Throughout the 1970s the strategy of expansion and upscale shopping took over Tempe’s development plan. Expansion of expensive housing caused conflict between local communities such as Chandler, which resulted in the annexation of land in southern Tempe. As a result of the city being landlocked, property prices dropped in the early 1970s, enabling developers to purchase numerous lots along Apache Boulevard. These low priced apartment complexes largely catered to local residents.

Complexes such as the Hudson Manor West and University Village offered to lodge for low-income renters often associated with the “seedy” nightlife along the street. This trend continued until the '90s when a new development evolved. During this time Arizona State University was expanding as well. To meet increased student housing needs, developers began a new phase of apartment construction along Apache Boulevard. These new “mega-complexes” were attractive to college students. Apartments like 922 Place and The District looked more like luxury hotels than the squat, multi-story complexes that were previously built along Apache in the '70s. The University’s new-found attention to Apache Boulevard attracted other businesses that helped to reinvigorate the street. In the mid-2000s, Apache Boulevard caught the eye of major developers again, this time in relation to the new Valley Metro Rail system. As business redirected toward the street, developers began construction of new luxury high-rise apartments. These new complexes shared similar aesthetic qualities with the student-oriented apartments but were designed to attract young urban professionals employed at the major corporate buildings located around Tempe Town Lake.

The various apartments lining Apache Boulevard are an example of the many phases of modernization and urban living in Tempe: the sin and vice of the '80s, the growth of ASU in the '90s, and Tempe’s reclamation of Apache during the 2000s. Who knows what the future holds next for Apache Boulevard, and more importantly what does it have to offer in terms of affordable, rental housing?

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Fast food restaurants emerged as a vital part of American auto culture, first as drive-in restaurants and later with drive-thru lanes. The term itself appeared in the dictionary for the first time in 1951, about the time that Apache Boulevard's first drive-in, an A&W Root Beer Stand, opened at 2057 E. Apache. (Later, it relocated to the 1205 East Apache.) A franchise that originated in California, A&W sold root beer and hamburgers to customers who parked their cars under an awning, receiving curbside service on trays. Drive-ins were becoming increasingly popular in the 1950s, and the number of A&W restaurants grew from 450 in 1950 to more than 2000. It would not be until the late 1960s that additional fast-food restaurants began to appear along Apache, as a veritable wave of franchises—McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell—opened.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the architecture of fast food chains would have been novel to most visitors who were experiencing mass-produced cuisine for the first time. McDonald's had Golden Arches; Burger King sandwiched its name between two buns; Taco Bell had its characteristic bells. The large neon signs and distinctive architecture of these restaurants added a unique flavor to the roadside architecture of Apache Boulevard.

Along with its neon lights, Taco Bell also brought distinctive wood, stucco, and brick Mission-style architecture to Apache Boulevard. Its unique building soon became easily recognizable with a clay-tile roof, arch-shaped entryways, and a large metal bell set in a cavity above the entrance. The restaurant was typically a small building with little indoor seating if there was any at all. A small kitchen, a window for ordering, and a few tables and chairs on the patio were all that were necessary to run a successful establishment.

Fast food joints such as these catered to travelers and locals alike well into the 1990s. These restaurants, including local chains, such as Pete's Fish & Chips, Filiberto's, and Mr. Hero, also served food to the construction workers building the freeway and Tempe's suburban neighborhoods, making Apache Boulevard's fast food culture a part of Tempe history.

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The term motel, coined in 1926, derived from joining the words “motor” and “hotel.” The motels along Apache Boulevard tell us about the growth of the street and the city in the period following World War II. The motels served vacationers traveling West to California. Typically designed in an “I”, “L”, or “U” shape, early motels opened directly to the parking lot, for ease of access to one’s car. Their neon signs and small, home-style rooms with parking in front reflected the importance of highways 60, 70, 80, & 89 that converged along Apache Boulevard.

The Interstate Highway Defense Act of 1956 led to the construction of a national system of highways. Small individually-designed motels declined because the new interstate highway system rerouted traffic from streets like Apache Boulevard, which caused demand for rooms at such hotels to plummet. In Tempe, the Superstition Freeway was built in the 1970s, causing travelers to largely bypass Apache Boulevard.

One hotel on Apache Boulevard that prospered during these changes was the Howard Johnson’s. Even though the highway rerouted cars off of Apache, the Howard Johnson’s was located right next to Arizona State University, where visiting parents and prospective students constantly needed a place to stay. Today, The Graduate Hotel operates in the same building and still fills this need.

Benson Shaw's public art at the Smith/Martin Station embeds the story of hotels in several medallions, recounting the tale of the innkeeper at the Holiday Inn along Apache. "In June of 1970, My wife and four kids arrived from Denver in the family station wagon. It seemed like Hell on Earth. A triple-digit day. Our destination - the Southeast corner of Apache Boulevard and Rural. Road. I was to be the Innkeeper of Tempe's only "full service" hotel - The Holiday Inn of Tempe. Little did we know that would be my job for the next 36 years. or that we would grow to love this place. Just west, across Apache was the Teepee Motel. Motel units shaped like Indian Teepees. Remnants of an earlier era on U.S. highway 60."

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Auto culture along Apache Boulevard and Arizona itself was inevitable. Apache was the main route for vacationers who were travelling by car to California. It was fated that cars would break down, and oil would need to be changed and flat tires fixed. Automotive service stations began to spring up along Apache Boulevard.

Automotive service shops along Apache Boulevard were often small, family owned, and specialized in specific services. They often sold other items as well. For example, Bob’s Tire Corral also doubled as a horse saddle shop. Besides service stations, many businesses on Apache developed around auto culture, like drive-in restaurants and motor lodges.

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With its rapid post-war growth, Apache Boulevard became a hotbed of mid-century modern architectural development. This emerging style found expression in signature projects, such as Gammage Auditorium or the Valley National Bank, and more mundane everyday buildings, including Sambo’s Restaurant, Howard Johnson’s Hotel, Toliver’s Carpets, and the Tempe Bowl. Tempe Bowl’s angles & symmetry, as well as its neon sign, embodied the bright colors of the midcentury. Likewise, Toliver’s use of glass, strong lines, and color opened the furniture store’s showroom to the exterior and reflected mid-century sensibilities. Sambo’s Restaurant used similar styling, wooing diners with a modern flair. The colorful styles and angularity of these mid-century projects contrasted with the simple ranch houses that characterized the neighborhoods along Apache.

Unfortunately, much of Apache’s mid-century architecture has disappeared. In many ways, the challenges that faced Tempe Bowl are emblematic of these trends. Phoenix journalist Bob Petrie explained in 1998 that “trying to run a successful bowling center on Apache Boulevard in recent years has been like picking up a 7-10 split. Tough to do.” The Tempe Bowl hung on as Tempe tried to package the property into a development opportunity, as part of a larger plan “to transform Apache from a string of older businesses and vacant lots from its main highway heyday into newer uses more compatible with today’s less traveled boulevard.” Southwest Spiritual Healing Center ultimately purchased and redeveloped the property.

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Travel trailers first appeared in the United States in the 1920s as American “tin can tourists” ventured onto the developing highway network to see the nation. Written works such as Trailer Ahoy! by Charles Nash and Touring with Tent and Trailer by Winfield Kimball and Maurice Decker, both released in 1937, further popularized trailer travel. Following World War II, travel trailers and pop-up trailers became recreational vehicles as a growing number of trailer parks opened to serve these travelers. In the 1950s the Tempe-Mesa Highway had more than twenty trailer parks open, including the Desert Sunset, the Iazona, and Imp’s. The trailer courts often had supporting service and sales centers.

Trailer parks along Apache thrived through the 1970s and into the 1980s, even as the Interstate Highway system supplanted Highways 60, 70, 80, and 89. With the expansion of the region’s population East toward the Superstitions and the decline of tourist traffic, trailer parks struggled to survive. Today only the Apache Palms and Midway Trailer Parks remain on Apache Boulevard.

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Baker’s Acre began life in 1947 as John Kielbowski’s Tropical Gardens Motel on the west side of the property where there were brick units surrounding a central grass strip or court. In 1952, Harry Baker developed a nearly identical property of wood-frame units, which he operated until his death in 1970. Over the years, the two properties were joined, some buildings removed, and other added until it included the several cottages, duplexes, and multiplex structures that can be seen today. Each is built in a row and surrounds an open courtyard. Baker’s Acre represents one of the last auto courts in Arizona—a simple form that descended from the auto camps of early American car tourism and culminated in the appearance of the motor lodge. The simple design reflects the development of auto culture in the United States at mid-century, especially on broad western roadways. Property owners would build small central courts surrounded by cottages or linear multiplex units. Each building had parking and faced an open courtyard; the design was economical, functional, and served a growing population of car vacationers. Baker’s Acre is the last surviving expression of this style on Apache. Other auto courts, such as the Queen’s Court, Lois’s Court, and Del Rio Court, that once dotted the street have all disappeared.

Initially, Baker’s Acre served auto travelers. Over time, its units were converted to apartments, and beckoned World War II vets and later hippies from the emerging counterculture in the 1960s. As the fortunes of Apache Boulevard changed, and travelers diverted to other roads, Baker’s Acre became one of many hubs for vice along the Boulevard whose decline was often noted in the local press in the 1980s. Due to low prices and private cottages, Baker’s Acre became an ideal location for drug dealers and solicitors of prostitution. Ivan "John" Kranjcevic, a carpenter and former contractor, who bought and began to rehabilitate Baker's Acre Motel in 1999 recalled, "We had all kinds in here. They were selling drugs and soliciting prostitution, but I put a stop to it. I lost some customers, but those are the ones we don't want anyways." In recovering the historic auto court, Kranjcevic preserved a unique form in American automobile culture—but with the emergence of the light rail and increasing property values on the Boulevard, the long-term future of the property remains in doubt.

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Glittering neon signs lit Apache Boulevard for Westbound travelers along the Tempe Mesa Highway, pointing the way to hotels, restaurants, trailer parts, and various shops. Signs for Harman’s Restaurant, the Tempe Bowl, Catalina Hotel, Pioneer Drive-Inn, and many others lined the route through Mesa into Tempe. Historian Vic Linoff conjures travelers’ experiences in the 1960s: “Imagine in the night, coming down the highway from the dark of Arizona, when suddenly there’s a strip of bright neon? It’s like seeing the Vegas strip now. These people were trying to get your attention while you were going by, 40-50 miles per hour. How do you do it? With interesting signage.”

Many of the signs were created by legendary Mesa sign maker Paul Millet, including the sign at Watson’s Flowers. The local flower shop has been in owner David Johnson's family since 1927 when his maternal grandmother, Irene Watson, established it. Johnson remembers that the sign cost $8,000 when erected in the late 1950s, a “small fortune.” Unfortunately, a recent windstorm knocked Watson’s sign down, endangering one of the last expressions of neon culture left along Apache Boulevard.

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Tempe Tavern began its life as a dairy barn. It is a small, square single-story building constructed of concrete and river cobbles, presumably drawn from the Salt River. E. M. White migrated to Arizona from California in 1908, eventually settling in Tempe so that his children could attend Tempe Normal School. He built a home on a hill North of the Salt River, approximately where Mill and Curry Roads intersect today. He farmed an area between the Salt River and what is now Apache Boulevard until 1927, when it was subdivided and sold. The house was eventually demolished in the 1980s but it had many of the same characteristics as his dairy barn, which became a commercial establishment in 1930. The dairy barn has had a life as Murphy’s, the Oxbow, and now the Tempe Tavern. The building not only reminds us of White’s unique architectural style, but it is one of the last surviving structures from an earlier era when Tempe was primarily a farming community.

Raising cattle for dairy was a significant part of the town’s development and persisted well into the 1950s. Not only did “cattlemen” and “dairymen” regularly hold meetings in the hotels along Apache Boulevard, but many of the lots on the south and eastern edges of Tempe remained in use for agriculture well into the post-war period. As late as 1952, residents of the suburban developments on the east side of Tempe (such as Borden Homes, Tomlinson Estates, and Hudson Manor) protested the installation of a cattle feedyard adjacent to the Southern Pacific Railroad and McClintock Road.

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Valley National Bank served the Valley from its founding in 1900 through 1992. During this time, the Bank's distinctive logo was a common sight throughout the Valley. Its branches often had an iconic architectural design.

Located at the corner of Apache and Rural, the Tempe branch was constructed in 1962 by local architects Weaver & Drover. Many people remember this particular location for the unique design of the building's roof: a gold geodesic dome that R. Buckminster Fuller designed. This unique design choice by the Valley National Bank was a response to the changing architectural trends in the Phoenix Metro Area.

The Bank sought to adopt a retail image centered on consumer services. The location on Apache Boulevard also adopted many new strategies to become a successful bank. The progression of automobile culture in the mid-20th century set the path for some of these strategies used by the Valley National Bank. The Bank's location was essential to its success; it allowed easy automobile access by being located on the corner of Apache Boulevard and Rural Road. This type of auto-friendly access right off the road was an uncommon feature in most urban banks at the time. Another innovation resulting from the expansive automotive culture of the mid-20th century was the introduction of television bank tellers. Now, customers could quickly turn off the road and into the Bank's parking lot to complete their banking business - without leaving the car.

Valley National Bank was very successful and opened several other branches in the Tempe area. However, in the early 1990s, Valley National Bank was purchased by BankOne, and the Apache Boulevard location was subsequently transformed into a visitor center for Arizona State University. The bank building continued to be used by ASU for the next two decades. However, in 2007 the University began construction on the Hassayampa Academic Village on the site of the former Valley National branch. The unique geodesic dome had become a well-known and popular landmark in Tempe. Unfortunately, the building was ultimately deemed unsalvageable after an intense fight by the Tempe Historic Preservation Commission. The plan to demolish the building inspired the local community, with the help of historical preservationists, to fight to save the Bank from the wrecking ball.

Still, the University attempted to save the famous dome, even if they couldn't preserve the building. After two years of hibernation in ASU's surplus yard, the golden dome was re-erected in 2009 at Vista del Sol, a student housing complex across the street from the original Valley Bank site. Some might argue, however, that relocating the dome diminished its uniqueness. Even so, Tempe's now iconic dome still lights the surrounding desert sky, a memory of a bygone age.

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