house.

1903: Neil becomes the first ranger at the newly created Chiricahua Forest Reserve, which would eventually become part of the National Park Service.

1915: Neil finishes construction on the house, now a two-and-a-half-story building with six upstairs bedrooms.

1917: Neil is transferred to Flagstaff, and the Ericksons leave their eldest child, Lillian, in charge of Faraway Ranch.

1923: Lillian marries Ed Riggs, who adds bathrooms, oil heat, electricity and a large dining room to the ranch. The two continue to host guests until the 1960s.

1979: Two years after Lillian’s death, the Erickson family sells Faraway Ranch to the National Park Service.