When the city of Phoenix acquired Sky Harbor Airport in 1935, it was just a glimmer of what the facility is today. It had one terminal and served a small number of planes. According to Sky Harbor historians, “By December 1940, the airlines at Sky Harbor included American, TWA, Carl Knier’s Sky Harbor Air Service and Southwest Airways, Inc., bringing the total number of planes at Sky Harbor to 35.”
At the turn of the 20th century, Bisbee might have been considered rough around the edges. At its peak, the Copper Queen Mine employed 2,700 men to pull copper ore from the earth and run ancillary operations, and the smelter burned 24 hours a day. Bars and brothels were on a similar schedule.
In the early 1930s, Angelo Caviglia began construction on a 2,000-square-foot adobe building with an adjacent 700-square-foot livery stable. His goal? To create a gathering place for residents of Arivaca and the nearby community of Ruby, which was experiencing a boom thanks to the nearby Montana Mine.
For one of Tucson’s first rodeos, the Arizona Ice & Cold Storage Co. offered a prize much more valuable in February 1925, the year the rodeo began, than it would be today: a giant block of ice. And while the event — traditionally known as La Fiesta de los Vaqueros — has grown and changed over the past 100 years, it continues to showcase the Old Pueblo’s Wild West allure and entertain winter visitors and year-round residents.
During the early days of the Great Depression, a Phoenix voice teacher decided to bring some joy to the community by forming an all-American chorus. Douglas Russell posted a notice in The Arizona Republican asking for men to join the Orpheus Club — named for the Greek god of music. The club’s first meeting was held on November 5, 1929, and attracted about 25 men who performed on Christmas morning during a KTAR radio broadcast.
Newspaper writers in the 1920s were known for hyperbole, but sometimes, their enthusiasm ended up being prophetic. That was the case in September 1925, when The Arizona Republican announced the opening of the Gold Spot, a concrete and stucco shopping center on the northeast corner of Roosevelt Street and Third Avenue in Phoenix.
When you walk through downtown Gilbert today, it’s hard to imagine that this historic area used to be home to several grocery stores — including Liberty Market, whose building has been turned into a popular restaurant of the same name. In contrast, Sam Lee Grocery survives only in photos, but it was a mainstay downtown, offering pantry staples and fresh produce, for nearly half a century.
Sylvester Mowry’s life was short but eventful. Some called him an egotist, a braggart and a liar. But when the news of his death, at age 38, reached Arizona in 1871, one newspaper noted: “In the death of Mr. Mowry, this Territory has lost the most faithful friend it has ever had. … We can ill afford to lose the advocacy of a man so influential and so earnest.” Mowry’s influence included the mining town that bore his name — and was one of Arizona’s oldest mining camps.
Long before an artificial lake became a gleam in the eyes of civic leaders, one of Arizona’s first Olympic-size pools was the pride of Tempe. Wanting a wholesome attraction for young people, members of the Tempe Civic Club selected a swath of land at the corner of First Street (now Rio Salado Parkway) and Mill Avenue for the public pool; the parcel’s owner offered a rebate on the sale price in exchange for naming the new park Tempe Beach.
