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.

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

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…

Barry Goldwater – Mr. Conservative – Wins the 1964 Republican Presidential Nod

The front page of the July 16th, 1964 Arizona Republic featured a headline exclaiming, "Barry Wins," referring to Goldwater having captured the 1964 Republican presidential nomination the day prior.

The front page of the July 16th, 1964 Arizona Republic featured a headline exclaiming, “Barry Wins,” referring to Goldwater having captured the 1964 Republican presidential nomination the day prior.

Barry Goldwater accepted the Republican presidential nomination fifty years ago this evening. Goldwater, a Phoenix businessman who had served on the Phoenix City Council and, at the time of his nomination, was completing his second term in the United States Senate, secured his party’s nod after having prevailed over Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton, two well-funded moderate Republicans from populous East Coast states. However, Goldwater’s convention victory would prove to be the pinnacle of his 1964 electoral success.

The 1964 election occurred less than one year after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and American voters were disinclined to support yet another leadership transition. Goldwater’s strong conservatism and recent vote against the Civil Rights Act did little to endear him to voters in many parts of the nation. President Johnson’s campaign capitalized on widespread perceptions of Goldwater being a war hawk, an effort best represented by the infamous “Daisy Ad,” a controversial television advertisement that ran just one time but nonetheless managed to strongly reinforce the narrative of Goldwater being willing to recklessly over-escalate military conflicts such as the U.S. effort in Vietnam. These factors, paired with other issues such as the tepid support Goldwater received from moderate “Rockefeller Republicans,” resulted in a resounding general election defeat in which the Arizonan won only his home state and a handful of others. However, Goldwater’s campaign, supported by articulate political conservatives such as Ronald Reagan, helped to redefine conservatism and drastically alter the American political landscape. Goldwater, known by many as “Mr. Conservative,” went on to represent Arizona in the Senate for three more terms before retiring to his Paradise Valley home in 1987. An iconoclast to the end, Goldwater continued to speak his mind and gleefully rankle feathers — including those of his fellow GOPers — for the remainder of his life, which ended in May of 1998.

To view of one Senator Goldwater’s ads featuring the candidate, please visit http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/we-will-bury-you.

To view President Johnson’s “Daisy Ad,” please visit http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/media/daisyspot/.

To view a Goldwater ad featuring Ronald Reagan responding to claims of Goldwater’s hawkish nature, please visit  http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/ronald-reagan.

Please note that the webpages on which the above links can be found are not operated by or endorsed by John Larsen Southard. Links are provided for educational purposes only.

Phoenicians Celebrated Their First Post-Statehood 4th of July with “One and a Half Beeves”

A 1957 stamp showing the 48-star U.S. flag in use from 1912 to 1959. For more information regarding Arizona’s star and its association with Independence Day, please see https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=409877605794905&set=a.342266935889306.81247.221135871335747&type=1&theater.

A 1957 stamp showing the 48-star U.S. flag in use from 1912 to 1959. For more information regarding Arizona’s star and its association with Independence Day, please see https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=409877605794905&set=a.342266935889306.81247.221135871335747&type=1&theater.

How are you celebrating Independence Day?

Phoenicians celebrated July 4th, 1912, Arizona’s first post-statehood Independence Day, with a parade, a feast, outdoor games, a concert, and a late-night dance. As reported in the July 5th, 1912 edition of the Arizona Republican newspaper, there was also a “patriotic talk,” but, “not maddening noise and wild and senseless hurrah.” The talk referenced was given by George P. Bullard, the state’s first attorney general. Bullard’s address, memorialized in full on page five of the following day’s Arizona Republican, began with a section reminding those listening, “This Fourth of July is of especial interest to Arizonians and every Arizonian’s heart should swell with pride because today [from] every national building, from every reservation, from every fort, from the mast of every American vessel in all the ports of the civilized world there will break to the breeze for the first time the beloved flag of our nation emblazoned upon its field of azure blue the forty-eighth star, the star of Arizona.” However, Bullard’s discussion of the Grand Canyon State’s symbolic presence on the American flag seems to have been trumped in importance — at least in the minds of the paper’s reporting staff — by the large feast made available to the many revelers in attendance.

As exclaimed by a front page newspaper headline the following day, “Phoenix Had Best Fourth.” Notably, the city’s first post-statehood 4th of July observance included a food spread of a size, “never before witnessed in [that] city.” Indeed, the gleeful and likely sated reporter proclaimed, “if the barbecue alone had been the sum and substance of the day’s events, the affair would have been a success.” What merits this praise, you ask? A feast consisting of “one and a half beeves, 547 loaves of bread, eight hams, two barrels of pickles and quantities of olives.” How does that compare to your planned menu?

Regardless of whether you’ll be sitting down to hot dogs and hamburgers or sharing a meal of “one and a half beeves” with a large group of friends and neighbors, Happy 4th of July!

Growing Sugar Cane and Bananas… in Arizona?

sugar cane and bananas, Arizona agriculture, Arizona history, Arizona historian, AZHistorian, John Larsen Southard, John Southard, Southard, Salt River, Salt River Valley

A ca. 1915 image of men raising an experimental sugar cane crop in the Salt River Valley. This Bureau of Reclamation photo documents the serious efforts once made to bring about large-scale sugar cane cultivation in the Phoenix and Yuma areas.

Who would have guessed that sugar cane and bananas were once promoted as crops that could be profitably grown in the arid Arizona desert?

According to overly-optimistic nineteenth-century Arizona newspapers, successfully cultivating such crops was not only possible, but was extremely likely. As sugar is typically grown in more temperate parts of the globe that receive at least 24 inches of rain per year and bananas require 75 to 100 inches of rain to thrive, the hot and dry Salt River Valley and greater Yuma area seem an ill-fit for sugar and banana farms. Nonetheless, Arizona’s exhibit space at the 1885 New Orleans Exposition featured Arizona-grown sugar cane, among other locally-produced crops. A February 16th, 1889 Arizona Sentinel article proclaimed the “strong and healthy ‘stand’ of… sugar cane” growing in a local farmer’s field to be “a good advertisement for [their] mild winters,” while a different article in that same paper advised readers, “the cultivation of sugar cane in [Yuma County] is simple and cheap, the cane growing luxuriantly and being easily kept clear of weeds.” Nearly two decades later, a 1915 Tombstone Epitaph article mentioned ongoing consideration of “the possibilities of molasses as a by-product from the Salt River Valley sugar cane.”

Bananas, a crop only a handful of sane individuals would propose growing in the deserts of our state, received mention as a possible cash crop for Arizona farmers, with the February 16th, 1889 Arizona Sentinel extolling Yuma County’s Mohawk Valley as being “especially adapted to fruit growing.” In addition to the standard citrus plantings found to be successful in the Phoenix and Yuma areas, the Sentinel promised, “even pineapples and bananas will grow to an advantage” in Mohawk Valley.

Of course, as is now widely known, Arizona’s harsh climate — even with the benefit of irrigation — is not conducive to raising sugar cane, bananas, coffee, or any other tropical crop. Our climate, although extreme at times, merits inclusion within the the grouping of Arizona’s 5 Cs, as does the cotton, cattle, and citrus raised under the Arizona sun. Cane, however, is nowhere to be found — despite the promises of nineteenth-century newspaper men.