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Some of the earliest photos of streetcars on the Washington Street line display the sign, "To The Natatorium" as in this photo, courtesy the Arizona Pioneer Historical Society and also seen on page 4 of Larry Fleming’s book Ride A Mile and Smile the While. Natatorium being a rather fancy word for an indoor swimming pool. We do have an illustration of the facility, used in advertisements in the Arizona Republican through the 1890s: In those days, the property of the Sherman’s street railway was known as Phoenix Park. We have this from the May, 20, 1892 newspaper. Phoenix Park Destined to Become A Popular Pleasure Resort Natatorium, Theater, Gymnasium and Refreshments will Make the Summer Months Pleasant. A reporter for The Republican visited Phoenix Park yesterday for the purpose of inspecting the natatorium, theater and other attractions calculated to aid our people in passing pleasantly the summer months. The natatorium is completed and is being flushed and filled with water. It is at the eastern side of the park, a large, roomy building covering a pool or plunge bath 100 feet long by thirty feet wide and six and-a-half feet deep at the lower end. The pool has a waste pipe, which will carry off all surplus water that constantly pours in at the upper end, and is also supplied with a gate at the lowest point, which will be used to completely drain the bath twice a week. [This being two years before the addition of chlorine to water for purification purposes was proposed, in 1894.] The building has twenty bath rooms [the doors in the illustration], [and] electric lights… No mproper characters will be admitted… On July 30, 1895, the Republican proudly reported that “The natatorium has become the Mecca of all who would seek refuge from the sweltering heat of summer. The City Electric railway aids and abets the flight of the refugees and makes the return to the city so inviting that past tortures are forgotten.” On July 30, 1895, the Republican proudly reported that “The natatorium has become the Mecca of all who would seek refuge from the sweltering heat of summer. The City Electric railway aids and abets the flight of the refugees and makes the return to the city so inviting that past tortures are forgotten.” The 1899 Phoenix City Directory contains this invitation In addition to bathing, there was baseball, football, plays, picnics, fireworks, and a whole host of diversions to enjoy. Phoenix Park was well-patronized and one of the main reasons the Washington Street line was always the Street Railway’s most profitable. By 1902, the Park was becoming too small for the growing city. In February, Sherman’s company nearly doubled the size of the Park, with the final large event at the “old” park being a football game between the Indian School team and the Phoenix school team: Football fans may note that this match presaged the first interscholastic league in Arizona which was proposed for the 1904 season, including the Phoenix Union High School the Phoenix Indian School, the Tempe Normal College (later ASU), and Tucson’s University of Arizona. Smaller events such as picnics continued during construction of the Park in March and April in preparation for the summer season. We have this description from the February 9, 1902 Republican: The New Phoenix Park. A Place That Will Shortly Be a Real Pleasure Resort. The management of Phoenix park is spending some thousands of dollars in improving that property and making it what its name signifies. By the time warm weather comes again it will be a pleasure resort in reality and one that will certainly be appreciated by every resident of the city. The work has been quietly going on for a month or two and is now so far advanced that the visitor can form a fair idea of what it will be a little later. As mentioned some time ago in these columns, a new athletic field has been added on the south, and the grand stand moved and repaired. Where the old ball ground was there is now a beautiful lake a quarter of a mile in circumference with an island in the center thirty-five feet high. That is, it is a lake all but the water, and the water will be turned on in a few days when there will be excellent opportunity for boating… A boat house will be erected near the west end of the lake, and eight rowboats have been ordered… On the highest point of the island there will be erected an observatory twenty-five feet high, making a total height above the surrounding country of sixty or seventy feet and from it a good view of the city may be obtained… But the greatest convenience of all is the new loop in the street car track. From the former end of track it turns south to Jefferson street, then west by the swimming bath and along the north line of the park and then north to Washington street, so the trip to the east end of the line and back will be made without stopping to turn the seats around, and passengers will be taken directly to the door of the bath house and to the new park entrance but a feet from the door of the theater. The track is all laid except the switch and will be entirely completed at an early day. From this we know that any photo with a streetcar reading “East Lake Park” cannot be earlier than February 1902, as there was no lake before that! The name “Phoenix Park” continued through May 1902, though the instant popularity of the lake seems to have led to a nearly immediate renaming of the entire park, with the newspaper referring to the “Lake park” in June; by August, the streetcar company itself was calling it East Lake Park, as seen in this advert: So now you know the rest of the story about the time when Phoenix Park became East Lake!

This article is a reprint from the monthly Street Railway Review of 1905 Windsor & Kenfield Publishers Street railway men who have been troubled with snow this year, will find it restful to look at the views on this page, most of which were taken on November 30, of last year, on the line of the Phoenix City Railway Company, Phoenix, Ariz. Summer lasts nearly all the year, So there is no falling off of travel on account of winter's chilling blasts. The Phoenix City Railway Company was organized February 28, 1893, by Gen. M. H. Sherman, president. With him is associated as vice-president, C. F. Ainsworth; treasurer, William Christy; secretary and manager, B. N. Pratt. About the first construction work of the company was to tear up the tracks of the old Valley Street Railway, on Washington street, the main thoroughfare of the city, and lay five miles of 30 and 35- pound “T” rail for electric service, leaving about three miles of horse railway on other streets. The rails were spiked direct to 6x8 redwood ties, ballasted with six inches of river gravel. Special care was given to the joints, which are “standing up” well under service, though the cars are comparatively light. The line is perfectly straight and practically level, covering the main street of the city, passing nearly all of the principal hotels, business blocks, and going directly through the capitol grounds of the territory, about three-fourths of a mile from the city center. The rolling stock consists of four motor cars, equipped with Sprague 15-horse-power motors, four trailers and four horse cars. The power house is a short distance from the line, adjoining the city water works plant, both companies using the same boilers, thereby lessening expense of operating for both. The equipment consists of three No. 16 Edison generators, driven by one 300- horse-power Cumner engine, and one 75-horse-power Williams high speed compound engine. Phoenix is the capitol of Arizona Territory, and county seat of Maricopa county, with a population of a about eleven thousand, and is altogether a lively city. The company, however, does not depend for revenue upon the travel that naturally comes to it, but has various attractions to help create travel, some of which are shown in connection with this article. Among them is a large park a mile and three-quarters from the business center, containing one of the fastest four-lap bicycle tracks in the west, and holding many of the Pacific Coast records. At the entrance to the park is a quaint building, in which is built large cement tank, 30 x I00 feet, with a depth of three to six feet, holding 100,000 gallons of water. For seven months of the year it is known as the “Park swimming baths,” and is a first-class drawing attraction. Separate days and times are set apart for ladies. and for ladies and their escorts. Five months of the year the tank is covered with a roller skating floor, which, for the comparatively short time it is used, draws well. People seem never to tire riding round and round the line in the almost perpetual summer evenings that exist in this region. With apparently no objective point in mind, they ride about evening after evening. Especially is this true of the Spanish and Mexican population, which would give the last nickle for a ride on the electric cars.

From ‘Wild West’ Town to Modern City - By Douglas Towne The Roaring ‘20s accomplished for Phoenix what Henry Higgins did for Eliza Doolittle—this dapper decade transformed the small, farming-based community and cultural backwater into a semi-sophisticated city. The makeover included high-rise buildings, paved streets buzzing with automobiles, and a growing reputation as a fashionable winter tourist destination. A diversified economy, enhanced transportation links, and additional water supplies energized the budding metropolis. The Heard Museum, Phoenix Little Theatre, Brophy Preparatory School, and Phoenix Junior College were just some of the local institutions founded in the 1920s to challenge Tucson’s claim as the “Athens of Arizona.” Across the Salt River, Tempe Normal School moved a step closer to big-time status when it became Arizona State Teachers College. “In the 1920s, Phoenix laid the groundwork for its metropolitan explosion during World War II and beyond,” says Oklahoma State University history professor Michael F. Logan, author of Desert Cities: The Environmental History of Phoenix and Tucson. Phoenix entered the 1920s, having just surpassed Tucson as the largest city in the state, with 29,000 people – roughly the same population as Kingman is today. The city, comprised of low-slung brick buildings, was so small that neighborhoods now considered part of central Phoenix, such as Encanto- Palmcroft and Willo were being planned on the “outskirts” of town. While Phoenix back then might appear somewhat underwhelming, it was the county seat, state capital, and a virtual metropolis compared to the nearby farm towns of Tempe, Mesa, Glendale, Scottsdale, Peoria, and Chandler. Most economic activities were related to the abundant crops produced in the Valley, the leading agricultural region in the Southwest. Farming had flourished with the completion of Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River northeast of Phoenix in 1911, which provided a dependable source of irrigation water. Phoenix’s Trolley System An essential facet of Phoenix’s transformation during the 1920s was the Phoenix Railway Company’s improved trolley service. More than a century before Valley residents hopped aboard for their first ride, passengers could catch mule-driven streetcars sauntering up and down Washington Street in 1887. But within a handful of years, the system’s owner, General Moses Hazeltine Sherman, had added additional routes, some with electric streetcars that tripled Ostensibly for public transportation, the trolley lines were also built to promote real estate ventures and influence where residential development would occur north of Downtown. The streetcar system eventually extended to Glendale in the only inter-urban electric trolley line constructed in Arizona. By the mid-1920s, however, the system was badly in need of repairs because of shoddy construction. Regulators did not allow Sherman to abandon unprofitable lines or raise rates, so he announced in April 1925 that streetcar service would end in October, according to Ride A Mile and Smile the While: A History of the Phoenix Street Railway by Lawrence Fleming. The city eventually purchased the system at its junk value of $20,000 . A public bond issue quickly passed to rehabilitate the railways and purchase new streetcars. Profitability returned as the system grossed $298,000 in 1929, carrying 6.6 million passengers at 5 cents each. Cotton Craze At the start of the decade, Phoenix had a booming economy fueled by the demand for cotton caused by World War I. Euphoria about the easy wealth to be made by growing the fluffy white fiber was as rampant and unrestrained as that associated with the area’s more modern housing booms. Prices for a pound of cotton, which were at $0.28 only a few years earlier, were forecast to reach an unheard-of $1.50. In comparison, prices for a pound of cotton were as low as 50 cents as recently as 2009. Tempted by these escalating prices, farmers sowed cottonseed in every available field and borrowed heavily to buy additional farmland. In the Salt River Valley, about 7,300 acres were planted in 1916; in 1920, the acreage increased to 180,000. To harvest the bumper crop, cotton growers and railroad interests recruited 35,000 Mexican farmworkers to temporarily relocate to Phoenix, a number that exceeded the city's population. “The high cotton prices also lured people who had no farming experience into trying to grow the crop,” says local historian Donna Reiner. “Of course, most lost their shirts.” High cotton prices were caused by the huge demand brought on by World War I. When the conflict ended in 1918, lower peacetime needs coupled with large amounts of imported Egyptian cotton caused prices to plummet in the fall of 1920 unexpectedly. Many farmers abandoned their fields, leaving row upon row of cotton bolls to rot. Mexican laborers were turned away from the cotton crops despite having contracts with the growers. The “cotton bust” caused a run on banks and an economic downturn in the Valley during the early 1920s. Many farmers went bankrupt, business declined, and Mexican farmworkers lived in poverty. Although the Valley continued as the Southwest’s leading agricultural region, “King Cotton” would never again so dominate local farming. Sunshine Tourism Visitors to Phoenix before the 1920s had been mostly poor people with health problems hoping the desert’s warm, dry air would help cure their tuberculosis or asthma. Not wanting to be known as an infirmary, city officials launched new promotions to attract well-heeled tourists. The desert’s clean air, brilliant sunshine, and a burgeoning reputation as the “winter playground of the Southwest” proved an easy sell. Although the moniker “Valley of the Sun” wouldn’t be coined by a local advertising agency for another decade, Phoenix began aggressively touting itself as a winter tourist destination. The Phoenix-Arizona Club’s promotions, created in 1919 and partially funded by the railroads, were a major driving force in attracting visitors. “Tourism took off, with new resorts that catered to the affluent and pleasure seekers rather than to the tuberculosis sufferers and other convalescents,” Logan says. The increasing tourist trade resulted in a flurry of hotel construction Downtown. In 1928, the San Carlos Hotel and Hotel Westward Ho opened, and the Hotel Adams, considered the power hub of the city, underwent extensive renovation and expansion, becoming “cooled by refrigeration.” Perhaps the most noteworthy hotel to appear was the Arizona Biltmore, which opened eight miles northeast of the city in February 1929. Earlier resort hotels, including the Ingleside Inn in 1919 and the Jokake Inn in 1924, had also popped up outside of the city. Still, the elegant Biltmore, with its polo fields, spacious grounds, and adjoining golf course, proved to be a magnet for luring tourists away from the more traditional Downtown accommodations. Charles and Warren McArthur, brothers who operated a Dodge dealership in Phoenix, were the catalysts behind the Biltmore’s construction. A popular misconception associated with the hotel is the architect was Frank Lloyd Wright. The hotel’s architect was the McArthur older brother, Albert, who once worked for Wright and reportedly consulted him on the project, according to Phoenix Then and Now by Paul Scharbach and John H. Akers. The stunning, luxurious hotel soon enticed chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs, William Wrigley, Jr. to buy a nearby residential lot and invest in the hotel, which enabled it to survive the Great Depression of the 1930s. Fun and Frivolity The Roaring ‘20s also was renowned for its excitements and excess. Phoenix residents indulged in a roller-skating craze, mastered yo-yo tricks, listened to the first radio broadcasts, and danced the Charleston to live bands in open-air venues such as the Riverside Ballroom, located on Central Avenue and the Salt River. Opulent movie palaces such as the Orpheum Theatre featured talking motion pictures. Vaudeville and burlesque shows were popular theater events, as were amateur nights where residents could show off their talents. The decade saw the birth of what became the city’s most prominent social event for almost 30 years: The Masque of the Yellow Moon. The pageant, which fused American Indian and pioneer mythology with music and drama to celebrate Arizona’s heritage, drew favorable comparisons to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras parade. The extravaganza was held annually at the 10,500-seat Montgomery Stadium built on the campus of Phoenix Union High School on the northeast corner of Seventh Street and Van Buren. The envy of school districts across the Southwest, the stadium would also host a variety of notable events during the 1920s, including Major League Baseball exhibition games. Another popular attraction was the World Series “viewed” at the Columbia Theater in Downtown Phoenix in 1920. Crowds “watched” the only triple play and the first grand slam in World Series history as the Cleveland Indians beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in five games to two in a best of nine series. This spectator miracle happened when The Arizona Republican newspaper connected its telegraph wires to an electronic scoreboard mounted on the theater. Called the “Wonderboard,” it depicted every move of the baseball players in the game. The World Series Wonderboard tradition would continue in Phoenix until nationwide radio broadcasts of games began in the mid-1930s. Even many of the decade’s misdeeds were related to seeking perhaps too much pleasure. “The 1920s was mostly known for vice, not violent crimes,” says ASU history faculty associate Heidi Osselaer. Otherwise respectable Phoenix citizens began toting hip flasks in response to Prohibition, which outlawed the manufacture or sale of liquor. Prohibition had other unintended effects, such as popularizing cocktails and bringing the genders together to socialize in underground drinking establishments called speakeasies that sold bootlegged liquor. Future Challenges Despite the advancements made during the decade, Phoenix still faced critical challenges in its aspiration to become a modern, progressive city. Living with blistering hot temperatures was a challenge. Residents who couldn’t leave town for the summer slept on porches draped with wet sheets that helped chill nighttime breezes. Evaporative coolers were still in their infancy. Frank Harmonson built a custom cooler for his F.Q. Story home that became the city’s first air-conditioned residence in 1928. By 1930, the city’s population increased to more than 48,000, but financial resources for continued growth became scarce after the October 1929 stock market crash. Phoenix would endure the Great Depression better than many areas and be revitalized by World War II. Starting in the mid-1940s, Phoenix expanded rapidly, thanks to abundant land, an enviable climate, and air-conditioning, and eventually, it became the nation’s fifth-largest city with a population of 1.7 million. There was, however, a vital casualty that came with creating a modern and forward-thinking metropolis. Despite the city’s upgrading of the trolley system and a record number of passengers, cars and buses became increasingly popular. By 1929, there were 86 miles of paved roads throughout the Valley. Although the streetcar system would survive until 1948, the automobile became the preferred mode of transportation. Douglas Towne Writer, historian, hydrologist, artist and editor of Arizona Contractor & Community Magazine

In the fall of 2020 the Phoenix Trolley Museum was contacted by Mike Bystrom of Restaurant Equipment Hunter explaining that he had a storage unit that was repurposed out of an old streetcar. And…he wanted to know if the museum was interested in it. We were shocked to discover its existence, but even more surprised as Mr. Bystrom offered to donate it to the museum and even pay to transport it to the Grand Avenue site. Of course, the museum accepted the generous offer. And a part of Phoenix’s history “arose” from what was thought to be have been a fiery death. So how did this happen? Located in the east valley, Bystrom contacted a friend of his with the Arizona Rail Museum in Chandler. That fellow just happened to be a friend of the Phoenix Trolley Museum as well and referred Bystrom to the museum. Stored in the yard of a sand and gravel company in Mesa, the owner wanted it gone. It was, give it to the museum, or send it to the dump. Horrors!! Just how could the museum pass up 
this offer? Unless you have ridden on San Francisco’s cable cars, you might not understand the intrigue and enchantment about leisurely riding on a streetcar with the windows down, at least when it’s cool. No steep hills to surmount, Phoenix streetcars were still involved in accidents with cars, trucks, and occasionally pedestrians, and even a minor fire or two inside an operating car. Unlike the light rail of today, there were no platforms or specific stops with the original Phoenix trolley/streetcar system. If you wanted to get on, you stood in the street waving down the operator. Still as a rider, you had to remember that it did take some time for the car to actually stop. Needless to say, many streetcar riders had a terrible time in the transition to buses on some routes, because they needed to be on the curb and at a specific site. While the exterior will need to be revealed to show the car number, the interior shows all the tell-tail signs of being an honest trolley built in 1928. . In mid-1947, Phoenix had only one line still operating streetcars: the Capitol-West Adams-Washington Street Line. Shortly before the city of Phoenix finally phased out the entire streetcar system in favor of buses, a disaster struck. According to newspaper accounts, seven cars were destroyed and another badly damaged in the system’s mysterious car barn fire on Washington and 13th Street in October 1947. This destruction may very well 
have accelerated the discontinuation of the streetcars. The men who started the Phoenix Trolley Museum, and particularly Larry Fleming, had as carefully as they could, determined what had happened to the remaining cars when the city cancelled the service in February 1948. Those still in use when the service ceased were originally saved for “emergencies.” But by September of that year, the city sold them. And according to the data in Larry Fleming’s book Ride a Mile and Smile the While, the disposition of most of them had been determined. Car 509 started its life as car 118 and ran on the Kenilworth line. Still, those men involved with the Trolley Museum in its early days were not sure whether it was Car 509 or 515 destroyed in that car barn fire. Fleming suspected that either car could have been in the car barn fire, but no one knew for sure until now. A puzzling matter indeed. Still, over the years, those trolley guys managed to acquire the bodies to rebuild two cars plus additional parts and open a museum in 1977, by the Ellis-Shackelford House. Today, we might consider that the museum and Car #509 have multiple lives. How many have they used up? We can’t be sure. Now that the museum has reached its fundraising goal to purchase the land it has been leasing since it was forced to move from Hance Park in 2017, we can be assured that it still has lives left. Yes, Car #509 arose from the ashes. Its actual use for the museum has not been determined yet, but what luck to find that car after it was seemingly lost 73 years ago! Several of those last seven trolleys are 
still unaccounted for today. Cars 506 and 
511 are still “missing.” Wouldn’t it be fun if they too arose from the depths of some “pile of ashes”?

We begin with the Arizona Republican, 12 September 1893, page 1: Within two weeks the mule service on the Phoenix street railway will have been exchanged for electric. Two cars have already been shipped from Los Angeles, two more are in the shops almost finished, and still two more are in an advanced state of completion. There will be six cars on the line and it is intended to traverse the line in seven minutes, so that the service [headway] when complete will be less than five minutes. The time in which the company has under the extension of the franchise to make the change will expire on October 1. With this announcement, the Phoenix Street Railway entered the Electric Age. Phoenix itself had been graced with electric lights since at least 1890, when the Phoenix Power and Light Company’s plant opened. (Arizona Republican, 21 April 1890, p.4) The Power and Light works were at the northwest corner of First Avenue and Buchanan, according to Sanborn’s 1893 Fire map; the Street Railway power-house was behind (east) of the Water Works on the southeast corner of Dennis (now Polk) and 9th Streets in what is now Phoenix’s Verde Park. At this time there was no connection, electrically or corporately, between the Light Company and the Street Railway. The Railway, however, did own and operate the city’s Water Works. In January 1894, the Phoenix Light and Fuel company was bankrupt and operated under receivership for a time. Numerous articles and advertisements in the newspaper assured Phoenicians that they would continue to receive electricity, in the face of much skepticism by the public. December of 1894 saw the final sale of the Light and Power Company’s properties and operation to the newly-organized Phoenix Light and Fuel Company. At the Street Railway Water Works and Power Plant property, Sanborn’s 1901 map shows three dynamos (which convert the mechanical power to electric) and two steam engines, a 250 Horsepower and an 80 HP. These engines were fed from oil from a tank on the northeast side of the stations, about one thousand horsepower is available for from light to ten months of each year, but the balance of the power must be furnished by steam... With the new equipment, Phoenix will be much better supplied with water than many cities of ten times its population...” (Arizona Republican, 26 September 1902, p.5) Early 1903 saw the major upgrade to the Street Railway plant: “The City Railway company which for several weeks past has been using power from the Phoenix Light and Fuel company, yesterday connected its newly installed power plant which will hereafter run the city railway and the waterworks... The new plant has involved an expenditure of approximately $20,000... “The boiler is a Babcock & Wilson high pressure water tube, tested for 300 pounds of steam and usually [running] at 150, though a minimum of 100 pounds is nearly always ample for the present plant. This boiler will run the new tandem compound Hamilton-Corliss 250-HP engine, made to order for the City Railway and only a few weeks out of the shops... This in turn runs a new 250-HP compound wound Westinghouse generator that furnishes the ‘juice’ and which in power more than equals the three generators formerly used. There is also a complete new switchboard in the power house, and in the cellar below it are found the condenser, feed pump, air pump, circulating pump and hot well, the machinery all being below... There is also a new cooling tower erected over the lake enabling the re-use of the water for the machinery, an arrangement for the sake of economy. “The new boiler described above will also furnish power for the operation of the waterworks plant which is now equipped with three large pumps, two of which are in use, the other being held in reserve, and a new Deane triplex pump... This pump has a capacity of 2,000,000 gallons per day and will be driven by a 50HP motor. This pump has a capacity of 2,000,000 gallons per day and will be driven by a 50HP motor. This pump alone has a capacity sufficient to meet the demands of the present water system... “Speaking of the railway system, yesterday Manager Heap said that during the summer, the Washington Street double track will be relaid with heavier rails and new wire... the rolling stock will also be given a thorough overhauling.” (Arizona Republican, 1 April 1903, p.6) Phoenix Light and Fuel itself bowed out by July of 1906, when the Pacific Gas and Electric Company purchased its assets (Arizona Republican, 10 July 1906, p.2). PG&E withstood a call to place the electric plant under City control in 1910, running half-page advertisements headlined “Do You Deny Any Person Or Corporation A Fair Profit?” This perhaps echoes today’s (2019) headlines seeking to hold PG&E responsible for wildfires in their home state of California. The Phoenix Water Company and the Water Works were to be purchased by Phoenix from Sherman for $150,000 late in 1906 (Arizona Republican, 18 October, p.1), not entirely to the satisfaction of all citizens who felt the price was too high. The sale concluded on 29 June 1907 (Arizona Republican, 30 June, p.5) after which it was discovered that the mains pipes, machinery, and wells were played out and all quickly abandoned. This failed to endear Mr. Sherman and his allies to many in the city government, and along with later disputes about street paving may have been factors in Sherman’s motion to abandon the Railway entirely after two more decades in 1925. The Arizona Republican of 4 April 1909 shows Pacific Gas & Electric’s new Power Plant for the reception of electricity from new Roosevelt Dam. By 1915 the Street Railway power-house was no longer in use (source: Sanborn Fire Map), having been replaced by purchased electricity; and by 1920 PG&E itself was replaced by the Central Arizona Light and Power Company. It was CAL&P that the City of Phoenix would then contract for the Street Railway’s electricity when the Railway fell under City control (after further tribulations, which is another story entirely) in 1925.