Phoenix, Arizona in the 1920s


One of the things that I find fascinating about my adopted home of Phoenix, Arizona, is that it's constantly changing. I've lived here since I was a teenager, and believe me, it's not the same. I've spoken to people older, and younger, than me, and they say the same. What happened to the buildings they remember?, that sort of thing.

As my studies of Phoenix history has slowly progressed, I have found myself lately exploring Phoenix in the 1920s. And if you really want to see changes in Phoenix, look at the difference that happened before and after World War I.

During World War I, from 1914 to 1918, the economy of Phoenix was booming because of the demand for long-staple cotton, also known as Pima Cotton and Egyptian Cotton. The demand was driven by the wartime need for tires, which relied on this very strong cotton at the time. Yes, tires. I'm not kidding, this cotton was used mainly for tires. Go Google it, I'll wait.

But after the war ended, the price of cotton plummeted. So by 1919, and the 1920s, the economy of Arizona, and Phoenix, was in big trouble. And the demand for oranges had gone down, too, because of competition by places like Florida, and Southern California. In fact, an entire county south of Los Angeles was dedicated to growing oranges, a lot of them. So two of the big Cs of the Arizona economy, cotton and citrus, were slipping badly.

Another important factor in Phoenix, and in the entire United States in the 1920s, was the Prohibition of Alcohol. And while it wouldn't have mattered before then, as Phoenix began to emphasis tourism, it did then. Like in the rest of the country, Prohibition encouraged bootlegging (the illegal selling of alcohol), and organized crime. So, while tourism brought a much-needed spur to the economy of Phoenix, it also brought crime with it.

And as in the rest of the country, the thought was to borrow money to stimulate the economy. So Phoenix grew, with many spectacular buildings, and neighborhoods, that exist to this day. The old-timers may have despaired at seeing their once-classic city suddenly turn into a series of neighborhoods of the (then ridiculed) Spanish Colonial style, or the showy tall buildings of downtown Phoenix.

History buffs know what happened in 1929, the worst economic crash in the history of the United States, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s. And Phoenix "froze in time" during that era, and wouldn't recover until after World War II, in 1945. Then Phoenix woke up and reinvented itself all over again, and continues to do so.

Pictured above, the Roosevelt Hotel, actually named the Westward Ho when it was built. Built in the 1920s, and for many years afterward the tallest building in Phoenix, Central and Fillmore.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

  1. Rambling in the EggMarch 19, 2019 at 6:19 AM

    Always wondered, where the heck was the Roosevelt Hotel? Now I know, the Westward Ho

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more