Happy Birthday, Tucson!

 

It's the City of Tucson's 236th birthday! Here's a fun essay about it in the AZ Daily Star.

Summer vacation is over so I'll be back in front of the computer more, making me more likely to post something every now and then.

Happy Birthday, Arizona

Not only is today Valentine's Day, it's also Arizona's 99th birthday. President Taft officially made The Grand Canyon State the 48th in the Union on Feb. 14, 1912. Feb. 12 was originally slated as our first day as a state, but it conflicted with Lincoln's birthday.

I don't know why, but this picture looks like a perfect metaphor for Arizona's 99th birthday. I like it.

Birds and Animals of Oak Creek Canyon and Northern Arizona

Oak Creek Canyon is located near Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona. If you're not familiar with Arizona's different climate zones, you might be surprised to learn that it's not all desert nor all hot. Areas of higher elevation, such as areas on or above the Mogollon Rim (the edge of the Colorado Plateau) are much cooler, temperate zones that host lots of flora and fauna familiar to folks from cooler climates. Some areas even get lots of snow!

This nifty postcard includes a key to identifying the birds and animals on the back:

Homesick Yankee Ramblings Part 5 - Cape Cod

I just checked Dr. Timothy Dwight's Travels in New England and New York out of the library and it's got me plenty homesick. Dwight was a Congregationalist minister and the president of Yale from 1795-1817. He was also the grandson of the famous Northampton minister, Jonathan Edwards of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God fame. Travels, which spans four volumes, reads like a journal. Dwight stitches together detailed notes of many, many towns, villages, cities, natural sites, and various short biographies of notable people. The book was published in 1822, a few years after Dwight's death in 1817. Needless to say, I'll be posting some more quotes from Dr. Dwight here in the near future.

From Travels in New England and New York, Vol. III, Letter X:
"It has been a frequent opinion that this beach, and not improbably the whole township of Provincetown, will one day, and that at no distant period of time, be swept away by the ocean. I was not able to obtain satisfactory information concerning this subject, particularly as judicious persons differed entirely both as to facts and probabilities. Some averred that the beach has been greatly diminished within a moderate period. Others, particularly one, a discreet man, insisted that what it lost on one side it regularly gained on the other. It is now more than one hundred yards wide, and appears to the eye of a stranger as if every vestige of it might be easily swept away within two or three years."

"This remarkable object is an enormous mass of sand, such as has been already described, fine, light, of a yellowish hue, and the sport of every wind. It is blown into plains, valleys, and hills. The hills are of every height from ten to two hundred feet. Frequently they are naked, round, and extremely elegant; and often rough, pointed, wild and fantastical, with all the varied forms which are seen at times in drifts of snow."



Luckily for us, Dwight's fear that Provincetown would be washed away was never realized. Sitting out here in the desert, I'm sure the Cape's as beautiful now as it was when the Nauset lived there, or in 1620 when the Puritans arrived, or in 1800 when Timothy Dwight stood speculating on the beach, or when Thoreau called it a "wild, rank place", or when Norman Mailer, Tennessee Williams, and Jackson Pollack hung out there, or when Scott and Connie loved the water, boats, and stores in 1967, or when Erin and I and her family had a fire on the beach in 2007.

Panopticon

Panopticon.

George L. Mountainlion

George L. Mountainlion was, not surprisingly, a male mountain lion who lived at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Actually, there were several George L. Mountainlions, each named in order - George I, George II, George III and George IV - like members of a royal house. Here on this postcard, George II sits next to the memorial for George I. The first two Georges were hand-raised and remarkably tame. They bonded with their human friends and met Museum visitors while walking on leashes.

George was very popular and received lots of fan mail. On kid wrote him a letter that confessed, "This is the first time I have ever written to a lion." Probably not a necessary confession. I would  liked to meet the person who makes a habit of keeping lions as pen pals. 

Poor George I had hepatitis and died only two years after arriving at the museum. He died at the San Diego Zoo in 1953. Here's what Bill Carr, the founder of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, wrote for George's memorial:

I freely give all sights and sounds of nature I have known to those who have the grace to enjoy not man-made materialism but God-made beauty.

The magnificent Arizona sunsets I have watched from my enclosure, I bequeath to all who see not only with their eyes but with their hearts.

To humans who are tired, worried or discouraged, I bequeath the silence, majesty and peace of the Great American Desert.

To those walk the trails, I bequeath the early morning voices of the birds and the glory of the flowering desert in the Springtime.

To the children who have enjoyed seeing me purr, and watching me turn my somersaults, I offer the precious gift of laughter and joy. The world so needs these things.

And lastly, I bequeath my own happy spirit and affection for others, to all who may remember me and my museum where for three years, I did my best to show people that I truly liked them. 
 
It's probably not a good idea to bring tame, large predatory animals around people and American museums and zoos don't do that very much anymore. Though these animals become "ambassadors for their species," introducing them to the general population endangers the animal and people. Where large predators are concerned, there's a fine line between the type of fear that keeps us safe in the back country and the type of fear that leads to the extermination of valuable species; the first is to be encourage and the latter, discouraged. I understand all this, but I sure would have liked to have met George and scratched his chin. He's reported to have liked that; it made him purr.

Here's a recent story on George from the Arizona Daily Star, a Tucson newspaper.

Homesick Yankee Ramblings Part 4 - Antiques and Country Stores

From reverse: "Black Lantern Antiques and Country Store Museum - Mohawk Trail - Charlemont, Mass 01339. Early Country Store Items. A nostalgic trip to the past. Old time favorites for all. Nina Noga, Curator"

Ok, I know that there are antique stores in Arizona, but for the most part, they sell things you get at flea markets in Massachusetts. The Arizonan version of the flea market, the swap meet, sells mostly fake Ed Hardy crap and lame cell phone covers. Therefore, I miss New England antique shops and country stores. To make matters worse, my brother visits them frequently and posts pictures of all the great stuff he finds on Flickr.

Country stores in the Northeast always smell like scented candles. They sell cool things like breadmaking kits in Ball jars, sticks of honey, and different kinds of fudge. I'm also a sucker for magnets, though country-theme cow flags aren't really my thing.

As for antique stores, every one is a museum filled with great stuff you can take home. New England antique stores have a lot of artifacts from the nineteenth and early twentieth century with the occasional older find thrown in. I tend to want to buy animal themed stuff or naturalist artifacts, though Erin uses her veto power to prevent taxidermy purchases. It's really fascinating to see what things have the power to move from consumer items to artifacts and how the objects shift roles when they move from the retail store to the antique shop. To become an "Antique" is probably like Heaven in object afterlife, while becoming "garbage" is Hell. After a hard life as a work object, the antique is retired, placed in a safe location and meticulously maintained. If objects commit mortal sins, like breaking or becoming obsolete too quickly, they're discarded, crushed, recycled, buried.

As I look around my house and wonder at how some of the old things I have made the transition, I also look at many of my new things and wonder what the future holds for them. The silver lining of this way of thinking is that it make me want to take care of my stuff; the toxic lining is that it predisposes me to being a hoarder.

The Flume Gorge, Franconia Notch NH

From the Reverse: "This chasm, 700' feet in length, 11' to 24' in width has 60' to 70' perpendicular walls rising on both sides. The gorge was carved by nature in ancient geological times, but was not discovered until 1808."

I remember visiting the Flume Gorge in New Hampshire with my family on vacation. I was probably nine or ten years old. My brother and I each got a Davy Crockett-style coonskin cap and I got a moosehorn made out of an old cow horn. When you blew into it, it produced a low, bellowing sound. I thought it was funny to blow it when my father stopped the car at traffic lights or stop signs, and, in retrospect, it shows how cool my parents were for letting me get away with that. People would look around, confused. It was really fun.

Colossal Cave

From the reverse: "Twenty seven miles southeast of Tucson, lies one of Pima County's most unique wonders, the Colossal Cave. The true interest in Colossal Cave lies in its delicate colorings and exquisite formations. The action of air and water from eons ago, has resulted in a veritable lace-like fairyland of stone"

We haven't actually visited Colossal Caves yet. There's a chance that we might be moving to another part of the state soon, so we better get on that. How could anyone pass up visiting "a veritable lace-like fairyland?" That's exactly the kind of macho stuff I'm into.

Best Easter Wishes

My family sent me this great postcard from 1908 for Easter. Obviously, the picture is really funny (rabbit as beast of burden!), but I also love the font. I'm no designer or anything, and I don't generally notice fonts, but I really like this one. Thanks guys!

I also like the handwriting on the reverse as it's very easy to read. Here is goes:

"Dear Mother,
We are so glad to hear you and Father are both well, and I will write you a long letter next week.
With Love,
Lillie H."

Sent to:
Mrs. James M. Hayes
1218 S. Walker St.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The postmark is from San Francisco. It's both sad and wonderful to think that this postcard has been sent not once, but twice, by families separated by great distances at Easter time. Unlike Lillie, I suppose I have the luxury of calling my family on the phone, rather than waiting until next week to write a long letter, but I wonder if the technological convenience really makes me feel any closer to home than Lillie felt a century ago...

Happy Easter, folks.

Garden of Gethsemane

From the Reverse - "THE LAST SUPPER - "Take, eat; this is my body." St. Matthew 26:26. The breaking of the bread at The Last Supper is the central piece among several sculptured religious representations by Felix Lucero in the Garden of Gethsemane on the west bank of the Santa Cruz river at the Congress Street bridge, Tucson, Arizona."

Felix Lucero Park, more commonly known as the Garden of Gethsemane, sits next to the usually-dry riverbed of the Santa Cruz River here in Tucson. The park, which is very small, contains sand and plaster sculptures depicting people and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Last Supper pictured on this postcard. Lucero was a homeless WWI veteran who lived under the Congress Street Bridge and built the statues over a series of years out of material he recovered from the Santa Cruz River.

The legend goes that Lucero was injured in battle and made a pact with the Virgin Mary that if he survived he's dedicate his life to making religious art. Apparently, they both made good on their respective ends of the deal.

Here's the info if you want to visit the park. The city likes to advertise it as a tourist spot, but be aware that it's a favorite hang out from vagrants, the homeless, and less savory characters. Considering Lucero's story, I'm happy to share the park with homeless folks - perhaps they have a better right to be there than I do - but I take a friend with me on the visit all the same.

Address: 602 W. Congress St., Tucson, AZ

Directions: To Felix Lucero Park, take I-10 to exit 258. Head West on Congress St. for one block. It's located on the western bank of the Santa Cruz River, at the corner of Congress St. and Bonita Ave.

Hours: Daily 7:00 AM - Sunset.

Phone: 520-791-4873

Homesick Yankee Ramblings Part 3 - The Mohawk Trail

With all the rain and wildflowers out here in the desert, I got to thinking about taking the truck down the Apache Trail to see what's happening. From there my mind wandered back east, homeward, to Massachusetts and the Mohawk trail. There are innumerable scenic routes throughout the country named after Native Americans; the Apache Trail just east of Phoenix and then there's the Navajo Trail in the Four Corners area. The Mohawk Trail is a former Native American trade route in western Massachusetts that has become a famous scenic drive from Orange to Williamstown. One of the many notable features of the ride is this hairpin turn, but it follows a serpentine path for 65 miles.

This postcard, sent in 1929, is one of my most challenging paleographic experiments. I think it reads:
"Sun and fine snow up here. I like N. Adams very much. I went to K.P. Thursday night also long Sunday. Received fine reception. We are having a lot of cloudy weather weather (sic) I am right side of Mt. Greylock. Wish you all Happy New Year. H.P."
Sent to: Mr. & Mrs. Fred Gardner
            Court St.
            Whitman, Mass

Here's a great slide show with more photographs of more old Mohawk Trail Postcards and a rad book from 1875 entitled The Mohawk Trail; It's History and Course.

I'll get back that way sometime I suppose. I remember driving my red clunker Volvo on the Mohawk Trail, trying to coax it up the hills and the breaks screeching as I went down and the smell of the brakes burning. We moved out here and had a parallel experience as the truck's brakes smoldered down the Apache Trail - perhaps I'm the wrong person to advise driving these routes, but I maintain that you should get your brakes checked and go for one of these rides.

Cochise Head in Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona

From the reverse: "Cochise head, the bare rock top of a ridge in the northern part of the Chiricahua Mountains, which, silhouetted against the sky resembles the profile of Cochise, famous Apache Indian chief, may be seen from Highway 86 near San Simon and Bowie; also from Massai Point near Chiricahua National Monument, "wonderland of rocks", from which this picture was photographed."

The inscription on the back reads:
To: Mr. Grover Reese
Homer Michigan
Route 3

Apr. 1st, 1951
Hi Grover: Read your card and was Happy to hear from you. So Armstrong had passed on. Sorry to hear you are not so good. I surely hop that Drew help you. More sorry to hear you wouldn't be able to make the trip down here this winter but surely hope you will be able to make the trip in the fall. Carl's working at the Post(?) helping the roofer he works 6 days 10 hrs a day each week is hard work too. I am doing pretty good. Folks send best wishes. Now take care of Grover for me,
Mae."

I couldn't find much on Grover Reese except that he lived in Calhoun, Michigan (Homer is a township in Calhoun County), that he registered for WWI, and that he passed away sometime between 1977-1996. Ancestry.com has tons of great records, but you need to pay to see them. I like looking up people on postcards, but I don't want to spend money on it. In any case, it looks Grover didn't make it down to Arizona and missed out on seeing Chiricahua National Monument, at least for the 1951 winter season. I hope he made it down eventually; it's a really cool place.
As I always note on these postcard inscription entries, if you find this and you're related to Grover Reese, let me know and I'll send you the postcard.

Homesick Yankee Rambling Part 2 - Worcester State Hospital

The remains of Worcester State Hospital's administration building sits and watches the hustle and bustle of Route 9 and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Built on the Kirkbride Model in 1877, it stood for over a hundred years before succumbing to a massive fire in 1991.

It's an iconic building in the area. I was really excited to find this postcard from 1904 that shows it with both wings intact. Kirkbride hospitals (named for their pioneer, Thomas Story Kirkbride) incorporate architectural design into a theory of psychiatric convalescence. Basically, the various wards were staggered in wings that moved diagonally back and away from a central administration building. The idea was that this design would allow the patients to see out the windows and have pleasant views and breezes. As their health improved, they would move toward the central administration building. The women's wings were often much longer than the men's wings, as it was mistakenly thought that women more often suffered from mental ailments. It was probably really just extreme boredom and depression from a society that left them horribly under-stimulated.

When we lived in Worcester, Erin and I visited the ruins of the hospital fairly often. It's a really impressive place. There were once many Kirkbride hospital in the Northeast and Midwest, but most have been destroyed. Some have been repurposed, which is great. About five years ago we took a road trip around the northeast and visited Kirkbride hospitals in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and, of course, Massachusetts. I'll post those pictures sometime when I'm homesick again, but for today, here are some more shots of Worcester State Hospital. To see inside, visit Opacity.

Zion National Park, UT

From the reverse: "Towers of the Virgin, Zion NP. Dominated by towering West Temple, highest point in Zion National Park, the Towers of the Virgin present a striking vista from the main highway near the South Entrance."

From the reverse: "Great White Throne. Nearly twice as high as the tallest building in the world, the sheer walls of Great White Throne in Zion National Park rise 2,447 feet above the floor of the canyon."

I was really excited to find these cool postcards from Zion National Park. A friend and I visited Zion a couple years ago and spent a few days in Kolob Canyons. What a beautiful place! Kolob Canyons is in the less visited section of the park. It's about an hour north of the visitor's center. We saw very few people, but we did see eagles and Kolob Arch, which is the world's largest natural arch. With all the available water, us Arizona boys felt like we were staying in the Ritz Carlton. Here are a few of my pictures from that trip.


Kolob Arch


La Verkin Creek

The Middle of Arizona in the Middle of the 20th Century

From the reverse: "One of the outstanding formations in this beautifully colored valley."

Though Sedona, AZ has made the news mostly recently because of New Age donkey James Arthur Ray and the sweat lodge deaths, it's usually known for it's iconic red rocks and scenic Oak Creek Canyon. It's red sandstone formations, such as Bell Rock on the postcard above, tower above the town in the valley. It's as beautiful as it is packed with tourists. A trip to Sedona suggests that the tourism and automobile industries sustained efforts for nearly a century have paid off. This video is a 1949 travelogue commissioned by Chevrolet that features Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona, San Luis Obispo and San Diego in California, and Western Michigan. In addition to Oak Creek, it shows the Native American ruins site, Tuzigoot, which is in the Verde Valley, a bit south of Sedona. I have included a postcard of Tuzigoot below the video.


Tuzigoot Ruins. From the reverse: "High on a ridge of limestone above the Verde River are the ruins of an ancient settlement of Indians. It is estimated that the community once housed on this site was flourishing about 1000 A.D."

Enjoy your snow, suckers.

The poor eastern seaboard is getting a lot of snow. I remember those days...shoveling...stepping in slush...snowplows and sidewalk plows ruining all your hard work....

But we have snow here in southern Arizona too! It snowed as low as 4000 feet the other day. I can look out my window and see all the snow up on Mt. Lemmon and the Catalinas.  I had to scrape frost off my windshield once this year, too. What a hassle!

Here are some photos from a recent snowstorm in the Catalinas taken from Tucson.

Look how cold that palm tree looks.

If it gets any colder around here, I'm going to have to shut my windows and put on a sweater!

Bears are Around

From the reverse:
Dear Heather(?)
We haven't seen any bears this trip but were told they were around. We are heading for home tomorrow.
Keep well,
Love,
Helen

To: Mrs. Ida Ritchie(?)
3 Arista Drive
Huntington Station, L.I.
New York

Too bad Helen didn't see any bears on her trip in July 1967. Erin (my wife) has told me several times how she used to see black bears on trips to Maine with her family. The bears were eating trash out of a campground dump. Their favorite entrée? Dirty diapers. We didn't see many bears where we lived in southern central Massachusetts. In fact, whenever a bear or a moose wandered down from the north it made the news. There are well-established black bear populations in the mountains out here in Arizona, and I've seen lots of evidence that I've been in bear territory, but I've haven't run across one just yet. I guess I've got Helen's bear spotting skills...

South Mountain Park/Preserve

The reverse of the this postcard reads: "A fifteen minute drive to the south of Phoenix brings one to this colorful park where all the cacti and vegetation of the desert have been preserved."

Well, due to urban sprawl, Phoenix now extends to the foothills of South Mountain, but the park remains. Though it is definitely a bit taxed from overuse, South Mountain is still a pretty cool place. It's over 16000 square acres and boasts over 50 miles of hiking trails - not bad for a municipal park. If you hike deep enough, you'd never guess you're in a city park. It's not an artificial natural environment like Central Park; it even includes some really good spots to see Hohokam petroglyghs.

Missing from this great old postcard are the hideous cell phone towers that now protrude from the top of the highest peak. They're really ugly. Furthermore, there have been some plans to put part of AZ State Route 202 through the park to connect the city to the West Valley. The other option is to go through the Gila Indian Reservation. Until recently, the Gila Tribe has stalwartly opposed this option, but they recently agreed to conduct a study of what the road extension would mean for them if it passed through their land. Their official position is still "no build," though; it's sad that this apparently needs to be built either through Native American land or a wonderful city park. Too bad western cities can't start building up instead of out...

You can drive up to Dobbin's Lookout and watch the sunset, which is also very, very popular. The following pictures where taken from Dobbin's lookout:


Shitty urban sprawl.

Souvenir of the Wonders of Arizona Part 3 - Human Presence

Our third installment on the Curt Teich & Co. postcard book "Souvenir of the Wonders of Arizona" will focus on the human presence included in the set. Human influence and presence appear throughout the depictions the landmarks. As discussed in the last post, Native Americans are included to add an element of something exotic to the state. The unfortunate diminishing of the Native Americans and the Mexican family to attractions are only two examples of how the human presence pervades the postcards. Engineering and architectural accomplishments appear alongside natural marvels. The Roosevelt Dam and Lake Roosevelt (pictured in yesterday's post), completed in 1911, were immediate engineering accomplishments around the time that the postcards were printed. Their inclusion in the book reflect national pride in these accomplishments.

From the 19th to the early 20th century, train travel moved tourists from the East out West.  Railroad companies were instrumental in promoting the natural marvels of the West and the creation of the National Parks system. Including the train in this postcard of Point of Rocks in Prescott is a tacit reminder of how to visit and how tourism was situated in the development of the character of the Southwest.

The El Tovar hotel, finished in 1905, is yet another reminder of the role of tourism in the development of the West. While one of the postcards depicting the Grand Canyon without a human presence, the second depiction of the canyon highlights El Tovar. The hotel is a magnificent example what is colloquially referred to as "Parkitecture."

The Roosevelt Dam, the lake, the railroad, all reveal human influence on the Arizonan environment. The postcard of the mining camp reminds us the exploitation of the land. Mining is a huge industry in Arizona. Towns such as Bisbee and Jerome began as mining towns. Unfortunately, much of the mining is open pit mining, which is incredibly destructive and produces huge amounts of waste. It's a classic battle of what we need vs how we're willing to sacrifice our environment. One example of the debate that is currently going on revolves around the continued threat of an open pit copper mine on or near the Santa Rita Mountains. The Santa Ritas are part of Coronado National Forest and a popular hiking/camping destination. Learn more here at Save the Scenic Santa Ritas.

The presence of people throughout the postcard set reveals the value of using the land. What's displayed is that the land is an object and a space that is meant to be used by people and that it draws its value not from natural beauty or inherent grandeur, but rather from our interaction with it. As you can probably assume from yesterdays post, when I say "our" in relation to the postcard book and its historical moment, I'm referring to white Americans. There is, of course, a political element to everything, even old postcard books.