The Phoenix-Tucson Rivalry, A Deep-Rooted Tradition

Phoenix-Tucson rivalry, Territorial Insane Asylum, Arizona State Hospital, 1885, Thieving Thirteenth

Excerpt from an August 31st, 1889 Arizona Sentinel article regarding the asylum and its location.

As we are now just a few weeks out from the annual ASU vs. U of A Territorial Cup game, I thought it might be appropriate to share this as-yet-unposted August 28th, 2014 KJZZ piece covering one of the many points of contention in the Phoenix / Tucson rivalry – the Thieving Thirteenth territorial legislature and the $100,000 insane asylum its members awarded to Phoenix.

To listen, please visit http://theshow.kjzz.org/content/43308/did-you-know-territorial-insane-asylum-caused-tension-between-cities.

Enjoy.

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An early twentieth-century hand-colored postcard depicting a seemingly idyllic scene on the grounds of the Phoenix asylum.
Image credit: John Larsen Southard collection – facebook.com/AZHistorian

Arizona ‘Lawns’ – We’re Not in Kansas Anymore…

Photo of a Sun City Leisure Lawn included in a March 1963 National Geographic article on Arizona.

Photo of a Sun City Leisure Lawn included in a March 1963 National Geographic article on Arizona.

Headline and photo from a February 23rd, 1963 Arizona Republic article on Leisure Lawns.

Headline and photo from a February 23rd, 1963 Arizona Republic article on Leisure Lawns.

A 1968 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1968 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

Bermuda grass is considered a weed in most parts of the nation. In many Arizona communities, however, a patch of bermuda is not an unsightly blight on the landscape, but is instead thought of as a ‘lawn.’ Of course, the blistering heat of an Arizona summer often proves overwhelming for even the best maintained Sonoran Desert-variety lawns, leading some to seek an alternative to the cost and labor required to maintain grass in the desert. Enter the “Leisure Lawn.”

A 1972 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1972 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

Arizonans who have driven through Sun City, Mesa’s Leisure World, Pima County’s Green Valley, or any number of mobile home parks throughout the Phoenix, Tucson, and Yuma metropolitan areas have likely seen many such lawns, which appear verdant year-round regardless of temperature or rainfall levels. The rich green color of these lawns is not the result of a Space Age turf-greening technology developed at one of the state’s universities. Rather, it is a material no more technologically advanced than the pet rock was biologically innovative — painted rocks.

A 1973 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1973 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

Leisure Lawns came about as a product intended to serve as a low-cost, no maintenance lawn that that could withstand the brutal Arizona sun, thrive in times of drought, and render lawn mowers obsolete. Though now little more than a kitschy relic of Arizona’s mid-century retiree influx, Leisure Lawns were once quite popular throughout the warmer regions of the Grand Canyon State.

 

A 1976 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1976 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

The green rock fad, something likely incomprehensible to residents of more temperate climes, was touted in a February 23rd, 1963 Arizona Republic article as a choice that allows “retired couples who prefer hobbies to hoeing” to “have an at-ease lawn, thanks to colored gravel,” and won notice in National Geographic’s March 1963 story entitled “Arizona: Booming Youngster of the West.” However, just as tail fins, hula hoops, and drive-in theaters have faded from the scene, so too has the Leisure Lawn. A 2011 Arizona Republic article lamenting the demise of the water-conscious landscaping option detailed the growing rarity of this once-common sight, bringing renewed — albeit brief — attention to green rock landscaping. In this age of xeriscaping, might Leisure Lawns be poised for a comeback? Just imagine the Phoenix Open played on a course comprised of green-painted rocks…

Arizona and the Moon Landing

 

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The front page of the July 25th, 1969 Arizona Republic, which featured a headline announcing the safe return of the triumphant Apollo 11 crew.

The front page headline of the July 25th, 1969 Arizona Republic announced, “They’re back and safe,” they being the three Apollo 11 astronauts who had splashed down in the Pacific Ocean the day prior, thus completing their heroic “giant leap for mankind.” Terrestrial sites most often associated with the July 1969 moon landing include the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida, from which the Moon-bound rocket blasted off on July 16th, and NASA’s Houston, Texas Mission Control Center. However, several Arizona locations number among the lesser known sites tied to the overall success of the Apollo 11 mission specifically and astrogeology in general.

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A postcard showing Arizona’s Meteor Crater, one of the many sites visited by NASA astronauts in preparation for the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

While training for lunar missions including Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong and other astronauts visited the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Sunset Crater, and Kitt Peak National Observatory. Cinder Lake and Sunset Crater proved to be important locations for testing technology such as cameras and vehicles to be deployed on the Moon and Flagstaff proudly served as home to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Center of Astrogeology, a significant contributor to NASA’s successful Apollo program. Though now little-known for its role in putting men on the Moon, the Flagstaff area did receive widespread recognition during the historic mission. Notably, CBS assigned several journalists to report on-location from the Flagstaff area during the network’s Apollo 11 coverage.

For more information on Arizona’s contributions to the field of astrogeology, please visit http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1190/of2005-1190.pdf.

But It’s A Dry Heat…

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Cover of the 1952 edition of Oren Arnold’s Arizona Brags.
Image credit: John Larsen Southard Collection

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A humorous early twentieth-century postcard comparing the temperatures of Tucson and Yuma to those of Hell.
Image credit: John Larsen Southard Collection

Arizona’s climate, one of the state’s 5 Cs, is something to boast about during the winter months. Early tourism campaign slogans such as “Summer Days All Winter” were used to great effect in efforts to draw out-of-state visitors to enjoy the spectacular weather found here from November through March or, at best, April. However, the wonderful winter weather inevitably transitions to the far less desirable and often eye-popping extreme heat of an Arizona summer. These high temperatures have prompted quips such as Dick Wick Hall’s story of a seven-year-old frog who never learned to swim due to his being raised in the dry, dusty Sonoran Desert, and Mark Twain’s story of a soldier from Fort Yuma who died and “went straight to the hottest corner of perdition,” but found that after living in Yuma, he needed a blanket to live comfortably in the cooler climes of Hell.

 

Humorist Oren Arnold compiled a number of jokes, claims, facts, and anecdotes — many of them climate-related — for inclusion in his 1947 book entitled Arizona Brags (revised and republished in 1952). As we slide into the brutal heat of yet another summer, some of Arnold’s ‘facts’ may help to bring a smile to our collectively overheated faces. Among other assertions, some believable and some outlandish, Arnold’s book jokingly claims:

— “The devil himself carries a palm leaf fan in Arizona.”

— “It never rains. Only reason an Arizona home has a roof is to have a place to put the TV [antenna].”

— “It stays so dry in western Arizona the fish kick up clouds of dust as they cruise the Colorado River.”

— “Any Phoenix doctor says that his medical practice is twice as hard as that of doctors in any other part of the nation. He can’t tell his patients to go to Arizona for their health.”

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A postcard showing the swimming pool at Williams Field, later to be known as Williams Air Force Base. While airmen such as the Milwaukee native native referenced in the above joke might have initially found the Sonoran Desert climate to be unbearable, the large numbers of World War II veterans who chose to relocate to the Valley in the post-war period indicate that one need not be a native to “stand the weather.”
Image credit: John Larsen Southard Collection

— “A young GI from Milwaukee was sweating out his first summer at Williams Air Force Base near Phoenix. A native Arizonan explained that a man had to be born and reared here to stand the weather. ‘What!’ exclaimed the soldier. ‘You mean folks live here when there ain’t no war?’”

— “It gets so dry in Arizona the jackrabbits carry canteens and the trees chase after dogs. Only mud is the kind the politicians sling. Rivers are just lines to crease a map, and to furnish Arizona cattle a dry, sandy bedding ground.”

And finally, a joke related to something all Arizonans have been guilty of at one time or another…

— “A citizen of Phoenix died and, of course, went down below. The devil greeted him and was showing him around the place. The ex-Phoenician kept mopping his brow. Finally he spoke up.

‘Gosh, it certainly is hot down here.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Satan nodded. ‘But it’s not humid, it’s a healthful, dry heat.’

‘Phooey!’ scoffed the Arizonan. ‘I’ve heard that old guff before.’

‘Oh sure you have,’ Satan smiled affably. ‘Fact is, you told it. That’s why you’re here.’”