Featured Stories
Frank Lloyd Wright Spire
In 2004, a defining piece of the Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1957 state capitol design rose in the Promenade shopping center in Scottsdale, Arizona. The shopping center desperately needed a focal piece, and Frank Lloyd Wright protégé Arnold Roy was happy…
Arizona Japanese Internment Camps
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which gave permission for the War Department to relocate Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the western United States to concentration camps. In March 1942,…
Building South Mountain
The Great Depression had a profound impact on the United States as well as greater Phoenix. In an effort to confront the economic and social costs of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued for a New Deal in which the federal…
Recent Stories
Enchantment
The first president of the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Board, William Hartranft, modeled the city's Encanto Park after San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. In so doing, Hartranft channeled the vision of Frederick Law Olmsted, an American landscape…
The New Windsor Hotel
The New Windsor Hotel is a survivor in downtown Phoenix. It was built in 1893 and had several remodels and name changes such as “The Windsor” and “The Sixth Avenue Hotel.” The hotel survived gentrification and was accepted in the National Register…
Ecology and Tourism in the Southwest
The Desert Botanical Garden emerged as an antidote to the agricultural and economic development of Phoenix. A dedicated group of Phoenix residents, concerned about the city’s sprawling expansion and the increasing destruction of the surrounding…
The Desert Botanical Garden
Founded in 1939, the Desert Botanical Garden has helped to change the way Phoenicians see the Sonoran Desert. As Phoenix began to grow in the 1920s, many residents saw the desert as a blighted landscape in need of improvement. Local politicians and…
Sun City: A Revolution
Sun City revolutionized housing and retirement in the United States. It became the nation's largest and most successful retirement development and contributed to a new formulation in how Americans thought about life during retirement. It provided…
The Sahara Motor Inn
Built by an investement group that was led by prominent Phoenicians Marion Isbell and Del Webb, the Sahara Motor Inn opened in 1955. It became one of the signature hotels of the Ramada Inn motel chain during the 1960s and served a generation of…
Salt River Stories
A project by Arizona State University & Mark TebeauSalt River Stories brings the history, cultures, and communities of the Valley of the Sun, the Phoenix-Scottsdale-Tempe metro area to your fingertips. Salt River Stories is created by students & faculty at Arizona State University in collaboration with the community. It is powered by Omeka + Curatescape, a humanities-centered web and mobile framework available for both Android and iOS devices.
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