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William
Adler on moving to Arizona
 We
came into Prescott and then we started down Mingus Mountain. And every
third switchback down Mingus, we'd take off a piece of clothes because
it started getting warm.
We pulled into this gas station. And this young man was washing the
windows, and my mother was extremely uncomfortable. And she said to
the young man, she said, "How hot is it here?" And he said,
"I think it's 104." And she said, "Is it this hot in
Phoenix?" And the young man looked her square in the eye and he
said, "Oh, ma'am." He said, "It's much hotter than this
in Phoenix." And I wanted to reach out the window and hit him.
And we pulled into Phoenix. And there were people out having fun. The
streets were clean. The buildings were modern. I thought I had gone
to heaven.
When
we announced to our friends in West Virginia that we were going . .
. inevitably the first question they would ask was "Who's got asthma?
Who's sick?" Because at that time, the only people that went to
Arizona were people who had asthma or tuberculosis. And after a while,
we got awfully tired of saying nobody's sick. Maybe we're just sick
of West Virginia . . .
Back
to Adler profile
Jannelle Warren Findley on air
conditioning
and the Queen of England
 One
of the things that we never did until air conditioning
was installed in cars was to drive during the day for long distances
because it was just unbearable. I can remember my father getting chunks
of dry ice and putting them in the front of the car, hoping that somehow
the air would blow through and you would generate some kind of air conditioning.
It never worked and these things would be steaming in front and it would
be 110 degrees outside anyway.
We
got our television set just in time to see Queen Elizabeth crowned,
and I always thought it was sort of cool to think about this family
on West Culver Street in Phoenix, Arizona, watching Queen Elizabeth
on television being crowned. It seemed like an odd juxtaposition.
Back to Findley profile
Grady Gammage Jr. on '59 Cadillacs
and Arizona State University
 One
of my fondest memories of the '50s is that we had a 1959 Cadillac. It
was the largest tail fin ever put on an American car. And it must have
had about 300 pounds of chrome just on the front bumper. And I think
in some ways, it was a kind of symbol of the '50s, because during the
war Americans were deprived of luxuries. And then after the war, we
really began to create the consumer-oriented, affluent society that
all of us baby boomers are privileged to enjoy. And the 1959 Cadillac
was like this announcement that the affuent society was here.
This
place [Arizona State University] exploded. If you walk around this campus,
you can't help but be conscious of how many buildings were built in
the 1950s as it transformed itself from this little teacher's college
into a great university.
Back to Gammage profile
Robert W. Goldwater on the
real estate deal
of a lifetime
[Fledgling
developer Del Webb couldn't get a project off the ground when he was
offered the deal of his life by a local carpenter.] And he [the carpenter]
said, "I've got 3,600 acres of land in a place out here called
Scottsdale, right in the middle of it. Paid 50 cents an acre, $1,800."
He said, "I need the money, I'm broke." So Del didn't have
the money and he went to the president of the First National Bank, a
fella named Sylvan Ganns. And told Sylvan the story. And Sylvan says,
"Del, you'll never see the day that there's anything but sagebrush
and jackrabbits out in that place." So he wouldn't lend him the
money.
Back to Goldwater profile
Jo Ann Handley on early Scottsdale
Artists
often moved to Scottsdale because it was cheaper to live here than it
was to live in Phoenix, and the people here accepted them. They were
different than the farmers. But it was kind of, "You can do your
thing and we'll do ours and you're welcome here."
Back to Handley
profile
Irene Hormell on the neighborhoods
We
always felt like we belonged. I don't care where you were at, you always
had someone to say hi to and them return with a big hello, a big hug,
a big kiss, a big squeeze.
Back to Hormell profile
Delbert Lewis on early days of
television
We
happened to be ABC at the time. They only had four hours of programming
a day. But we tried to build programs of our own. So we'd come on an
hour early with live programming.
Back to Lewis profile
John F. Long on Phoenix growth
We
started Maryvale in 1954, and the overall plan was to develop a community
that would provide homes for young families and a place for their recreation
and employment and so forth, and their shopping in one given area.
Back to Long profile
Arleen Morckel on family life
in Arizona
We
enjoyed being outdoors. We enjoyed just packing up the kids and taking
off into the desert. Papago Park, for instance, there were no roads
there. And the kids would run and play and climb the rocks. We just
ventured out into the unknown just, you know, as sort of pioneers in
our own right, searching out something different to do.
Back to Morckel profile
Marshall Trimble on cars and
the '50s
They
were coming out with bright colors and designs, the Chevys and the Fords
especially, and they were all very unique and distinctive. I can remember
every car I had in the '50s just distinctly and that was how we defined
ourselves.
I
think future historians will mark in Arizona 1950 as really the dividing
line between old Arizona and the new Arizona. With all of the changes
that were coming in the '50s, and we were attracting a whole new type
of people. No longer the agriculture and the mining types, but college-educated-type
people coming out to work in the manufacturing industry.
Back to Trimble profile
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