History

Tempe is sophisticated and cool. But it looked very different in the 1870s. Instead of the suburban college town it is today, it was a rural community where people came from all over to work in agriculture. Among those who took advantage of Tempe’s fertile farmland was Danish immigrant Niels Petersen, who became a U.S. citizen in 1878 and homesteaded 160 acres of land in town. Today, the house on that property, known as the Petersen House, is one of the last visible reminders of what Tempe used to be.

With some 25 percent of returning soldiers facing “shell shock” after World War I, the U.S. embraced a new model of care, greatly expanding convalescent facilities for the sick and wounded — and the American Red Cross played a key role. “Back of all the physical problems still stands the mental one,” wrote Henry P. Davison, the organization’s War Council chairman. “Depression, discouragement, relaxation of hope … is the malady that requires most skillful medicine, and that if uncured may make all the drugs and surgery of no avail.” 

These days, a cross-country flight doesn’t usually make news, but in the early 1920s, America was still getting acquainted with air travel, and the idea of mailing a letter in New York and having it arrive in San Francisco in an airplane was hard for many Americans to comprehend. On December 31, 1920, John Goldstrom, a reporter for what then was called The Arizona Republican, set out to demystify the process by mailing a valuable parcel — himself — from coast to coast. 

When you hear “Prescott,” you might think of Whiskey Row, Thumb Butte or the “World’s Oldest Rodeo.” Fashion probably doesn’t spring to mind. But there was a time when fashion was big business in the mile-high city. By the time it closed, Thunderbird Fashions was one of Prescott’s largest employers, and its Southwest-inspired clothing carried the city’s name from coast to coast.

Photography has come a long way since 1952, when the first Pioneer Camera Shop opened at Fifth Street and Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe. Located in the historic Laird and Dines Building, just north of what now is the Harkins Valley Art theater, the shop was the dream of two East Coast natives who turned a hobby into a thriving business.

In 1926, Carl Mayhew was newly in love. No doubt, he still loved his wife of 14 years, and Ethel had no cause for jealousy. Because Carl was not infatuated with another woman. He was smitten with the lodge he had recently purchased in Oak Creek Canyon. “This wonderful place,” he wrote, “like a great sunken garden of orchards, roses and vine-covered buildings, is located at the bottom of the canyon … a canyon of mystery, with its great buff walls of sandstone eroded into fantastic shapes, silhouetted against the glorious Arizona sky.”

Marla Gaines Lawrence remembers walking Gilbert’s dirt roads as a child to head to Good Eats Dairy Bar for cheap burgers and root beer sold by the gallon. Gaines Lawrence, born in Gilbert in 1955, lived there when the town that now boasts more than 275,000 residents was still a rural farming community, with a single streetlight, nestled on the outskirts of Phoenix.

What would you do if you found Eden? If you’re like the succession of people who bought land around the hot springs near Eden, Arizona, you’d build a spa resort — or perhaps a commune of sorts. The vision for Indian Hot Springs, this particular paradise northwest of Safford, seems to have changed with the times. So did the visitors, who are said to have included Territorial-era soldiers, well-to-do health seekers and a legendary rock band.

Chances are, you haven’t heard of Virgil Carrell. But if you’ve spent any time at all on America’s highways, his work is as familiar as McDonald’s golden arches. Although Carrell’s achievements ranged widely, the U.S. Forest Service’s iconic signs became his legacy — they’ve endured, unchanged, for six decades.

Carrell was born to railroad workers who spent their lives in remote parts of the Pacific Northwest, so it isn’t surprising that he earned a degree in forestry. During his long career with the Forest Service, he raised his own family in similar conditions.

Championships are rare in Arizona. Arizona State and the University of Arizona have won a few. And the Arizona Diamondbacks won a World Series in 2001, but that wasn’t the first big win for a ball team. That honor belongs to a women’s softball team. The Phoenix Ramblers, whose official name was the Peterson Brook Steiner and Wist (PBSW) Ramblers, captured the Amateur Softball Association championship in 1940. At the time, fast-pitch softball was a popular pastime in Arizona. Although the Ramblers were an amateur team, there was no shortage of spectators to watch the women play.