KAET Arizona Memories from the '50s

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James E.(Jim) Porter, Sr.
I loved growing up in Phoenix in the 50’s. Born on the campus of the Phoenix Indian School (my dad was the librarian, and my mother was a nurse in the school hospital, which later became the Phoenix Indian Medical Center), I attended nursery school, kindergarten and the first six grades in the school of North Phoenix Baptist Church, then at 3612 N. Central.

I graduated from Osborn and attended Central High until the middle of my junior year when my dad was transferred to Oklahoma. (Okies hated to be told that the movie was actually filmed in Arizona!)

The 1950’s in Phoenix were totally and secure except for when Winnie Ruth Judd would escape from the state hospital, and the gangs at the various high school tried to intimidate the freshmen. (Actually, those gangs were pussycats—despite all the rumors. One of the rumors was that the teachers at West High had to walk down the corridors in pairs, it was so dangerous. Well, the friends and grade school schoolmates of mine who attended West High were great. The average West High gangster would have to fit the profile of Kent Dana, also an Osborn School graduate.)

The girls at Central High, with on exception of a girl at North High, were the prettiest in the Phoenix Union High School and Junior College District. The kids at Central High were all perceived to be rich, and therefore snobbish. I tried my best, but when you’re the son of government employees, it just doesn’t come across.

Dragging Central, going to Bob’s Big Boy, Greer’s Big G, Jim’s Drive In, the Polar Bar and Chicken-in-a-Basket, the Silver Dollar Drive In, the Indian Drive In, Cinema Park, the Twin Drive in and other drive in theaters plus running the back desert areas and orange tree orchards around Lateral Nineteen and the far northern streets of Peoria Avenue, shooting the flume and hustling the girls were all legitimate recreational activities for teenagers. (Please don’t tell my mother about shooting the flume.)

Phoenix was a great place to grow up.

And as I write this (November 2, 2001), our Diamondbacks are down in the World Series three games to two. When I was a boy growing up in Phoenix going to professional Class A league games in the first Phoenix Municipal Stadium—not the one out near Tempe, the one at Central and Henshaw Road—I used to think, gee, it would be great to have the World Series in Phoenix. Win or lose this year, one of my great boyhood dreams has been achieved, thanks to The Colangelos and the Garigiolas and so many others.

In the 21st Century, I’m proud of have been born in raised in Phoenix—and the 1950’s were so much a part of it.

morell@ncweb.com
Phoenix in 1955 was a jewel in the desert. It was virgin, undiscovered and known as a place to recuperate from bronchial troubles. As a boy of 11 what I remember most was the smell of orange blossoms in spring, the balmy nights, canoe rentals at Encanto park, the hot rods on Grand Ave., the warm nights and Camelback mountain. I have been back almost every two or three years since then and it tears at my heart to see a city that was once so beautiful turn into a New York city with palm trees. How sad to see the charm of this desert Mecca ruined. I still love Phoenix although I don't really know why, perhaps I still love it for what it was and not for what it is. Soon I will move to Arizona but I am sad to say not to Phoenix, maybe Sedona or Prescott I'm not sure. I will always remember Phoenix as I remember the very first time I was in love. It's something you can never forget but never go back to. Gary, Ohio

Coper1658@AOL.COM
Sad, Sad the program on Arizona Memories in the 50's. If I could freeze frame Arizona it would be July 1950. Few positive things have happened to Arizona since. Cal Lash

quepasa@cybersurfers.net
Hello again, from Jesse. Am very surprised at the lack of response to your chat section, from folks in Arizona. Especially from those old timers from around the Phoenix/Tempe area and your television special being so near. Having been born in Eloy, I am well familiar with the locale myself and am very happy to see the expansion of professional sports into the region. More rewarding is the way ASU has performed in the Pac Conference. Permit me to elaborate on memories from the past leading up to the '50s from my neck of the woods, Eloy, Coolidge, and Florence. I recall, even spoke about, just last week to my cousin in Eloy, about the times we spent at the old movie house. Actually, it was ans open air walk-in theatre, the screen surrounded by canvas and we sat on benches. In fact, my own father worked on what became the only theatre in town and still stands today but is not being used for the purpose for which it was built. I recall one year in the early '40s, a huge thunderstorm swept through town causing heavy flooding. The waters rose so high the north side of our street became like a ditch, and was deep enough to swim in. During those times, there was a lot of farming in the area and we did use ditches to swim in. Our favorite irregation ditches were the one that was adjacent to Sunshine Road and the one north of town that ran east and west. My uncles were in the trucking business and there were times they hauled gravel from Florence, hay from Coolidge, and brick from Rillito or Marana. As I mentioned in the first part, I spent my summer vacations in Eloy and one way of earning money for recreation was to earn it working for my uncles. It was very hard work but there was Hopalong Cassidy, Popeye, Don Winslow of The Navy, Flash Gordon, ice cream and chili-dogs to pay for. During the mid-fifties, after a hitch in the Marines and married with children, I would drive our family five hundred miles from Los Angeles to Eloy several times a year in our classic '55 chevy listening to Joni James all the way. Our visits continued right on through 'till 1965 when we were on our way to Florida. I had transferred into the Space Division for the company I worked for and had been selected as a launch team member for the Apollo program. I wrote an article in my website about the remote possibility of a young school boy from Eloy ending up a couple of decades later at Florida's Kennedy Space Center in support of the moonlanding mission. But it happened. We moved from Eloy to Los Angeles after completing fifth grade. Those first few years were my launching pad which eventually found me watching Saturn V's carry men to the moon. Jesse

jhansen@ccim.net
Ladies & Gentlemen I came here with my family in 1945, as a freshman at Phoenix Union High School. Except for the 2 years in the service, plus one year that I worked in Tucson, I have been here ever since. 0n Jan 1, 1950, I was a freshman at Tempe Normal [just kidding]. I was 18, going to summer school, when the Korea War - oh that's right, it was a police action - broke out. I got to spend a year over there, all expenses paid by my Uncle Sam. I graduated ASC on May 26, 1953 with a diploma in one hand and a commission in the USAF in the other. My PUHS high school class has now had 7 reunions - all of which I have attended - the most recent # 50 last June. We get excellent turn outs, although we fell below 200 for the first time in 1999. It seems that at least 1/3 have passed on. Others have just fallen through the cracks. Some of the others - both attendees and non attendees - simply got old. [Not me!] My ASU class - '53 - has had two "reunions", although homecoming is really the vehicle for these get togethers. I remember #20 and - 7 years ago - # 40. I saw a lot of "kids" I hadn't seen in years at both. . . . Our ASU #40 turn out in 1993 was quite good. It was an outstanding class. Dr Lincoln Ragsdale [the mortician and insurance company founder] brought souvenir mugs for all his classmates. Both Lincoln and his charming wife Eleanor have since passed on. In 1995, the class of '55 invited '53 and '54 to join their reunion. The combined turn out was less than our '53 [only] attendance. My Sisters - Joan & Joy Hansen - both graduated ASC Tempe in 1949, just months before I started. I bring up all this reunion stuff because - to the extent you wish to encourage other nifty 50 reminiscing - your alumnae association plus the older Metro Phoenix public school reunion groups are excellent sources of material.
I was in the real estate appraisal profession with My late father - both of us having the designation MAI - and later started a brokerage business with my brother M Leslie Hansen. He subsequently took it over and converted it to residential, allowing me to concentrate on my commercial appraisal practice. I retired from Burke Hansen, Inc and appraising in 1991; but retirement didn't work for me. I'm back in real estate doing commercial brokerage, having acquired the CCIM and CIPS professional designations, and I'm having a ball! My mother has lived in AZ continuously since our arrival - 55 years ago - and last August became a centenarian. Even more amazing than her having lived in 3 centuries is that all of her natural descendants: four children - of which I am the youngest by 6 years - plus 14 grandchildren and 12 great grand children are all alive and well. Now you know why I went back to work. I'm interested in seeing what "chatting" other old timers contribute. Incidentally, while I use e-mail and the WWW regularly, this is the first time I have ever done e-chat. Thank You

bmsb@deseretonline.com
I moved to Phoenix in 1955 as a child. I attended Orangewood School in 1956 and have many of the same memories others have written of. I can remember as a boy riding my bicycle for miles as I explored different parts of the city. I carried newspapers for the Arizona Republic and can remember folding newspapers while reading that a new television station, KAET Channel 8, was going to be on the air. Phoenix will always have a warm spot in my heart as the source of idyllic childhood memories and of poignant first dates with young ladies. Overall, the scent of the orange blossoms permeates all these memories. Then it was finish high school, finish Phoenix College and experience a rude awakening as I went off to the War in Vietnam. But after two years I found I was still alive and able to return to ASU. Phoenix was still the same, but was it? The cumulative growth had begun to take its toll. I know growth will occur naturally but I never understood why the city fathers always seemed to encourage it so. I held out until 1985 and then moved with my wife and son to a small town in Northern Utah. Now when I return to Phoenix to visit my mother I find most of my memories have been torn down. But to those of you who still live there, best wishes to all of you. Make your own memories, live your own lives, and make the city a better place than you found it.

Jesse
Born in Eloy Hi, nice to see the Phoenix area featured on PBS. Almost embarrassing for me to be such an early bird in chat section. the first two weren't around too long in the early '50's. Now me, well I was born in Eloy, just a stones throw from Phoenix and Tempe. But that was in the prehistoric times of the depression, 1933. I attended several elementary schools including places like Casa Grande and Toltec. My family moved from Eloy to Los Angeles in June of 1944 but every summer I would come back and visit my grandparents on my mothers side thruough 1952. My grandfather, was a descendant of Militia Captain Juan Crisostomo Ramirez, who began serving in Tubac in 1752. My cousin still resides in Eloy and has in his possession historical diaries written by one of the captains grandsons, Teodoro, who was born in 1791, lived most of his life in Tucson and died in 1871. The Journal of Arizona History pays tribute to this man in its Autumn 1984 edition in articles written by James E. Officer and Henry F.Dobyns. Teodoro now rests in the old cemetary in Florence. I am now retired and living in Tehachapi, California but remember very well those summers I spent visiting with my grandparents, not to mention the slow pace, music, chili dogs and the sting of REAl RC COLA . But that was a long time ago.

saguaroiv@aol.com in the Northwest
I was born in Tucson on 3/05/51, moved to phoenix in 1953, " 8042 north Eleventh Ave" to be exact. In those days this area was know as "Sunny Slope" after the consumption/TB, care centers I do believe. Eleventh Ave had/has wonderful palm trees on either side, this was the entrance to some estate way back when, they stoped at about Hatcher Ave for some reason. Great place to grow up. All new houses and lots of kids in the neighborhood. The houses were all on an acre, so lots of room for football and baseball, only thing to remember were the berms for irrigation, quite a drop when catching a fly ball or pass. Went to Tudor hall for nursery school, then to Orngewood for two and a half years then to Royal Palm as a third grader half way through the school year. Brand new school and no more double sessions, but sad to say lots of crop spraying (the school was surounded on three sides by cotton and the fourth by Orange groves and field crops/lots of DDT drifting across the new play ground. Still it was a great place to grow up. The best as I got older would have to be swimming in the cannel at 19th and Hatcher (the best place) or 7th street north of Northern and the trees just by Northern where the cannel goes under Northern, (Rope swings) Also going downtown to the "Sit-down theaters" The Fox or Paramount" as opposed to the "Central Drive inn" I believe that was seventh street and Glendale?. Also the smell of orange blossoms in April. Now for stream of conciseness on the 50/early sixties. WESTWARDHO hotel, Wallace and Ladmoe and their drive inns, Uncle Bud from "Friendly Pines Camp" in Prescott. Lew King and Wayne Newton as a kid. Three TV stations KPHO KOOL KTAR. Lou Brock, Cross Roads Methodist church, Jungle park zoo. Aquanetta and late night TV, Ray Kordie Ramblers Encanto park. From Sunny Slope looking to north mountain "Cloud Nine" the restaurant BIG pink neon sign was visible from 11 Ave. BOBS BIGBOY, MOON VALLEY when no one wanted to live there!!!!!! Saguaro lake with ten boats, and we thought that was crowded. Thanks for the time if any of this rings a cord with someone out there please e-mail me at saguaroiv@aol.com.
PS. ARIZONA has changed too much for me so I moved to the Northwest for several reasons.
Via Con Dios.

Don from Tempe, Arizona
My grandparents moved from Chicago to Arizona in 1951, and I have great memories from our many visits to see them. The first house I remember (I was probably four or five years old) was on the edge of town with a big desert as their back yard. I now know they were at 40th Street and Thomas. I remember we took a trip to Scottsdale. On dirt roads. There were horses on a hitching post. And lots of stores with Western stuff. So the grandparents bought me the Western outfit and then we were off to the photography studio for the obligatory goofy pictures.

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