Sometime between 1200 and 1450 AD, Loma del Rio was the site of a small Hohokam community. Located on a hill in Papago Park, overlooking Tempe Town Lake, this site was home to approximately fifteen to twenty people, probably several generations of an extended family.

A block of six rooms remains, as well as an isolated room and several agricultural terraces. Archaeologists believe that the isolated room on the east side of the site may have been used for cooking, while the other rooms would have been residences. The walls were constructed of adobe, which was formed around stones taken from local bedrock. The agricultural terraces are particularly unique, as this terraced gardening was ideal for growing agave. The Hohokam utilized all parts of this plant, using the leaf fibers to make rope and eating the nutritious heart. Agave probably played an important part in trade with other villages as well. Evidence of trade with people as far as three hundred miles away has been found at the site, including distinctive pottery and stone tool fragments.

The site was first rediscovered in 1887 by Frank Hamilton Cushing, who led the first archeological expedition to the Salt River Valley. He initially identified the site as “Los Pueblos Arriba.” In 1928, Gila Pueblo archeological staff surveyed the site and identified it as Mesa 1-6 (GP). Then, in 1939, archaeologists Odd S. Halseth, Albert H. Schroeder, and Julian T. Hayden recorded the site as part of the large-scale archaeological projects funded by the Works Progress Administration under the New Deal.

Unfortunately, the site fell to neglect and vandalism until the 1960s, when it once again became a source of interest. In 1961, the site was officially identified as Loma del Rio.

In the 1970s, the site came to the attention of Arizona State University. From 1984 to 1986 archaeology students carried out excavations of the site under the supervision of Dr. Alfred E. Dittert, Jr. In 1991, the Arizona Parks Board awarded a Heritage Fund historic preservation grant to the City of Tempe, in partnership with Arizona State Parks, to stabilize the site. Finally, in 1995, the Loma del Ri Archaeological Site was dedicated by the City of Tempe and is part of Papago Park.

This 650 year old archaeological site can now be enjoyed by visitors along an interpretive trail, forever memorializing this piece of Hohokam history.

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From its humble beginnings in the arid landscapes of Papago Park, the Phoenix Zoo has transformed into a renowned non-profit zoological park, captivating locals and visitors alike with its commitment to education, conservation, and community outreach. Once a barren desert expanse, the zoo's origins can be traced back to the 1930s when it served as the Hunt Bass Hatchery, a Works Progress Administration initiative to generate jobs during the Great Depression by raising fish for local ponds in man-made lakes. In 1959, ownership of the land transitioned from the Arizona Game and Fish Department to the Arizona Zoological Society, led by animal enthusiast Robert Maytag, who utilized his family's washing machine fortune to bring his vision of a zoo to life.

Although Maytag tragically passed away before the zoo's grand opening, his widow, Nancy Maytag Love, assumed the mantle and took on the role of President of the society's board of directors. On November 11, 1962, the Maytag Zoo officially opened its gates, subsequently rechristened as the Phoenix Zoo in 1964 to solidify its connection to the local community. Building on its mission to educate, the zoo fostered deep bonds with countless Phoenix families over the years, resulting in a significant economic impact of over a billion dollars in investments towards food, equipment, and infrastructure that benefit the wider community.

Gone are the days when zoos were characterized by bare concrete floors and steel bars. The Phoenix Zoo prides itself on its expansive habitats and commitment to animal enrichment, underscored by stringent educational requirements for its staff. As a testament to its dedication to animal welfare and conservation, the zoo has attained full accreditation from the esteemed Association of Zoos and Aquariums, exceeding rigorous scientific standards.

The Phoenix Zoo's influence extends far beyond its gates, playing a vital role in conservation efforts within Arizona and on a global scale. The zoo actively participates in breeding programs aimed at reintroducing endangered and nearly extinct species back into the wild, including the remarkable Operation Oryx, which witnessed the birth of 225 Arabian Oryx at the zoo in 2002. Additionally, the zoo has been instrumental in breeding the endangered Black-footed Ferrets since 1991 and expanded its efforts with the establishment of a dedicated 6,200-square-foot breeding center in 2010. Collaborating with organizations like HUTAN for orangutan conservation, the Grevy's Zebra Trust, the Giant Armadillo conservation program, and the Anteaters and Highways Project, the Phoenix Zoo actively contributes to a multitude of global conservation initiatives.

With its unwavering commitment to education, conservation, and community engagement, the future of the Phoenix Zoo shines brightly. What began as a modest presence in Papago Park in the 1960s has blossomed into a renowned force in animal welfare, making the Phoenix Zoo a source of immense pride for the Salt River Valley community.

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In the early morning hours of April 1, 1934, The Arizona Republic reported that 6,000 Arizonans gathered for a sunrise Eastertide service at the Papago Park Amphitheater. With seating for only about 5,000 people, an overflow crowd sat on the hillsides surrounding the amphitheater. The sound of a congregation singing “The Holy City” filled the calmness of the morning and echoed across the valley. During the service, Reverend C. Arlin Heydon, President of the Phoenix Ministerial Association dedicated the amphitheater with a prayer and a reading from the Gospel. The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) had completed the Amphitheater in the previous year. It was one of the first out of the many projects undertaken by the New Deal agency. The C.C.C. provided work opportunities for young men during the Great Depression by having them work on projects that built or rebuilt the nation's infrastructure and preserved its natural environment and national parks.

Early in his administration, Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the C.C.C. to expedite the economic recovery process during the Great Depression. The C.C.C. hired young men, many of whom had served in the military during World War I, to work on a variety of conservation projects. In particular, the work of the C.C.C. transformed America’s natural landscape by altering its land use. In Arizona, this work extended from the Grand Canyon to the southern border, and it diversified Arizona’s economy. By 1941, twenty-seven C.C.C. work camps had been set up in Arizona. The workers stationed in these camps built 55,000 check dams, 785 miles of service roads, and 583 miles of fence. What is more, the C.C.C. constructed over 2,500 public facilities, including picnic tables, park benches, fireplaces, and shelters.

These projects had a profound impact in Maricopa County. Young men labored tirelessly all day in the hot sun clearing irrigation ditches in Papago Park. Arizona’s canals needed improvement because of their importance to the state’s agricultural industry. C.C.C. workers built new canals with concrete pipes and highly advanced water storage tanks. They cleared vegetation and cut down dead trees, which often clogged up the canals and stopped the flow of water. Additionally, between 1933 and 1940, the C.C.C. worked on its largest project in Arizona at South Mountain Park. During this period, four thousand men worked at two camps at South Mountain, where they constructed over 40 miles of hiking trails, 18 buildings, 15 ramadas, 134 fire pits, 30 water dams and faucets. The National Park Service and the City Parks Supervisor collaborated with the C.C.C. throughout the process.

Although the work of the C.C.C. ended with the onset of World War II, it's legacy has persisted--written into the Arizona landscape, including the Papago Park Amphitheater. Arizona residents continued using this location for their Eastertide services for decades. With its growing population, sprawling suburban landscape, and denser religious infrastructure, the use of the amphitheater graduate declined. In 1970, according to The Arizona Republic, only 1,500 people attended the church service hosted by the amphitheater on Easter Sunday. Noise from the traffic on McDowell Road made it difficult for the attendees to hear what the ministers said during the service. Eventually, the Easter Sunrise services ceased by the end of the 1970s.

Today, the amphitheater remains empty most of the time, although hikers and tourists sometimes sit on the stone layered seats while taking a water break. However, the location itself is rarely used for any major events or large gatherings. Nonetheless, its rich legacy reminds people of how this project and other C.C.C. sites brought communities close together at a time when our country faced economic peril.

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Dia de las Muertos, or Day of the Dead,celebrates life and death; revelers remember people - family, friends, inspirations, or mentors - who have died,yet whose impact on their lives remains eternal. Dia de las Muertos originated in syncretism - the combining of Central America and its various cultures with Catholic traditions brought by the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Ancient civilizations such as the Teotihuacáns, Olmecs, and Aztecs honored the dead through rituals and remembrances. The traditions of indigenous peoples did not disappear with colonization but found their way into Spanish and Catholic festivals, All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day, to create new rituals and expressions of worship. Dia de las Muertos celebrates life and death as synonymous with each other; this is the basis for its expression in art, music, and ritual. The celebration lasts from October 31st to the 2nd or 3rd of November. In addition, where possible, families often visit the cemeteries where those they honor are buried and clean, repair, and decorate the grave site. They will also leave gifts and mementos-items that the person loved and enjoyed in life. A part of Dia de las Muertos is the return of the dead for the night to visit with their families and homes. As part of remembering, families make an offering, an ofrenda, with pictures of the dead, art, candles, food, marigold flowers, and calaveras. Marigold flowers provide trails to the ofrendas, so the deceased find their destinations. Calaveras, skeletons, represent the continuance of life, which is why they are depicted doing everyday activities. Seeing the calaveras engaged in daily activities helps people overcome their own fear of death. The celebration of Dia de las Muertos is over three thousand years old. When the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire in the 1500s, the Catholic missionaries assimilated the native holiday into the Catholic celebration of All Souls Day, November 1st. A couple of hundred years later, as the United States expanded westward across North America and occupied Mexican land, Anglo-American settlers culturally dominated the territories they settled. The celebration of Dia de las Muertos slowed in the Southwest until the 1970s when the Chicano Movement introduced Dia de las Muertos more broadly.  Mexican-Americans sought greater social, political, and economic rights through the Chicano Movement. This civil rights struggle developed in the 1960s and 1970s but dated earlier in the twentieth century. For instance, in 1946, five Mexican-American fathers sued the Westminster School District over segregating children of Mexican ancestry into separate schools. In 1947 the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the fathers, prohibiting segregation of Mexican-American school children in an important precedent for the Brown v. Board of Education decision seven years later. The activism of Mexican-Americans saw the success of educational reforms, labor unions, and the creation of the first organization to protect the civil rights of Hispanics, the Mexican American Legal Defence and Education Fund, in 1968. From such grassroots and legal activism, the Chicano Movement emerged more radically during the 1960s and 70s.  Chicanos sought a rediscovery of their cultural roots and indigenous distinctiveness; therefore, they explored and revitalized the traditions of their ancestors. As the awareness and knowledge of Dia de las Muertos grew, more and more people beyond the Hispanic community joined in the celebrations, especially in the southwestern United States. The rising number of Mexican immigrants in the 1980s also increased the number of people participating in Dia de las Muertos. A new art representative of Day of the Dead emerged alongside the integration of Mariachi bands. Ofrendas are made not only as an offering but as artistic expressions and not only for the family but for cultural icons as well: Frieda Kahlo and Marilyn Monroe are, for instance, well represented.  As the festival took on new meaning and was widely adopted, the Desert Botanical Garden celebrated its first Dia de las Muertos in 2002. Mexican artist and photographer Oliverio Balcells has been coming to the Desert Botanical Garden for Dia de las Muertos since 2004. When he first attended Dia de las Muertos at the Garden, he was one of a small handful of Hispanic artists. In 2019 the number of artists and performers participating in the Gardens’ celebration far exceeded the 2002 celebrations, but with size comes sacrifice. Mr. Balcells says the celebration is more commercialized than traditional Mexican events. However, the Garden’s festival is still a fantastic event to attend. The DBG brings people across the nation to experience Dia de las Muertos. The different vendors involved allow visitors to receive a taste of the traditional Mexican holiday. The performers, artists, and expositions the Garden hosts offer an excellent introduction to a cultural foundation. In Webster Auditorium, artistic ofrendas are showcased for visitors. Mariachi groups perform along with storytellers and traditional dancers. A wide variety of foods is served, both traditional Mexican and food representative of Dia de las Muertos such as Pan de Muertos and sugar skulls. The last day of the Garden’s celebration hosts the closing ceremony of the holiday. In the days leading up to the holiday, visitors are encouraged to write short messages and wishes and leave them in baskets by the Garden’s ofrendas in the Sunset Plaza. In the closing ceremony on November 3rd, the notes are burned in a bonfire, representing them being given into the afterlife. Calaveras dancers move across the plaza along with other traditional dancers, and men in Aztec Jaguar warrior outfits carry a wood and fabric representation of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, aloft. Sacred to Native tribes in Mesoamerica, Quetzalcoatl represents duality, able to fly yet bound to the earth. Quetzalcoatl’s duality mixes with the duality of Dia de las Muertos, the celebration of life and death.

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In 1978, almost forty years after the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG) opened to the public, the Garden introduced its first Las Noches de las Luminaria. The celebration has evolved beyond candlelit desert paths; the annual event now includes bell choirs, bands, dancers, and light shows. In creating Las Noches de las Luminaria, the DBG drew upon a cultural form that had taken a new meaning in the American Southwest in the early twentieth century. Lighting luminaries during the Christmas season originated in the American Southwest, specifically in northern New Mexico. It grew out of the efforts by Anglo leaders in Sante Fe to create a distinctive identity for the town and to promote that sensibility to Western travelers. Early twentieth-century Anglo leaders of Santa Fe had redefined the city's history by appropriating Native American and Mexican culture and traditions. Through its art, architecture, ceremonies, literature, and pageantry, the town established a mythic identity that has drawn tourists for more than one hundred years. These efforts included highlighting the city's architecture during the Christmas holiday season through the use of luminaries lining the parks, streets, walls, and flat rooftops of Santa Fe. Beginning in the 1920s and through the '60s, use of luminaries spread through the Southwest, including to Arizona. For example, in 1939, an article from the Arizona Daily Star encouraged Tucson residents to adopt the use of luminaries in their homes. It described how, in the previous year, the author saw the use of luminaries in Old Pueblo, Arizona and stated that the flat roofs of Southwestern style homes, such as in Santa Fe, Old Pueblo and Tucson, made excellent places for luminaries. Years later, for Christmas 1950, Tucson's Desert Garden Club members urged homeowners to use luminaries and "other beautiful decorations" to beautify the city for the holidays. Luminaries were again encouraged the following year as a way to capture the desert holiday spirit. In an article the next year, they added additional incentives, appealing to children with the argument that luminaries may help direct Santa Claus to their Tucson homes. If the use of luminaries in the Southwest has become a winter holiday custom over the past one hundred years, the precise origins of the use of luminaria have been obscured by that twentieth-century mythmaking. Santa Fe historian Pedro Ribera Ortega promoted the luminaria tradition in Santa Fe by linking it to the hills of Spain and Italy. Around the city of Belén, Spain, shepherds lit small, contained fires at night to stay warm, and in time these became known as luminaries. According to Ortega, it was during Spain's conquest of the Americas that luminaries traveled across the Atlantic Ocean, where they became popular in Mexico during winter nights. As Christian missions spread around the Mexican territory, indigenous peoples who converted to Christianity displayed luminaries to help lead the infant Jesus Christ into their homes. Ortega reported that poems and regional songs even describe the tradition of luminaries in Christmas celebrations. One poem by Dorothy Linney reads, "The little fires that blaze on Christmas Eve; are lit by simple folks who believe; the Christ Child wanders softly through the night; and blesses all who set a guiding light." According to Ribera, the decline of the Spanish missions contributed to the decreasing use of luminaries. It was this tradition that Santa Fe appropriated when it began lighting the city in the early twentieth century.   In creating its own Las Noches de las Luminaria in 1978, the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix drew upon the southwestern cultural tradition that had emanated from Santa Fe to broaden its appeal and create a new relationship with the community. Indeed, community outreach became more central to the Garden in the 1970s, when Charles A. Huckins became director and reinvented the Gardens by making them more accessible, including creating trails and education programs. As a thank you to the Phoenix community and its volunteers, the Desert Botanical Garden hosted a one-night winter celebration, showcasing the luminaria festival for the first time. That first Las Noches de las Luminaria displayed approximately three thousand luminaries lining the trails and buildings; it was free for all visitors and open from 7 to 9 pm. Webster Auditorium, decorated with "piñatas and desert holiday arrangements," also offered hot chocolate and cookies. The festival grew larger with each passing year. By its fortieth anniversary, Las Noches de las Luminaria displayed more than eight thousand hand-lit luminaries. The event now includes luminary donated by individuals, as well as volunteers recruited for lighting the thousands of luminaries each year. The Garden also hosts various concerts during the festivities, from Native American Flute players and Mariachi bands to brass bands and bell choirs. Instead of one evening, Las Noches de las Luminaria can be seen throughout December.

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The pyramid-shaped tomb of Arizona Governor George Wiley Paul Hunt stands at the peak of a great butte in the Salt River Valley. The tomb stands at a high point in Papago Park, a site selected by the Governor, and offers a grand view of the once empty valley. The National Register of Historic Places states the monument as being twenty feet square and high. It is constructed of concrete and faced with two layers of white ceramic tile, the second is believed to have been added in the 1960s to protect the original surface. A tall wrought iron fence was later added after vandals defaced the tomb. The National Register asserts the monument is an important landmark for commuters, visitors and air travelers.

The pyramid shape of the monument evokes the grandeur of the Western Desert of Egypt, a popular theme in architecture at the time. The 1922 discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb set off a wave of interest in all things Egypt. This included a celebration of its architecture and symbols. Since the Hunt’s tomb was built in 1932, the design might have resulted from the Egyptomania of the day. The original inspiration for the pyramid design remains a mystery. Many buildings constructed during this period also drew on Egyptian themes. That interest was also expressed in four other pyramidal monuments in Arizona, including the tomb of Charles D. Poston, an early representative from the Arizona Territory.

The grand appearance and elevated location are not the only things that distinguish the tomb, but also Papago Park's central position in the state capital during Hunt's governorship. Identified with National Monument status in 1914, the Papago-Saguaro National Monument was de-listed by Congress in 1930 because tourists had so decimated its ecology by cutting down the many saguaros. During the Great Depression, Hunt commissioned a bass fish hatchery in the park as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project; it was used to stock bass and other fish for Arizona's waterways. Despite its appearance and central locale, the tomb is nonetheless relatively modest. Hunt’s Tomb is not didactic, unlike many personal monuments seen at this time. It lists none of Hunt’s accomplishments, particularly his long incumbency as governor which lasted for an impressive seven terms.

After the Papago Park lost its National Monument status in 1930 legal proceedings regarding the ownership of the plot on which the tomb would later be built were undertaken by the federal government in 1931. After more than a year of waiting, Hunt was granted the burial site on September 28, 1932. Del E. Webb, who would later play a significant role in developing the valley, led the building of the monument which was finished in just over three months, and dedicated in 1933. Helen Duett Ellison Hunt, wife of Governor Hunt, had passed away in 1931 and became the first person to be buried in the tomb on April 4, 1933. Governor Hunt joined his wife on December 24, 1934. In total seven people are buried in Hunt’s Tomb; the Governor and Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Hunt’s sister and their parents, and the Hunts’ daughter and her husband.

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During the twentieth century, jobs,  mild winters, sunshine, and outdoor recreation attracted millions of people from all over the United States to Arizona. Boating and sport fishing on Arizona's many reservoirs lured newcomers from states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even New York. By the 1980s, Arizona Highways -- a long running journal published by the State of Arizona-- routinely touted Arizona as one of the best sport fishing locations in the nation despite the fact that it has the second least amount of surface water in the country. 

Arizona’s urban fishing program began in 1983. The main goal of the program was to provide more convenient fishing opportunities for people living in the city. It was an alternative to long-distance drives to different states. This made more people want to move to Arizona in hopes of a better life. The Game and Fish Department, along with the Parks department of Chandler, Mesa, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, and Tucson made this possible for Arizona. There are about 27 different species of fish commonly caught by the Arizona urban fisherman. Of the 27 species of fish found in Arizona, there are 160 stream management systems along with 80 lakes of impounded water. Of all the bodies of water in Arizona, one stands out when living in Phoenix: the Papago Ponds.

The Papago Ponds are located in east Phoenix right next to the Phoenix Zoo in Papago Park. Three ponds cover 6 acres and range from 7 to 11 feet deep. They are home to channel catfish, rainbow trout, largemouth bass, bluegill, red dear sunfish, crappie, tilapia, and carp, stocked by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Water for the ponds comes from the Valley's extensive canal system which transports water from the Salt, Verde and Colorado rivers and groundwater. 

Today, fishing and hunting bring hundreds of millions of dollars into Arizona's economy. With Salaries and wages totaling to $708 million, the hunting and fishing industries were responsible for 21,000 jobs. These fishermen and hunters generated $155 million in federal taxes along with $123 million in state taxes. The dry desert state is blessed with abundant opportunities for fishermen and outdoorsmen alike.

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The National Park Service celebrated the Papago Saguaro National Monument for its more than 2,000 acres of rocky desert that showcased Phoenix's Sonoran Desert, giant cactus, and sandstone buttes.

Just 16 years after its founding, however, the National Park Service delisted the Papago Saguaro National Monument--the first time a National Park Service property had ever been removed from federal rolls. One developer proposed erecting a 600-foot-tall saguaro-shaped observation tower lined with green neon lights. While arguably tacky and inappropriate, the never-realized structure might have been a fitting reminder of the Papago Saguaro National Monument and its eventual delisting, partly as a result of conflicting ideas of appropriate land usage.

Today the multiplicity of uses envisioned for the land has come to fruition, as evidenced by the presence of Governor Hunt's pyramidal tomb, the remnants of a Depression-era bass hatchery, a golf course, the Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Zoo, picnic areas, lakes, and hiking and biking trails that attract millions of visitors a year.

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Among President Franklin Roosevelt's many "Alphabet Soup" New Deal programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was perhaps the most successful in reducing unemployment among America's youth. The highly regimented program brought benefit not only to young men seeking a steady, albeit meager, income in return for their labor but also to the many areas to which the CCC enlistees were dispatched.

Many communities in Arizona gained new infrastructure and other improvements at the hands of CCC workers, including Phoenix's own Papago Park. Imagine for a moment an out-of-state recruit's likely reaction to the park's striking rock formations and prickly indigenous flora. What must have been running through the mind of a young program participant who, until being shipped out with his CCC company, had likely never traveled far beyond his hometown? How might a CCC enrollee react to the quasi-military structure of the organization and the reality of being assigned physically arduous tasks to be carried out alongside a group of complete strangers in a seemingly inhospitable land?

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Breadlines, street corner apple vendors, and families traveling cross-country in jalopies looking for employment are phenomena unknown to most alive today. As those who lived through the Great Depression continue to fall by the wayside, memories of that severe economic crisis become ever more blurred. In addition to slowly erasing the pain and suffering brought about by the worldwide economic collapse of the 1930s, the passage of time also obscures the specifics of the overwhelming federal reaction to the Depression.

While many are familiar with President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal initiative, the bevy of "Alphabet Soup" programs implemented under FDR's leadership are less widely known. Programs such as the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) are but a handful of the myriad federal agencies created during the Depression. One New Deal program of great importance to Arizona, and the Papago Park region, in particular, was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

What was the CCC? Simply put, it was a government employment effort designed to provide young, unmarried men a reliable paycheck in exchange for sometimes backbreaking physical labor such as clearing trails or erecting buildings in local, state, and federal parks. CCC efforts visible in Papago Park include several ramadas built in the "NPS Rustic" style - similar to many of the federally-constructed Depression-era projects in Phoenix's South Mountain Park. Although the Corps existed for just nine years, the legacy of this Keynesian undertaking remains in many parks, forests, and important pieces of infrastructure found across the nation to this day.

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Wealthy Northeastern socialite Gertrude Webster seemed to delight in defying class and gender stereotypes as she worked tirelessly to "Save the Desert" by taking charge of the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society (ACNFS)--now known as the Desert Botanical Garden.

Founded in 1934 by native plant enthusiast Gustaf Starck, the ACNFS was comprised of individuals offering great passion, but little in the way of financial resources. Enter Gertrude Webster, an affluent Easterner who had come to love the wonderfully exotic indigenous flora of the Sonoran Desert. Webster's deep pockets and dominant leadership style guided the then-floundering organization to long-term success, albeit at the expense of more than a few bruised egos.

Despite her sometimes brash nature, Webster was a well-meaning benefactor whose generosity has been memorialized in the naming of the National Registered-listed Webster Auditorium. The building, an adobe structure that stands on the grounds of the Desert Botanical Garden to this day, was financed by Webster, who also oversaw every excruciating detail of its construction - much to the chagrin of the contractor tasked with its erection.

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When the U.S. government sought a home for German U-boat sailors taken as prisoners-of-war during World War II, it found the ultimate contradictory landscape for the young mariners from the verdant nation along the Rhine: Phoenix's Papago Park.

The exotic red sandstone buttes and prickly Sonoran Desert flora of the park may have seemed inhospitable at first, but the German submariners quickly adapted to life in the desert. In fact, the involuntarily land-based naval personnel enjoyed relative autonomy in their daily activities at the somewhat lackadaisically-run camp, permitting them to engage in productive activities such as farming--as well as more sinister endeavors, such as planning a water-based getaways despite their location in the arid Salt River Valley. Accustomed to the mighty rivers of Europe, the POWs logically assumed that the Salt and Gila rivers shown on maps of the Valley could lead them to the Colorado River and onto freedom in Mexico. However, this hope was discovered to be nothing more than a desert mirage, as described in the tale of "The Crazy Boatmen."

This prison break was deemed "The Great Papago Escape" though it did not last very long. The prisoners tunneled out of the prison on the night of December 23rd, 1944 and 25 German POW fled into the desert. The men would make a break into the desert and attempt to head for Mexico, 130 miles from the camp, though all were recaptured without spilling blood.

The last man recaptured was the man who started it all, Captain Wattenberg, he was captured a month after the initial escape on January 28, 1945.

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The prisoner of war camp that once stood in Papago Park was the site of stories like that of the ill-fated 1944 escape attempt of the "Crazy Boatmen," who planned on floating hand-made boats down the rivers they saw on their maps of the Valley. Though the bone-dry riverbeds thwarted the boatmen's plans, tales like theirs adorn the memories of the POW camp. However, for most of the inmates life at the camp was more mundane.

One former POW, Heinrich Bangert recalled being a "former sailor prisoner in Papago" and that many of his friends had come from "Africa Corps, at Litchfield Park No6." He remember that we "had been a fine time in Papago, we cropped a lot of cotton and played a lot of handball. I remember it very well. I still have the old colored fold wallet." (See the comments below for Mr. Bangert's reminiscences.)

Opened in January 1944, the prisoner of war facility was situated on land just north of Papago Park along what is now 64th Street. Prior to being put to use as a POW camp, the grounds were used as a training facility for American soldiers and, briefly, a compound for Italian POWs. In contrast to the raging battlefields of Europe, life inside the camp walls proved pleasantly safe and peaceful for the nearly 1,500 German sailors detained out of their element in the arid Sonoran Desert. While perhaps surprising to many of the incarcerated U-boaters, the parched terrain they viewed from their wartime home yielded significant quantities of long-staple cotton --a much-needed commodity for numerous essential military supplies including tires and uniforms.

Cotton, however, is a labor-intensive crop. This presented a serious challenge for many Valley farmers supplying the federal government with bales of their fibrous bounty. Ironically, many of the German detainees housed at Papago Park stepped in to assist with the cotton harvest. Some estimates credit POW labor with picking 90% of the Valley's cotton crop, thereby ensuring a steady supply of the raw material used in the effort to defeat their home country and, indirectly, aiding in the Allied victory that released the German submariners from their accommodations in the Arizona desert.

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America entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Civilians across the country proudly signed up to serve their country. Parts of Papago Park were leased to the federal government in 1941 to build a desert combat training camp. The military came in and built barracks and a facility, but the training would only last until 1942 when the War Department took all of Papago Park except for the Desert Botanical Garden and Hunt Bass Hatchery to build a POW camp. Papago Park transformed into Papago Park POW Camp or Camp Papago Park.

The camp’s first visitors arrived in 1943 from halfway around the world. They were Italian captives, but soon the camp would be primarily dedicated to housing Nazis. This was apart of a larger system across the U.S. that brought POWs to American soil to prevent prisoners from escaping and to keep them as far away as possible from the battlefield.

Camp Papago Park did not do a great job of preventing escape. In 1944 25 Nazi POWs made an escape by tunneling underground for over 200 yards. This was known as the Great Papago Escape and it was the largest POW escape from an American facility during the war. The escape is not unlike the famous camp breakout that inspired the classic movie The Great Escape. Unfortunately, this escape was not led by Steve McQueen, but by Nazi war prisoners on American soil. Luckily for Americans, the desert proved to be enough of a prison itself because all the escapees were eventually recaptured simply because they found themselves in the middle of the desert with no food or water and no place to go.

The POW camp would last until the end of the war, but the military did not leave Papago Park until much later. A section of the park was used for a veterans’ hospital until 1953 and then more land was sold off to the public in 1955. The end of the war era meant the beginning of a new era for Papago Park

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