Jul/Aug 2023

VOLUME 12 ISSUE 4

$5.99 JULY AUGUST 2023 SERVING CONTRACTING FIRMS AND THE ARIZONA COMMUNITY. . . THEN & NOW

TIMBER! ARIZONA’S RUGGED LOGGING AND LUMBER HERITAGE TUCSON’S 66-YEAR CONSTRUCTION HOTSPOT: GRANT ROAD LUMBER TIMBER TRAINS: DISCOVERING TRACES OF FLAGSTAFF’S GHOST RAILROAD JOHN W. “JAY” LATTIMORE: A BIGHEARTED CONCRETE CONTRACTOR A TRIBUTE TO LONGTIME CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONAL PHIL BERGER SALUTING ARIZONA’S BUILDERS: ACE ASPHALT’S JOHN DREXLER

Arizona’s Timeless Magazine Arizona’s Timeless Magazine

A TRANSPLANTED LOGGING TOWN:

THE CURIOUS ORIGIN OF McNARY, ARIZONA

WEITZ FLIES HIGH WITH SKY HARBOR UPGRADES

ASU-DESIGNED FIBER CONCRETE SPEEDS PHOENIX LIGHT RAIL

NITTI BUILDERS “NETS” NEW HOME FOR ROAD MACHINERY

OPUS GROUP EXPANDS CONFLUENCE INDUSTRIAL PARK

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In Memoriam Charles “Chuck” Runbeck 1928 - 2020

Advertising 602-931-0069 arizcc.com/advertise Subscriptions: Online at arizcc.com Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community… Then & Now Arizona Contractor & Community (ACC) magazine is published bi-monthly (Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct, Nov/Dec). ACC is a professional publication designed for the contracting industry, engineers, architects, equipment rentals, suppliers, and others interested in Arizona and its history.

Content including text, photographs or illustrations may not be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. The publisher does not assume responsibility for unsolicited submissions.

ACC reserves the right to reject any editorial and advertising material and reserves the right to edit all submitted content material.

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TEN

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BUILDING OUR FUTURES

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Contents

“TELL US WHAT YOU NEED AND WE WILL WORK WITH YOU TO MAKE IT HAPPEN”

39

YEARS IN BUSINESS SINCE 1984

480-641-3500

BELLY DUMP-SUPER 16-END DUMP-LOW BOY SIDE DUMP-EXCAVATOR-LOADER-GRADER

14

Contributors - Justin Liggin & Carlos Lozano

16

From The Editor: Timber Trains: Discovering Traces of Flagstaff’s Ghost Railroad - Douglas Towne

19

Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices

47

Back When: Park Central’s Wooden Funhouse Douglas Towne

48

Timber! - Arizona’s Rugged Logging and Lumber Heritage Douglas Towne

54

A Transplanted Logging Town: The Curious Origin of McNary, Arizona - Douglas Towne

58

Tucson’s Construction Hotspot for 66 Years: Grant Road Lumber - Carlos Lozano

62

Saluting Arizona’s Builders: John Drexler

66

John W. “Jay” Lattimore: A Bighearted Concrete Contractor - Cheryl Wamsley

70

John W. Lattimore: Building a Solid Foundation in Arizona Billy Horner

76

Old School Equipment: The Logging Truck Billy Horner

80

Building on the Past - 1960s: Del Webb’s Rail Cranes Billy Horner

82

Architect’s Perspective - James T. Flynn, AIA: Delivering Permanence - Doug Sydnor, FAIA

86

Digging Through the Archives: Rock ‘n’ Roll Influences Sidewalk Construction - Billy Horner

92

Bid Results

94

Advertising Index

Front Cover Employee moving logs on the McNary sawmill pond, 1949.

Article on page 54 Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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CONTRIBUTORS

JUSTIN LIGGIN ARTICLE ON PAGE 37

CARLOS LOZANO ARTICLE ON PAGE 58

ustin Liggin is an account hicago native Carlos Lozano JRelations, executive for HMA Public Cwas taught early to apprean award-winning ciate the built environment

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full-service public relations agency and marketing communications firm headquartered in the greater Phoenix area. At HMA, Liggin’s responsibilities include social media management, digital communications, graphic design, and media relations for agency clients.

Liggin has previously served as a team lead in the Public Relations Lab at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU, where he received agency experience and assisted in creating a strategic external campaign, conducted client meetings, planned and executed social media content.

He also received digital experience while participating in the school’s Digital Audiences Lab – a professional program aimed at creating data-driven growth strategies for clients. His duties included conducting social media campaigns, managing search engine optimization testing, and creating written, video and graphic content.

In 2021, graduated from ASU with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism with an emphasis in public relations and a minor in digital audiences. Liggin also received a certificate in marketing and sales from the W.P. Carey School of Business.

A Phoenix native, Liggin loves to go to the movies, read, listen to music, and spend time with friends and family. He is also interested in tennis and is a Williams sisters superfan!

by his father, architect Adrian Lozano. They watched as urban renewal and market forces replaced vibrant ethnic neighborhoods and much of Chicago’s grand and dignified architecture. But the beauty of the desert, not architecture, lured him to Tucson in 1985.

He founded an engineering search firm in Tucson and explored Southern Arizona on weekends. Appalled by the “newer is better” development philosophy of the West, he began working on local historic preservation efforts, including wonderful “lost causes” such as plans to save Tucson’s last drive-in movie theater and independent, hand-built, minigolf course.

Lozano has served for nearly ten years on the Tucson-Pima County Historical Commission. He chairs the Transportation Subcommittee (protecting the commercial corridor) and chaired the Historic Landmark Sign committee, which successfully amended Tucson’s onerous Sign Code, allowing and encouraging the preservation of vintage neon.

He studied Neon/Illuminated Sculpture at “The Crucible” in Oakland under Christian Schiess.

One of the Arizona Historical Society’s longest-tenured Library & Archives volunteers, Lozano helps patrons and teaches workshops on historic property research. He presents, consults, and writes on various local history topics. His website, VanishingTucson.com, is currently transitioning into a platform to host his many oral history recordings.

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TIMBER TRAINS:

DISCOVERING TRACES OF FLAGSTAFF’S GHOST RAILROAD Douglas Towne

W

ith Arizona’s massive population and infrastructure growth, it’s hard to imagine that some places were once more developed a century ago. Think of a once-bustling mining camp that’s now a ghost town reduced to crumbling walls and derelict foundations after the depletion of its rich ore. Similarly, a section of one of the state’s most popular hiking trails was once the route of a long-gone, little-known northern Arizona railroad.

It doesn’t seem possible, but the clues are still there that a massive steam locomotive chugged along, belching black smoke along what is now the Arizona Trail, Passage #30. But it was way back in 1966, when the Beatles held their last concert, that the final train whistle rang out on the Allan Lake Line. Lumber companies had

used it for hauling timber, but the track emerged from the remains of one of Arizona’s biggest transportation boondoggles.

The Arizona Mineral Belt Railway was an ill-conceived plan to connect Territorial Arizona longitudinally via a train in 1881.

The line would transport lumber south and ship minerals and crops north to the Santa Fe Railroad main line, which ran east-west.

Image Courtesy of Phil Cockrell Sr.

The proposed route, however, included boring a 3,100-foot-long tunnel underneath the Mogollon Rim. The project went bankrupt after only completing 70 feet of the tunnel in 1883.

Before bankruptcy, however, the company had managed to build 34 miles of railroad tracks from Flagstaff to the southeast past Mormon Lake to Allan Lake, both of which, despite their names, are typically more swamps. This route later became the Central Arizona Railway, used by several timber outfits to transport old-growth Ponderosa pine logs to their Flagstaff-area sawmills, according to A History of the Allan Lake Logging Railroad Line by Pat H. Stein.

Lumber operations clear-cut logs along the main line to Allan Lake, and the

Above: Excursion train on Allan Lake Line, 1958.

Right: Baldwin Locomotive #12 at the Pioneer Museum in Flagstaff.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

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JULY AUGUST 2023

Right: Logging trucks in Coconino National Forest.

Below right: Abandoned Allan Lake Line railroad bed south of Mormon Lake, 2022.

railroad subsequently built spurs to reach other Forest Service timber sales into the 1930s. Eventually, logging trucks hauled timber from remote logging operations to different loading points along the Central Arizona Railway for further transport to Flagstaff.

The Allan Lake Line proved particularly valuable during World War II when it was used to ship wood products to construct military bases in the Southwest. As late as 1952, the train ran once a day, six days a week, carrying 28 to 30 cars that supplied 48 million feet of logs annually to Flagstaff’s two large sawmills, according to an article in The Arizona Republic.

The Allan Lake Line was operated by Southwest Forest Industries from 1953 until the company abandoned it in 1966.

But there were problems with the railroad’s operation, as documented in an Arizona State University study in 1964 highlighting its inefficiencies. Another issue was fatal accidents, such as a collision with an auto outside Flagstaff in 1964, which resulted in three deaths and the company paying the plaintiffs the highest monetary award in state history.

Meanwhile, improvements to Lake Mary Road, aka Forest Highway 3, made it more economical to ship timber in up to 80 trucks daily to Flagstaff. Finally, in August 1966, the railroad made its final run over the line to retrieve industrial equipment, and Southwest Forest Industries pulled the rails the following year. That was the end of the line, even though several groups showed interest in creating a steam-engine-powered tourist railroad. A legacy of the Allan Lake Line is on display at the Pioneer Museum in Flagstaff, a 1929 Baldwin steam engine that hauled rail cars along the line for decades.

For those exploring the Arizona Trail south of Flagstaff along the path that the iron horse once took, look for the labor-intensive railroad beds constructed of volcanic rock and the rustic remnants of wooden trestles built across washes. It’s a peaceful journey among the increasingly dense evergreen forests, interrupted only by hikers, trail runners, mountain bikers, and awe-inspiring elk herds. Recreation now drives the local economy as the forest’s big Ponderosa pine “yellow bellies” are mostly gone, as are the sawmills that produced lumber from them. What has emerged is a niche industry focused on harvesting less valuable smaller trees--and a heck of a hiking trail across Arizona.

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Image Courtesy of Douglas Towne

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Projects . PEOPLE . PRACTICES

ASU-DESIGNED FIBER-REINFORCED CONCRETE SPEEDS PHOENIX LIGHT RAIL CONSTRUCTION

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sing fiber-reinforced concrete instead of rebar-supported slabs for constructing Metro Phoenix light rail extensions gives rapid transit new meaning. Months of construction time are being reduced to weeks, adding cost savings, sustainability, and worker safety to the mix.

A collaboration between Arizona State University, the Phoenix Valley Metro Regional Transportation Authority, and Kiewit-McCarthy, the project’s construction firm, began with a materials upgrade proposal from Barzin Mobasher, an ASU professor of structural engineering in the ARIZCC.COM

School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

The project, which extended the light rail by 1.5 miles, incorporated the fiber-reinforced concrete design and was completed in early May. Reinforcing bar, or rebar, is made of steel and embedded in concrete to strengthen structures. According to Mobasher, more than 60 percent of the volume of concrete used worldwide has zero tensile efficiency and cannot carry

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA

Images Courtesy of Charlie LeightASU News

load. This weakness makes concrete used in load-bearing structures like the light rail susceptible to cracks, which begin very small and grow unhindered until there is a fault in the structure.

Incorporating rebar provides the load-bearing strength required for most concrete-based construction. However,

Above: Workers prepare to pour the last section of concrete for the northern spur of the light rail line north of Dunlap Avenue on 25th Avenue.

Right: Thin steel and polypropylene fibers used in the concrete mixture for Phoenix Valley Metro’s light rail extension.

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laying rebar is costly, leaves a dramatic carbon footprint, presents worker safety risks, and above all, takes a great deal of time.

As the inevitable concrete cracking escalates and the rebar corrodes, additional maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation are required, further adding to costs and neighborhood disruption.

Mobasher’s proposal simplified challenges for the light rail extension project and delivered a successful new system “just by making one change in the design criteria – using fibers in the concrete mix instead of reinforcing with rebar,” he says.

Instead of using two layers of rebar in cross directions to support the light rail’s electrified track in the extensions, Mobasher’s design and validation approach considered both steel and polymeric fibers added directly into the concrete, eliminating the need for rebar reinforcement. Finally, steel fibers were chosen by Valley Metro for the northwest extension project.

ASU’s Structural and Materials Lab conducted tests to validate the proposal.

The testing involved creating full-size mockups for both rebar-reinforced concrete and fiber-reinforced concrete in the same ratios as full-size sections. Side-by-side testing allowed comparisons of strength and flexibility as well as documentation of concrete cracking and fatigue susceptibility.

The testing process also projected cost and construction time savings. For example, the per-mile construction of the extension using rebar was projected at 231 days, while using fiber-reinforced concrete reduced it to 121 days, with a cost savings of more than $12 million.

“The idea of taking several long rebars that are half an inch in diameter, separated by 12 to 18 inches and built into a cage that ARIZCC.COM

is 12 inches above the ground and replacing them with a fiber material, which is 2 inches long and only 1/32nd of an inch in diameter and mixed in with the concrete, might seem on scale non-competitive,” Mobasher says.

“But if you have thousands of those small fibers distributed in there, they become much more effective in arresting the cracks — working as small Band-Aids to keep the cracks closed and transfer the load. [Fiber-reinforced concrete] can be designed to bear up to an unprecedented 40 percent of the tensile load capacity of concrete.”

“We did the fatigue tests to simulate conditions for up to 45 years of service at much higher expected loads as proof of concept, and they accepted the proposed approach,” says Mobasher of the approvals

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Left: A construction worker pours premixed fibrous concrete.

Above: ASU Professor Barzin Mobasher (second from left), with the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, watches workers pour concrete.

Below: Workers from Arizona Materials spread concrete over the last section of the northern spur of the light rail line extension.

from Valley Metro and the city of Phoenix.

“It’s been a tremendous experience for them to save the amount of materials used and, at the same time, to meet the project at costs much lower than the original budget and in a much faster time frame.”

The Valley Metro project is expected to serve as a prototype for similar light rail upgrades nationally. It will be presented at an international Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Workshop hosted by ASU in September.

“We want to show that the (fiber-reinforced concrete) construction process can be a do-it-yourself project for local communities working with local construction companies,” Mobasher says. “We can show that collaboration between municipalities, industry, government agencies, and universities can come together to share resources, cut costs and increase sustainability.”

Images Courtesy of Charlie LeightASU News

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects Weitz and JSM have completed many BHS projects and will use a phased design and implementation plan, including contingency planning. This strategy will allow DOUGLAS TOWNE a smooth transition between new and fter hefty fares, crowded planes, and existing systems without impacting airport inconsiderate fellow passengers, the operations and passenger experience. The last thing airline travelers need is an interminable delay waiting for their checked baggage. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is aware of this concern and has selected The Weitz Company in partnership with JSM & Associates to upgrade its 32-year-old Terminal 4 Baggage Handling System (BHS) for an estimated $50 million.

Ben Bunge, Weitz’s Director of Aviation, says that baggage handling equipment likely isn’t on the average traveler’s mind.

Still, its purpose, efficiency, and reliability directly connect to the airline passengers’ experiences.

“What this project requires is an understanding and coordination of the needs of Phoenix and TSA and the dynamic atmosphere in which the work will be performed,” Bunge says. “The Weitz team provides the depth of readily available resources, specialized expertise, aviation experience, and aviation knowledge combined with over 44 years of local experience, including Phoenix Sky Train, to support the airport in successfully delivering this project.”

WEITZ TO UPGRADE PHOENIX SKY HARBOR AFTER COMPLETING WORK AT KC AIRPORT

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companies will also use BIM Technology to show work in 3D, which increases cost certainty and project communication.

“One approach Weitz takes is capitalizing first on local involvement,” says Mina Wassef, Weitz Southwest’s general manager. “Weitz has extensive experience

Above: Scrapers on Del Webb’s $27 million contract for the Kansas City International Airport, with the control tower in the background. Onsite equipment included Caterpillar J621, 641, 651, and 666 scrapers, 1968.

Right: Del Webb employees taking lunch during construction of the KCI Airport, 1968.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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working with small businesses, and we value those partnerships with vendors and trades which encapsulate the local market.

We are excited to involve the community as we embark on this project.”

The BHS project CMAR procurement and design will occur in 2023, with construction starting in 2024. When completed in 2027, the BHS will be more reliable, operationally efficient, compliant with the latest TSA standards, more energy efficient, and less costly due to reduced maintenance trouble calls and system outages.

In February 2023, Weitz completed the first Kansas City International (KCI) Airport Terminal upgrade in over 50 years as part of a joint venture with two other firms. The airport’s new terminal opened after four years of construction, becoming

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Right: Del Webb employees at the KCI Airport include Jim Brashers, assistant project engineer; Ralph Boatman, office manager; and Bob Bracken, site superintendent (l-r), 1968.

Below: Del Webb job site trailer during KCI Airport construction, 1968.

the second LEED Gold airport in the U.S. “Working on this project and with our partners has been a highlight of my career,” Bunge says. “I could not be prouder of how our team committed themselves to the success and timely delivery of this project to our partners and the greater Kansas City community.”

The KCI project is one of the largest construction jobs in Weitz’s 167-year history. The 1.1 million square feet terminal has 40 gates that can expand to 50. The facility includes moving walkways, a consolidated security checkpoint, the first wireless electric bus charging stations, a covered parking garage with over 6,300 spaces, and glass passenger boarding bridges at all gates, making it the nation’s largest all-glass facility. Concessions will celebrate the local community, including the area’s legendary barbeque.

The KCI terminal upgrade is the largest infrastructure project in Kansas City’s history. It replaces the previous three terminals that were initially completed by the Del Webb Corporation in 1972. Del Webb was no stranger to Kansas City, having built a veterans hospital in 1952 and renovated the city’s Municipal Stadium in 1955, which became the home of the Kansas City Athletics major league baseball team. The American League franchise had moved from Philadelphia, where the team had played since 1901.

KCI was initially the Mid-Continent (MCI) Airport, constructed in 1956 after the Missouri River floods damaged two smaller local airports in 1951. MCI had Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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(602) 992-2201 | SHANESPAVING.COM | 21801 N. 16TH ST. BOX 5, PHX, AZ 85024 ROC #255891 A-5 & #38635 A-14

TWENTY SIX

JULY AUGUST 2023

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Above: KCI Airport Terminal, 1972.

Right: KCI Airport construction, 1971.

Below: The Weitz Company’s work at KCI Airport, 2023.

undersized terminals and runways, so the Kansas City Municipal Airport, dedicated

by Charles Lindbergh in 1927, retained most commercial flights. The airport was near downtown, though, and was considered a dangerous facility because of short runways and landing constraints created by skyscrapers and river bluffs. In 1966, Kansas City elected to expand the MCI Airport, mainly used by Trans World Airlines (TWA) to overhaul jets, into the KCI Airport. The municipal airport ceased airline flights in 1972 and is now the Kansas City Wheeler Downtown Airport, used by corporate and recreational flyers Del Webb’s bid of $1.5 million for the foundations of three KCI terminal buildings was the lowest among seven contractors in 1968. Later that year, the city accepted the construction company’s $24.7 million bid to build three terminal buildings, apron paving, and utilities. The company also added six floors to the control tower’s

original nine stories to create one of the world’s tallest towers. A Missouri firm, Kivett & Meyers, was the projects architect for what became the nation’s third-largest airport. TWA was the major carrier at KCI and retained its maintenance and training facilities there.

The KCI job was a challenge for Del Webb, which expanded the airport onto former corn fields north of Kansas City in Platte County. “Mud – acres of it, and deep,” was the description after a wet winter made the loess clay soil sticky and tricky to work, according to an article in The Webb Spinner. Besides Mother Nature,

Images Courtesy of Kansas City Library

a 201-day strike idled airport construction in 1970. Finally, in 1972, U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew dedicated KCI. KCI has continued serving airline travelers since then, and has had a brighter future than TWA. The airline, launched in 1930, abandoned KCI as its headquarters for Lambert International Airport in St. Louis in 1982. TWA filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and was acquired by American Airlines. After one last ceremonial flight on December 1, 2001, from Kansas City to St. Louis, one of the nation’s pioneering airlines was relegated to commercial aviation lore.

Images Courtesy of From the ground UP photography

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

METROCENTER HONORS ITS PAST BY HOSTING FAREWELL SHINDIG MARK EDELMAN

W

hether hanging out with friends at the food court, taking first dates to the movies, or cruising its ring road, Metrocenter was the place to be in Phoenix starting in the 1970s.

Phoenix City Councilwoman Ann O’Brien got her first job at Metrocenter.

Christine Mackay, Phoenix’s Director of Community and Economic Development, remembers lobbying her mother to make the cross-town drive to Metrocenter for a Above: Mark Edelman at Metrocenter’s west entrance.

Top right: City of Phoenix Community and Economic Development Director Christine Mackay and District 1 Councilwoman Ann O’Brien (l-r).

Below: Vintage Chevrolet Impalas at “Metro­ center: A Fond Farewell.”

Bottom right: Western Savings & Loan building, built in 1974.

full day of back-to-school shopping, movies, and ice skating. Both women have been vital to planning the mall’s impending redevelopment and were celebrating at “Metrocenter: A Fond Farewell,” a community party hosted by O’Brien’s office outside the Mall’s west entrance.

Over 10,000 people signed up to attend the May 21st party and spend time remembering the starring role that Metrocenter played in many of their lives.

The event included a classic car show, food trucks, an ‘80s costume contest, and Harkins Metro theater screenings of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the 1989 mall-culture classic whose filming locations included Metrocenter.

These community leaders had views on why Metrocenter was receiving such an outpouring of memories and attention while other regional malls had been simply closed and forgotten. Both cited Metrocenter’s fame as the first mall in the U.S. with two levels and five anchor stores when it opened in 1973, its prime location at I-17 and Peoria Avenue, and its significant role

for generations of Phoenicians during its commercial life.

“Another reason to celebrate is Metrocenter’s impending redevelopment, which will follow the template of similar makeovers at the Park Central and Paradise Valley malls,” Mackay says.

O’Brien agreed, saying, “After years of decline and disinvestment, the community is most looking forward to is the revitalization and cleanup of the Metrocenter property and its surroundings.”

Metrocenter’s scale and redevelopment task is mammoth. The 78-acre site has been largely neglected since the mall closed in 2020. Dead and overgrown landscape dots the empty parking lot. The grand mall and store entrances are boarded up, a scene that repeats itself at surrounding office and commercial properties that the mall’s decline and closure have similarly impacted.

The mall’s new life began when the Carlyle Development Group purchased the property in 2012 to redevelop the site as a mixed-use property with residential

Images Courtesy of Author

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects Above: Construction of Metrocenter Light Rail station and Bus Transit Center.

Below: Light Rail construction on 25th Avenue.

units, a reduced retail footprint, and office/ employment uses. At the same time, the City of Phoenix and Valley Metro began planning the $400 million Valley Metro Light Rail Northwest Extension to a new $150 million elevated Light Rail station on the Metrocenter property, which will have a bus transit center and Park-and-Ride facility on the ground level. The Phoenix City Council rezoned the property for the new mix of uses and approved Metrocenter’s redevelopment plans in 2016.

Demolition of the mall begins in the summer of 2023 when the light rail and bus transit facilities will be finished. Light rail service is expected to start early in 2024.

It will reach the site from 19th Avenue via Dunlap Avenue east of I-17, turning north on 25th Avenue toward the Rose Mofford Sports Complex and its new station, then crossing I-17 on a recently-completed bridge located on the Mountain View Road alignment.

Hines, Concord Wilshire and TLG Investment Partners will lead the redevelopment, known as “The Village at Phoenix Metro,” on 58 acres during Phase 1.

The existing Walmart will remain, and 14 acres on the northwest side of the mall

are reserved for a future phase. The project’s development includes over 2,600 multifamily residential units, 50 percent of which will be priced at affordable rates for working households. The first apartments are expected to be ready for occupancy during the summer of 2025.

New development on the property will also include 85,000 square feet of essential and service retail, about 30,000 square feet of employment/retail flex space, a hotel, and a 3-acre park. Total construction costs are estimated at $850 million and will take approximately seven to ten years to complete.

In addition to Walmart, other current buildings that will remain include the City of Phoenix’s Cholla Branch Library, Life Storage, Castles & Coasters, and the dramatic Western Savings & Loan building next to I-17. The building, with its circular structure and unique ribbed roof, was formerly a Souper Salad and is currently Tombstone Tactical.

Although other shopping malls in the Phoenix area have been redeveloped, they haven’t featured some characteristics that will shape The Village at Phoenix Metro, including Interstate access and an on-site light rail station. Success in development and redevelopment is never guaranteed.

Still, the City of Phoenix and the Metrocenter project team have worked together closely to give this project its best chance for an outcome that will reinvigorate the property and bring needed reinvestment and vitality to its neighborhood.

Images Courtesy of Author

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S OA K IN T H E R E L AXAT I O N

never miss a news update get your name on the list arizcc.com/news

CONSOLIDATED ELECTRICAL DISTRIBUTORS, INC. 1717 E RAIRDAN LANE

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THIRTY TWO

PHOENIX, ARIZONA, 85034

Phone:602-437-4200 Fax: 602-437-0773 E-Mail: conorq@cedphx.com Website: www.cedphx.com JULY AUGUST 2023

NITTI “NETS” A NEW HOME FOR ROAD MACHINERY IN PHOENIX

R

oad Machinery Reman Center has a new facility at 716 South Seventh Street in Phoenix, but they brought along a bit of their former headquarters. “I like that we used repurposed purlins from the original building for the interior entrance area,” says Ricky Guerrero, project manager for Nitti Builders, LLC. “The wood has that old rustic feel, giving warmth to the space.”

According to Guerrero, the project consists of a 21,084-square-foot new stateof-the-art remanufacturing facility with a

14,656-sf workshop area, a training facility, a break room, and offices for the staff.

“This new facility will house the engine and transmission rebuild services and replaces the original Road Machinery shop built in 1955,” he says. “The building was designed

by Deutsch Architect and constructed by Nitti Builders.”

Road Machinery is the industry leader in rebuilding and repairing diesel engines, transmissions, electrical rotating devices, and hydraulic cylinders for all equipment makes. “We are excited that the new expansion will greatly simplify product flow and improve productivity,” says Nate Kendall, President & CEO of Road Machinery

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Left: A building built in 1930 is razed to make way for the new Road Machinery facility in 2020.

Above: The interior copper ceiling façade, 2023.

Below: The groundbreaking ceremony, 2022.

LLC. “It’s been a long road to get to this point, and the Reman Center will be great for our customers and staff.” Construction began in February 2022 and will be completed in May 2023.

Guerrero says that the most challenging aspect of the project was building a 21,823-sf building on such a small parcel of land. “Much coordination and planning went into making this a smooth and successful project.” He adds that the most unusual aspect of this project is all the steel track installed for the owner-provided cranes. “It’s not every day you get to build a railing system to move cranes in all directions.”

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT: Richard Reynolds, Superintendent Experience: 5 years with Nitti Builders Favorite job task: Getting to the end by completing the job and seeing the finished project.

Toughest job task: Scheduling trades out on time.

Most memorable day of work: When I do the punch-list walk with the owners and architects, and there are no issues with the building.

Favorite off-job tasks: I am a fisherman, a cowboy who enjoys country music concerts and traveling, especially my memorable visit to Montana.

Images Courtesy of Nitti Builders

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

OPUS GROUP BUILDS AN INDUSTRIAL PARK IN CASA GRANDE

E

xtending a utility line has been the most unusual aspect of constructing Confluence Industrial Park, a two-building speculative industrial development at 1371 Sunland Gin Road in Casa Grande. The Opus Group broke ground on the project in January 2023, and Nick Melaszus, senior project manager, says that a main water line extension for the job took “careful coordination with the city and a private water company.

That and verifying that all utilities were available and had the capacity to serve our site were the biggest concerns.”

Opus is the project’s developer,

design-builder, architect, and structural engineer.

The 21-acre development will provide space for warehousing and light manufacturing, with convenient access to Interstate 10, Interstate 8, and the Union Pacific Railroad line. The project is near large new manufacturing sites, including Procter & Gamble’s fabric care facility and Kohler’s plumbing ware manufacturing facility, both currently under construction.

“There is a shared, secured truck court with full concrete paving, multiple drive-in ramps at each building, along with three storefront entrances at each building,” Melaszus says. The buildings will include skylights for natural lighting and LED lights. “Pinal County is experiencing rapid

industrial growth, and Confluence Industrial Park will help meet the demand for well-located industrial space for suppliers to the electric vehicle and consumers goods manufacturers in the area,” said Matt Visnansky, vice president of real estate development at Opus.

Subcontractors on the project include Markham Contracting (earthwork, wet utilities, and asphalt paving), Riggs Companies (building concrete and concrete paving), The Structures Group (panelized wood roof), Saguaro Steel (structural and miscellaneous steel), Star Roofing (roofing membrane), Olympic West (fire protections systems), and Jenco (electrical).

Confluence Industrial Park is slated for completion in December 2023.

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT: Brian Davis Project Manager Experience: 1 year with Opus.

Favorite job task: I enjoy working with our Phoenix team and appreciate the true team-centric culture. The support from everyone has been helpful in coming up to speed.

Toughest job task: Coming to Opus has introduced a new learning curve that I have embraced. I love learning and have enjoyed advancing my technical understanding in new areas.

Favorite off-job tasks: I enjoy cooking, woodworking, hunting, the outdoors, and spending time with family and friends.

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Images Courtesy of Opus

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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Left: Rendering of the mobile building space for Girls Can Build.

Above: Christina Spicer, Tiffany Sharp, and Jennifer Villalobos (l-r) of Girls Can Build.

BREAKING BARRIERS AND BUILDING LEADERS: SHARP CONSTRUCTION LEADS GIRL SCOUT MOBILE BUILDING SPACE JUSTIN LIGGIN

T

here is good and bad news related to women and the construction industry.

The good news: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the share of workers across the construction industry who are women is at an all-time high and has steadily increased since 2016. The bad news: As of last year, that “all-time high” number was just 14 percent, despite women making up nearly half of the overall workforce.

“We want to do our part to create a workforce that better supports women, and that starts with inspiring girls to explore non-traditional education paths and careers,” says Tiffany Sharp, principal of Sharp Construction. “Enter ‘Girls Can Build.’”

Founded in 2022, Girls Can Build is the brainchild of Sharp Construction with support from The Center of Building Innovation at Arizona State University, Stratton Motor Cars, Kenzy Architecture & Interiors, and The Barnhart Company.

“Together, we want to inspire young women who love to design and build both by breaking down stereotypes around women in the industry and by showing girls the life skills and career opportunities the fields can provide,” says Jennifer Villalobos, vice president of business development at Sharp and co-founder of Girls Can Build.

Its most significant project to date is the Girl Scout Mobile Building Space. In partnership with Girl Scouts—Arizona Cactus-Pine Council (GSACPC), which serves more than 11,000 girls grades K-12 in more than 90 communities across central ARIZCC.COM

and northern Arizona, this interactive and state-of-the-art workshop on wheels will teach girls the basics of the design and build process as well as open their eyes to career opportunities in the industry.

“From small craft projects like bird houses to large scale projects at our camp properties, through the Girl Scout Mobile Building Space, Girl Scouts will discover their passion for construction,” says Christina Spicer, co-CEO of GSACPC. “Professional builders, architects, engineers, and designers from communities across Arizona light the way by serving as not just program leads, but role models for our girls.”

The Girl Scout Mobile Building Space is on track to be completed by Fall 2023, thanks to reaching 90 percent of its $250,000 fundraising goal. Stratton Motor Cars and Kenzy Architecture & Interiors are busy customizing a box truck into a traveling workspace with an expanded side exit and entrance door; finished floors, walls and ceilings; air conditioning; and an auxiliary fuel tank for extended range. A generator will power both 110 and 220v outlets for building equipment, power and hand tools, and an array of associated supplies.

The Center of Building Innovation at ASU is leading the education committee in developing an associated program curriculum in partnership with the Girl Scouts.

A Patch Program will focus on activities around ecology, cities, architecture and construction, and energy. The projects evolve as the young women get older, first encouraging them to be comfortable making things and being around tools, then sharing career opportunities and role models in different fields.

“With the Girl Scout Mobile Building Space, we envision a place where girls can learn everything from home maintenance skills like fixing a toilet or repairing a light switch to trades like carpentry and

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Project

Images Courtesy of Girls Can Build

painting. The space will also fuel girls to explore non-traditional and male-dominated education paths and careers, a cornerstone of the Girl Scouts organization,” says Mary Mitchell, co-CEO of GSACPC. Providing hands-on experiences and mentorship opportunities, the Girl Scout Mobile Building Space will encourage girls to explore unlimited possibilities for their future and develop the confidence and courage to set ambitious goals as they strengthen their problem-solving, conflict resolution, collaboration, and team-building skills in the process.

“Mentorship changed my career path exponentially. It is why I am so passionate about this initiative. I want young girls to know they have support and belong in every industry,” Villalobos says.

According to the team, the feedback to Girls Can Build has been positive from the very start. “This industry is excited to see a program like the Girl Scout Mobile Building Space inspire young girls to want to pursue careers in construction and non-traditional trades,” Sharp says.

The initiative has received support from some of Arizona’s leading construction, design, and architecture companies like Krause Architects, Grand Canyon Development, Lee & Associates, Phoenix Design One, Corporate Interior Systems, Haworth, Midstate Mechanical LLC, and the IFMA Phoenix Chapter. In addition, Villalobos says various grant awards from local foundations and contributions from hundreds of individuals make this very much a community effort.

Donations made through the Girl Scouts Arizona Cactus-Pine Council website can still be earmarked for the build-out and programming of the mobile building space.

For more information or to pledge support, visit girlscanbuild.us or girlscoutsaz.org.

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

THIRTY EIGHT

JULY AUGUST 2023

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

PHIL BERGER, LONGTIME ARIZONA CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONAL, PASSES

O

ur good friend, Phil Berger, a longtime Arizona Contractor & Community magazine fan, passed away recently at age 84.

Phil always supported our endeavor to create a publication about the state’s construction industry. We will miss him and are running this tribute to his legacy.

The magazine twice spotlighted Phil’s career. We liked to joke that he saw both extremes of the construction industry. He worked as the chief estimator for underground utilities such as gas, sewer, and water lines in a subterranean environment.

At the same time, another part of his job description took him soaring into the heavens as a pilot.

Phil thrived in the underground utility estimator profession and said it beat working on the dairy farm he grew up on close to South Bend, Indiana. “I’d milked a herd of 30 dairy cows since the eighth grade,” Phil recalled in 2017. “When my father contemplated buying a neighbor’s farm and adding 100 more head to the dairy, I knew I had to get away.”

He graduated from high school and, after harvest was over, drove cross-country with a friend to Sierra Vista. Phil was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and knew the congregation overseers and their daughter, who had relocated there. He worked for Sierra General Contractors, primarily doing underground utilities in Sierra Vista.

Phil then moved to the Valley, working for M.S. Shumway Contracting, ESKCO Contracting, Swengel-Robbins, and Pulice Construction. Phil started the underground division at CMX, an engineering firm, in 1989. When the company sold its construction division to Markham Contracting in 1995, Phil went along with the transfer as the senior underground estimator.

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“Underground is fun because there’s always a challenge,” Phil said in 2018. “I love unusual jobs that need special trench shoring and other features. Few companies want to do these difficult projects, so there’s less competition, and the markup is better.”

Becoming a pilot was another part of Phil’s life plan. At age five, he flew in a plane sitting on the pilot’s lap. Phil obtained his student pilot license through the Flying Farmers of America program and received his private and commercial pilot’s license at Turf Paradise Airport, where he bartered airport maintenance work for flying time.

“Don Emos ran the airport and collected used motor oil from service stations and sprayed it on the runway,” Phil said. “On weekends, I’d blade and then roll it.”

Emos, a real character, ran an outfit called Sonic Air Express that flew freight from Phoenix to El Monte, California, recalls Phil, who sometimes worked for the company. “It was a crazy outfit carrying all sorts of strange cargo. I once brought back a cadaver in a body bag for a mortuary.”

Ed Kelton of ESKO hired Phil, and he flew for the contracting company from 1965 - 1980. He recalled Kelton as a good guy with an unforgettable personality and that he flew illegally for years on a student’s license, which a friend of Kelton’s would renew annually. “Finally, his buddy passed away, and Ed was forced to take a two-week class to get his license.”

After Phil had moved to another company, he saw Kelton’s plane at the Flagstaff airport. He asked his former boss who was flying his airplane, since he had heard

Image Courtesy of Phil Berger

Above: Phil Berger, a senior in high school, with an aircoupe plane, Indiana, 1958.

Below: Phil Berger poses by a World War II B-17 Flying Fortress diorama, 2017.

Kelton had recently had quadruple bypass surgery and was not medically cleared to pilot the plane. “Who do you think?” Kelton replied. “Me! To heck with them; what are they going to do? Tell me I can’t fly?”

Phil piloted helicopters a few times but didn’t care for them. “I’m a fixed-wing guy,” he said. “There’s no visible means of supporting helicopters as 200 precision parts are working in perfect harmony to destroy each other. They only fly because they’re so ugly; the earth repels them.”

When asked in 2017 how construction has changed over his career, Phil mentioned the equipment. “When I started, I ran cable backhoes, draglines, and clamshells. Another difference is that young people don’t want to work in construction; they’d rather be an engineer or work at a computer. The best workers are 50-plus years old,” he said. Phil added that there are many more regulations but admits the construction workplace is probably safer. “I was on a couple of jobs where there were fatalities due to carelessness.”

When Phil turned 70, he had heart surgery and never renewed his pilot’s license.

Finally, after over 50 years of flying, he retired, never having dinged an airplane or received a citation. But he continued his aerial adventures using a flight simulator.

“Now I can fly anywhere in the world,” Phil said.

Godspeed and safe travels, Mr. Berger.

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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AZROC 306671 JULY AUGUST 2023

ABEL GAYTAN

I

’ve traveled throughout Southern California in a service or sales role for the past 20 years, helping create our company’s modern marketplace for all things heavy equipment. Boom & Bucket seeks to earn that title through transparency, fairness, and guarantees backed by world-class technology and outstanding customer service.

For my job, I’m lucky to have been behind the gates of secluded properties and job sites that contain so many amazing vintage machines. I recently started sharing photos of these gems, including this Wabco Haulpak truck that I came across on a project.

Where did this love for old machinery originate? I’ve been obsessed with large yellow iron for as long as I can remember.

Just check out this picture of me as a kid

from the 1980s; that truck on my sweater looks precisely like this Wabco Haulpak truck.

Most of my working career has allowed me to travel, visit job sites, and take thousands of pictures of vintage machines.

When I see these older machines, I can appreciate the life they once had, carving the landscape of our world. This equipment was a vital tool for the business that operated, maintained, repaired, and refueled them.

My love for metal also contributes to my appreciation of this machinery. I’m a welding hobbyist and enjoy working with metal, the smell of metal burning, and the smell of oxyacetylene and argon. It’s fabulous seeing old metal have new life.

This hobby helps me appreciate the old iron machinery: the engineering, the rust-through, and the design. In the same way that people admire a Cadillac tailfin, I respect this haul truck for its simplicity of design, simple mechanical controls, and

Top left: Wabco Haulpak truck.

Above: Abel Gaytan, 1980s.

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

A BIG YELLOW PASSION: ONE MAN’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH VINTAGE HEAVY EQUIPMENT

long-lasting materials. I just love this stuff.

I find many similarities in antique diecast machinery, too. I recently visited an office with a fantastic collection of these toys. The owner and I connected about the actual machines’ quality and the old toys’ quality. Even at a 1/50th scale, these machines are captivating.

The most common vintage machines I come across are Caterpillar tractors and dozers like the D2. I love seeing them, especially when they have been restored.

But it’s also satisfying to see an old, retired machine that looks like it was parked on a Friday and never cranked over again. What happened? What’s the story?

Whatever the story, I am thankful that these amazing machines did not make it to the scrap pile. It’s nice that someone decided to keep it, and maybe, walking by in the morning, they whisper, “one day.”

Images Courtesy of Author

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

DODD DIESEL: POWERING MINES, SUPPORTING LOGGING, AND MAKING MULCH SINCE 1978

S

teamboat Springs is famed as a Colorado ski town and an all-season resort that visitors flock to for its hot springs, historic buildings, arts scene, and stunning mountain setting. Before the town became renowned as an international destination, it was a working community supported by nearby coal mines and timber harvested from the Medicine Bow – Routt National Forest. This setting gave rise to a family-owned company that still is thriving today in two locations, including one in Phoenix.

“Our company Dodd Diesel Inc. was founded by David Dodd and started in 1978 as Detroit Diesel Engine, a repair/rebuild company in Steamboat Springs that mainly provided services to coal mines in northern Colorado,” says Darren Dodd, who currently manages the operation in Arizona with his son, Denver. “Over the years, our business transitioned into the servicing and repair of forestry equipment. This work led us to become a Timberjack dealer, selling and renting forestry equipment in the early 1980s.”

In 1987, the company opened a branch in Grand Junction, Colorado, which offered the Prentice Forestry equipment line the following year. “We were doing quite well in Colorado, so Timberjack and Prentice offered to expand our territory to include Arizona,” Dodd says. “We immediately started selling a lot of equipment due to the papermill in Snowflake, which was supplied by pulpwood (small logs) from as far as southern New Mexico.”

Dodd Diesel opened a small Arizona satellite branch in Springerville in 1988,

then purchased a 17,000-square-foot facility in Snowflake in 1989. “This put us in the center of forestry country at that time,” Dodd says. “The Flagstaff sawmill was still going strong, so the location was ideal. We added our DBA as DDI Equipment in the 1990s to reflect most of our business being forestry equipment sales and rentals.”

According to Dodd, the Mexican spotted owl controversy helped end many timber sales in Arizona forests. “The papermill was still going strong with pulpwood brought in from New Mexico until the late 1990s,” he says.

With the new State and Federal government restrictions on timber harvesting, the Snowflake papermill added recycled materials and eventually used this as its sole source. “This change eliminated the need for pulpwood and eliminated the remaining logging companies,” Dodd says.

As the need for forestry equipment declined in Northern Arizona, DDI Equipment pivoted to new customers. “We

began selling and renting recycling equipment in the Phoenix area and southern Arizona,” Dodd says. “Landfills were looking to reduce the intake of green waste by grinding it into mulch material and selling the product rather than burying it. The company needed to get into screening plants to size the mulch products properly.”

Dodd Diesel’s screen plant rentals and sales took off, and they expanded into the sand and gravel business in the mid-1990s.

The company then added a Phoenix branch, which it still operates. Its other location is in Whitewater, CO, outside of Grand Junction, managed by Lance Armstrong, David Dodd’s son-in-law. “We are still primarily focused on the forest industry, as well as green waste recycling, mulching, and land-clearing equipment,” Dodd says of his business that is celebrating its 45th anniversary. “We provide sales, rentals, and service of our equipment lines: Morbark, Barko, and Cat Forestry.”

Above: Robert Solberg, Jr., with Canadian Timberjack manager, Robert Solberg, and Darren Dodd (l-r), with one of the first Timber­jack skidder machines in Arizona, 1989.

Left: David Dodd (far left), and his crew, with one of DDI’s first forest machines in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 1980.

Below: DDI crew with a Terex front end loader, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 1980s.

Images Courtesy of Denver Dodd

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FORTY FOUR

JULY AUGUST 2023

CONCRETE HELPED END PLAGUE IN SAN FRANCISCO IN 1906 LUKE M. SNELL, P.E.

T

he bubonic plague, or the “Black Death,” has caused devastation for centuries. In 542, 25-50 million died in the first pandemic, and in the 1300s, a second pandemic swept Europe, killing 75-200 million, one-third of its population. Then, in the late 1800s, millions more perished in a third pandemic concentrated in India and China.

Numerous theories about what caused bubonic plagues existed, but no one knew for sure. Some felt the plague was a result of bad air and dust. What was known was that the mortality rate was nearly 90 percent, and none of the medicines at that time worked. In the Middle Ages, doctors used what we would now consider strange outfits to protect themselves while treating plague patients.

Importing goods from Asia was relatively easy using steamships during the time of the third pandemic. Thus, whatever caused the bubonic plague could quickly move with the shipped cargo from Asia to the U.S., especially San Francisco, which had the busiest harbor on the West Coast. Railroads then transported the commodities across the nation. Federal health officials were terrified that if the plague started in San Francisco, it could quickly spread and devastate the entire country.

Most Americans felt relatively safe since the third pandemic appeared confined to Asia. However, this viewpoint changed when the first case of bubonic plague was discovered in San Francisco in 1900. The victim was of Chinese heritage, which immediately caused a political issue.

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Some thought those of European descent had built up immunity because their ancestors had survived previous bubonic plagues.

San Francisco politicians sought to avoid having the reputation of being the source of the plague and wanted to retain the revenue associated with harbor activity and tourism. At that time, San Francisco was the economic engine of California.

Thus, they worked with the state and city health officials to hush up any possibility of the bubonic plague’s foothold in San Francisco.

When federal health officials tried to spread the alarm that bubonic plague had arrived domestically, San Francisco newspapers, under pressure from local leaders, continued to downplay the danger. The articles convinced the public that if there was a problem, it was only in San Francisco’s Chinatown and not a concern to the non-Asian population. As a safety precaution, the city government quarantined Chinatown residents but only briefly because the neighborhood provided most of the domestic workers and gardeners for wealthy city residents.

But the health problem did not go away. As more people died from bubonic plague, including some of European descent, health officials realized that the ships from Asia carried rats along with the imported goods. In addition, numerous dead rats were seen on the streets before the cases of bubonic plague. Laboratory analysis of these dead rats showed they had died from the bubonic plague, establishing a connection.

City, state, and federal health officials began to work together, since getting rid of rats made good sense and was something they all could agree on. Several solutions

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Practices

Images Courtesy of Author

Top left: San Francisco, 1906.

Above: Engraving of a plague doctor of Marseille wearing a nose-case filled with herbal material to ward off the plague, 1656.

were developed, including a bounty, using traps and poisons, and cleaning up their breeding grounds.

At this point, concrete was used to help contain the bubonic plague. Rats thrived under San Francisco’s wooden sidewalks, one of the last major cities to have them. These were ripped up and replaced with concrete sidewalks. This new sidewalk removed a nesting environment for rats and provided a smooth walking surface for the residents. Thus, concrete contributed to stopping the spread of the bubonic plague in the U.S. Afterward, it was discovered that the fleas that the rats carried were the cause of the bubonic plague. The fleas needed to be on a live animal or person. When the infected host died from the bubonic plague, the fleas would seek a new host, thus infecting another person or animal.

The bubonic plague did not become a significant nationwide problem because the fleas in the U.S. had a slight DNA difference from the European and Asian fleas.

This little DNA difference made transmitting the bubonic plague from the fleas to people more difficult.

The bubonic plague can still be found in the Western U.S., usually in prairie dog colonies. Typically, the few cases of bubonic plague each year can be successfully treated if caught early. For those wanting more details on the bubonic plague in the U.S., see the PBS documentary developed as part of their American Experience series: “Plague at the Golden Gate.”

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

FORTY SIX

JULY AUGUST 2023

Back When

PARK CENTRAL’S WOODEN FUNHOUSE DOUGLAS TOWNE

“T

he man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out,” wrote Aldous Huxley in his 1954 autobiographical book, The Doors of Perception. That was the sentiment behind the Forest Products Fair held at Park Central Shopping City in 1963. The fair included a door maze, which Arizona’s lumber industry hoped attendees would emerge from with a newfound appreciation and demand for local wood products.

Phoenix Mayor Sam Mardian and Arizona Governor Paul Fannin (l-r) sawed a ceremonial log held in place by two sawhorses and Smokey the Bear to kick off the

fair, which coincided with Forest Products Week. The fair’s 38 exhibits included cross-sections of 20 varieties of Arizona trees, as well as the application and uses of wood in the arts, industry, and home.

The Salt River Valley Hoo-Hoo Club, a civic service organization of lumbermen, along with the U.S. Forest Service and the lumber industry, sponsored the fair.

The fair’s theme, the “Wonderful World of Wood,” brought attention to Arizona’s forests’ beauty and value.

Reflecting on the event 60 years later, with woodland health declining due to drought, fires, and management, the Forest Products Fair is a nostalgic look back to a time when the biggest worry people had was Smokey the Bear admonishing them, “Remember…Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor

& Community

TIMBER! - ARIZONA’S RUGGED LOGGING AND LUMBER HERITAGE Douglas Towne

A

rizona schoolchildren have long been taught about the state’s historic economic Five C’s: copper, cattle, cotton, citrus, and climate. But residents of northern Arizona, which includes the world’s largest expanse of ponderosa pine, know that the “L word,” i.e., lumber, was an important industry stretching back to Territorial days. Although insignificant nationally, the economic contribution of sawmills and their lumber products was vital to Arizona’s gaining statehood.

Arizona’s lumber industry, however, never had an easy time during its formative period before World War II. Sawmills faced challenges obtaining equipment, hiring skilled workers, and finding markets for their lumber, which was considered lower quality than was produced in other regions. Companies paid employees low wages for what was grueling and hazardous work. The industry overcame these obstacles with a lot of sweat, sawdust, and salesmanship.

Harvesting trees to produce lumber products started before the Civil War in response to the needs of mines, which required timbers to support tunnels, and the construction of military posts, according to The History of Lumbering in Arizona Before World War II by Robert Matheny.

Small sawmills utilizing whipsaws and later portable steam sawmills were built to produce timbers for gold mines near Prescott in the 1860s and silver mines in Tombstone in the late 1870s.

Lumber production was limited to local needs until the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, whose trackage later became part of the Santa Fe Railroad, traversed the northern part of Arizona Territory in the early 1880s.

As the railroad crept west towards Flagstaff, Chicago lumberman Edward E. Ayer built the first significant lumber mill, the Ayer Lumber Company (later reorganized as the Arizona Lumber and Timber Company). The company secured a contract to supply the Atlantic and Pacific with ties and bridge timbers from forests southwest of Flagstaff that the federal government had provided the railroad.

Logging by a crew from Happy Jack, Arizona, 1966.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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JULY AUGUST 2023

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Ayer Lumber’s sawmill was built in Flagstaff at Mill Town (or Milton) and attracted experienced loggers from the North Woods of Minnesota to run the operation. Workers manufactured lumber using a 120-horsepower Fraser-Chalmers steam engine equipped with a 12-foot drive wheel that supplied the power. According to Matheny, the primary machinery included a double circular saw and a gang edger, theoretically capable of turning out 100,000 feet of lumber per day.

Logging crews near Flagstaff typically performed four tasks from April through October. First, lumberjacks would cut FIFTY

straight, healthy trees larger than 16 inches in diameter on an uphill lie to lessen the trunk breaking apart. Loggers then stripped the trunk of its limbs, a process called swamping. Sawyers with cross-cut saws bucked the tree into appropriate lengths for hauling, generally up to 30 feet long.

Finally, skidding teams chained the logs and moved them to the nearest road to be put on wagons, which hauled the timber to the sawmill or nearest railroad spur.

Logs were typically floated in ponds and moved to the sawmill by a juggler.

The head sawyer decided how each log should be cut to get the greatest amount

of quality lumber. The lumber stock was then trimmed to create parallel edges, cut into commercial lengths, sent to the planery for surfacing into a finished product, and moved to the yard for grading.

Lumber from ponderosa pine produced in northern Arizona was generally considered low-grade compared to other areas. Companies often used it to manufacture cheap wooden boxes for fruit and vegetable shipments from the Southwest.

The Arizona Lumber and Timber Company soon had competition from the Saginaw Lumber Company (later the Saginaw & Manistee Lumber Company), created by JULY AUGUST 2023

Images Courtesy of U.S.D.A

Above: A bull chain hauls ponderosa pine logs into the Saginaw & Manistee Lumber Mill in Flagstaff, 1947.

Top right: Ayer Lumber Company sawmill in Flagstaff, 1882.

Right: Unloading a log train at the Southwest Lumber Mills sawmill pond in Flagstaff, 1957.

Michigan investors in Williams in 1893, and the Flagstaff Lumber Manufacturing Company started in 1909.

All these lumber operations, however, struggled to turn a profit and faced many challenges, including a dependable water supply, the lack of which sometimes shut ARIZCC.COM

them down, and threats from fires, labor costs, and timber supplies. But the biggest challenge faced by these sawmills until the 1940s was the need for more dependable markets.

High shipping rates on local railroads limited the demand for Arizona lumber.

Supplies from other regions were generally cheaper and of higher quality. Even central and southern parts of Arizona typically were supplied with pine brought in from California and the Northwest on the Southern Pacific Railroad.

By the 1920s, the Arizona lumber industry also had to contend with

depressed product prices as non-wood materials began to be used more frequently in construction. These building supplies included cement, wallboard, plaster, brick, composition shingles, and structural steel.

But worse days were ahead. “If the prosperous 1920s had been frustrating for Arizona lumbermen, the depressed 1930s would be disastrous,” wrote Matheny.

Lumber demand and production plummeted during the Great Depression. This economic malaise inspired Arizona lumber companies into cooperative efforts to seek new markets, including promoting the use of local ponderosa pine on government ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

projects. This change was necessary since Arizona companies only provided 10 percent of lumber used for construction in the state in 1936.

Fort Tuthill, an Arizona National Guard installation outside Flagstaff, is one example of how lumber from outside the state made its way into Arizona. According to Matheny, Oregon lumber was shipped in to be used for repairs at the camp, even though the logging railroad of the Arizona Lumber and Timber Company ran through the installation.

Sawmills, to contend with this trend, banded together to promote their products by forming the Arizona Lumber Manufacturers Association (ALMA). The organization found that negative attitudes remained from the Territorial days when northern Arizona sawmills lacked the necessary equipment to produce high-quality lumber. The product still did not have squared ends, was frequently rough and unevenly trimmed, and had a high moisture content, which tended to warp and shrink more than usual.

To sway potential users, the association contacted building and road contractors

and learned that the Arizona sawmills had never supplied the state with technical specifications on ponderosa pine, so it couldn’t be used for construction. Their representative wrote that Arizona officials “will be the hardest to convince that Arizona Pine has a place in the Sun,” according

to Matheny’s book. Eventually, however, contractors began using it for studs, rafters, and floor joists.

A major battle with the Bureau of Indian Affairs occurred during the construction of the Indian School Gymnasium in Phoenix in 1936, in which architects and

Top: Logging for Southwest Forest Industries, 1966 Right: Operations at the McNary sawmill, 1949.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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JULY AUGUST 2023

Image Courtesy of U.S.D.A

Above: The Southwest Lumber Mills pond and sawmill in Flagstaff, 1957.

Left: Caterpillar D7 crawler pulling logs, 1966.

engineers had specified Douglas fir. The ALMA representative appealed to Arizona Congresswoman Isabella Greenway to include ponderosa pine in the specifications, which she did to benefit Arizona lumber companies.

These were but small victories that helped keep the Arizona lumber companies solvent until the start of World War II. The war would spike demand so much that the sawmills ran at full capacity, which continued with the post-war building boom. While the Arizona lumber industry expanded after the war, its production would always be secondary to the South’s yellow pine, the North’s white pine, and the Douglas fir and redwood of the Pacific Coast.

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A TRANSPLANTED LOGGING TOWN: THE CURIOUS ORIGIN OF MCNARY, ARIZONA Douglas Towne

L

ouisiana logging company owner William M. Cady had challenges traveling light. After a decade of operating two lumber mills in McNary, Louisiana, he set his sights on Arizona. In 1923, he purchased the struggling Apache Lumber Company in the small Arizona community of Cooley, along with its Ponderosa pine timber leases, Apache Railway, and a sawmill for $1.5 million. Cady brought along more than a suitcase or two when he moved to the remote town, located about four miles south of Pinetop on lands belonging to the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

“Cady didn’t just take the business to Arizona; he took the whole town of McNary, Louisiana with him,” writes Cheré Dastague Coen in the book Forest Hill,

FIFTY FOUR

Louisiana: A Bloom Town History. Cady loaded up a 21-coach train with logging and sawmill machinery and 500 employees and their possessions. The Cady Lumber had stripped nearby Louisiana forests of yellow pine in just 14 years in a “clear cut and clear out” operation; hence the upheaval and move in search of plentiful forests. Cady’s new site for timber and logging would create a unique Arizona town.

The Apache Lumber Company was founded in 1916 by Flagstaff businessman Tom Pollack in Cooley, a predominantly Mormon town of about 200 residents. Pollack commissioned the Davis-Heller-Pearce Company, a Stockton, California firm, to design and construct 42 buildings for his lumber manufacturing facility.

But the high cost of getting the operation running forced Pollack to sell Apache Lumber to Cady in 1923. The deal had to be approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Forest Service because timber was supplied from both the reservation and Sitgreaves National Forest. Cady’s acquisition was financed by banker James G. McNary, who had backed the previous operation in Louisiana. In appreciation, Cady, like in Louisiana, again renamed the town McNary.

The skilled employees Cady brought with him included many African-Americans. He expanded the workforce with white, Mexican American, and Native American employees. As a result, the population grew, and McNary became known for its diversity and peaceful race relations.

Residents lived in seperate areas, however, with each ethnic group having its own elementary school, church, and café.

“The schools were segregated to the eighth grade,” Julian Castillo told the White Below: McNary sawmill, 1949.

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Top left: James G. McNary, 1942.

Above: Southwestern Lumber Mills office in McNary, 1949.

Left: A juggler poling logs in the McNary sawmill pond, 1960.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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Mountain Independent in 2005. “We all went to high school together but had to go home for lunch. We couldn’t eat together in the high school. It was just the way we lived.” African Americans lived in “the Quarters” south of the mill, Native Americans lived in wickiups in “Indian Camp” west of town, and whites lived on “the Hill,” where Arizona Highway 260 now goes through town.

People from the White Mountains area visited McNary for medical appointments, to have fun bowling or at the movies, and to shop at the Cady Lumber Company store.

The company built and operated McNary’s utilities, schools, and a hospital.

“Cady Lumber took a great deal of pride in the community. All the buildings had a similar design and were painted the same color,” Anne Groebner writes in Once Upon a Time in the Northeastern Mountains of Arizona. “There were wooden boardwalks, flowerbeds with phloxes, lilacs, and irises — a beautiful little town. The company had maintenance crews who cared for everything from the roads to painting and maintaining houses. They wanted their employees to have a nice place to live.”

The company used the Apache Railway, a short-line railroad, to haul logged ponderosa pine from the community of Maverick, south of Mount Baldy, to McNary.

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Above: African American workers at the McNary sawmill, 1949.

Far left: Southwest Lumber Mills advertisement, 1942.

Left: Cady Lumber Corporation advertisement, 1926.

Then, workers unloaded the logs into the sawmill pond, and then jugglers walked out to guide them to the ramp to get the logs inside the mill. There, a machine cut the bark off; a big vertical saw cut them into planks. The lumber was then shipped north FIFTY SIX

on the Apache Railway to Holbrook, where it connected with the Santa Fe Railroad.

Groebner writes that Jim Warren, James G. McNary’s grandson, told her, “The mill was so loud that the workers would rub their chins to signal that the boss was coming.”

Cady Lumber recruited other employees from Louisiana, including Bud Kelton, the great-grandfather of Arizona contractor Bill Kelton. “Bud built a reputation as one of the best log loadermen in the country, which inspired Cady Lumber to offer him a job at an enticing pay rate,” Kelton says.

“But Bud was skeptical about the move to Arizona, so he quickly trained his brother, Ed, and sent him in his place. When the company asked Ed for another log loader recommendation, he revealed his true identity and suggested the real Bud Kelton.”

Kelton says that after Bud arrived in McNary, he sent for his wife, Alma, and their six children, who traveled from Arkansas to Arizona in a two-seater touring sedan, sleeping in bedrolls and cooking over open fires. The family lived in McNary until Bud’s repeated pneumonia inspired a move to Mesa in 1937.

In 1925, the company was reorganized as the Cady Lumber Corporation to JULY AUGUST 2023

winters and isolation. Many homes had Mountains was already having problems.

In 1948 a fire destroyed the planing mill, box factory, molding factory, and dry storage sheds. Racial tensions flared in McNary In 1935 James G. McNary bought during the 1960s, as they did nationally, Cady Lumber and renamed it South- and some families relocated to Pinetop. west Lumber Mills (later Southwest Forest By 1964, trucks transported most of Industries). In 1942, the company became the logs to the sawmill, so the railroad profitable with increased demand caused between McNary and Maverick became

by World War II, and it acquired the Arizona the steam-powered White Mountain SceLumber & Timber Company in Flagstaff. nic Railroad, hauling as many as 200,000 At this time, Southwest Forest Industries tourists annually. “The train ride was a rivaled major Pacific Coast companies such memorable trip,” Joe Davis says. “I recall as Weyerhaeuser and Georgia Pacific. watching a beaver family working together McNary sold his business interests in a swampy area amidst the trees and the in 1952, but the sawmill in the White train pulling forward to squash some pennies for kids, though I’ve long since lost mine.” Trips ended in 1976 when the White Mountain Apache Tribe refused to allow the train to cross their lands.

In the late 1960s, the tribe built the Fort Apache Timber Company (FATCO) in Whitewater and limited timber sales to the McNary mill. As a result, Southwest Forest Industries began shifting production and employees to their more modern Flagstaff plant. Still, McNary was the region’s largest lumber mill as late as 1970, producing 85 million board feet per year, according to Contractor & Engineer Magazine. A fire damaged the McNary sawmill in 1979, and it closed a year later.

Today, McNary has a population of less than 500 residents, down from 1,900 in 1950. But former residents have a summer reunion to recall a time when McNary was the economic and social hub of the White Mountains.

“The people there were like one big family,” McNary native Robert Madrid says. “And all helped one another as best as they could.”

Above: State Route 173 (now State Route 260) no heat, running water, or electricity. turn-off in Show Low for McNary, 1949.

Other McNary residents left to avoid a Below: McNary pond and sawmill, early 1970s. typhoid epidemic that hit in 1928.

help its precarious financial status. The company went into receivership, citing overinvestment, high production costs, and a limited market in 1930.

According to Coen, many of the transplanted Louisiana employees mainly stayed in McNary until the lumber market nose-dived during the Great Depression of the 1930s. After Cady Lumber went into receiver­ship, some workers left, returning to Louisiana because of the cold

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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TUCSON’S CONSTRUCTION HOTSPOT FOR 66 YEARS:

GRANT ROAD LUMBER Carlos Lozano

“P

hoenix-like” isn’t a business tendency that would seem to work in Tucson, a city with fierce hometown pride. But Grant Road Lumber managed to thrive for decades associated with the term. The phrase did not refer to that “other” Arizona city, but instead to the lumberyard’s ability to rise from the ashes after several fires.

Grant Road Lumber not only rebounded from infernos, it outlasted other independent lumberyards, and battled big-box retailers for 66 years because of a simple reason. To its owners, Sam Hauert and his partner, Fred Armstrong, lumber was more than a business. They loved their work and had close relationships with customers, big and small. This is their story.

Tucson’s first lumberyards were located in the warehouse district adjacent to the Southern Pacific railroad near downtown. Hauert and Armstrong opened Grant

Road Lumber just east of Tucson Boulevard at a northeast location distant from downtown in 1948. The site proved ideal to supply the city’s future growth that exploded after World War II. The business prospered

until disaster struck on a hot Saturday night in June 1960.

“Two explosions leaped for 100 feet above the 200-foot-long mass of flames, forming awesome mushroom clouds,” reported the Arizona Daily Star. “At least a million and a half feet of lumber was destroyed,” as fire engulfed the property.

As firemen battled the inferno, “thousands of curious came, and they watched.

They stood on walls and climbed atop buildings and automobiles. The onlookers felt the spray of the hose as they dodged

Above: Grant Road Lumber sign (facing east) created by Acme Neon, 1960.

Right: Grant Road Lumber entrance designed by architect Terry Atkinson, 1960.

Images Courtesy of Hauert family

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JULY AUGUST 2023

Above: Grant Road Lumber’s Yellow Pages ad targeted homeowners, 1962.

Right: Grant Road Lumber sign, 2000.

Below: The third and last building, built after the 1968 fire, along with additional billboard advertising, 1969.

falling embers and sparks that rained down around them. They endangered firemen and themselves.”

A dozen police officers and sheriff’s deputies were needed to control the crowd. Later in the evening, waitresses from The Iron Mask restaurant across the street brought coffee to exhausted police and firefighters.

Grant Road Lumber turned the catastrophe into an opportunity to update its image. The company hired prominent modernist architect Terry Atkinson, who also designed the Tucson International Airport terminal, to create a new building.

Acme Neon, known for the Pueblo Hotel’s

“diving girl” sign downtown, built a new sign. Both were striking and brought in customers.

But in 1968, fire struck again, destroying the lumber yard. Sam and Fred once more would rebuild bigger and better than before. Eventually, both of Sam’s sons, David and Steve, and even a grandson would work in this new building.

Years later, Steve detailed items that made Grant Road Lumber successful. He stressed how everyone went out of their way to help the do-it-yourselfer before it

Image Courtesy of Sina Evans

was popular. “Tremendously knowledgeable staff in every department: electrical, plumbing, and paint. We were the king of the hill in the DIY business through the 1980s.”

In 1969, Grant Road Lumber charged a flat $1.50 fee for delivery; purchases more than $100 were delivered free. They took pride in offering the highest quality, not the lowest prices. “If you bought a 2 x 4 from us, you knew it would never twist,” Steve says. “We were the only place in town that rented a trailer filled with a yard of cement

Image Courtesy of Building Materials Merchandiser magazine

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“When you walk through the front door of Grant Road, the first impression you get is the hospital cleanliness of the aph showroom. The area has a high light level Telegr and one Teleph States tain Images Courtesy of Moun which makes the merchandise sparkle and to pour your own patio or driveway, even makes it pleasant, inviting, and conducive providing the hitch if needed. The response to the best presentation of the merchanwas overwhelming,” he says. dise. The height of the islands is kept low, During our interview at Tucson’s his- so the salesmen, who work out of a central toric Arizona Inn, Steve reminisced about service area, can see to help prospective their “beautiful, beautiful mill – the guys customers promptly. Signs and sight lead could do anything.” When asked for an the prospect through the big rear entrance example of their millwork, Steve looked to the lumber sheds.” around, then motioned out the window.

The Grant Road Lumber sign exem“We built those gates,” he says. plified qualities that made the company a The Hauert’s were proud of their success. The roadside advertisement was employees, which numbered around 100 modern, cheerful, and enticed new cusin the 1980s and treated them well. Some tomers who may have never before set employees and customers were second foot in a lumberyard. The sign stood out generation, and at least one married cou- on one of Tucson’s busiest streets and was ple met at the store. Grant Road Lumber deliberately similar to pole signs used for forged strong relationships with large con- motels, diners, or auto dealers. tractors like Sundt and Ashton, watching At first glance, the large turquoise their materials go into residential subdi- arrow appeared to be one color, but a visions like Winterhaven and commercial closer look revealed a two-toned advertisedevelopments like Rancho Center. The lum- ment. The large block text was a hand-deberyard also had a long association with signed, hand-kerned, and hand-painted the University of Arizona and the Tucson variation of Helvetica letterforms.

School District.

Grant Road Lumber was profiled in the July 1969 issue of Building Materials Merchandiser in an article titled “A Phoenix in Tucson.” The story described the new operation that rebuilt after disaster, which allowed full expression of its business philosophy. Facilities were purpose-built, designed by John Slothower of Georgia-Pacific. A modernist Southwestern facade was added by Dale Anthony, who worked for the company. Grant Road Lumber adopted an up-to-date approach to merchandising because it not only competed with other lumberyards but with supermarkets, auto dealers, and department stores for discretionary income.

The publication’s description of the lumberyard illustrates how far the industry had come since the days of having spittoons on the floor:

Grant Road Lumber ads of the era targeted homeowners, with sketches showcasing their sign and location, depicting passenger cars on the pavement in front of the store, not trucks parked in the dirt.

The text mentioned remodeling, repair, and offered tools, and it was the only lumber company that promoted itself as being open on Saturday.

In contrast, two lumber competitors who targeted tradesmen ran ads featuring pin-up style images of scantily clad women, using the pun “well-stacked lumber.” These dated ads were possibly inspired by the suggestive Lucky Strike cigarette ads of the period, “so round, so firm, so fully packed.”

Grant Road Lumber’s customer base proved loyal with the rise of orange or blue big-box competitors. In the end, it was an intense building downturn that finally persuaded the family to close the business in 2015. “The industry goes through cycles,” David Hauert says. “It is a roller coaster and always has been. But not like this.”

Those needing more proof that Grant Road Lumber was a labor of love for the owners? Consider that Fred Armstrong retired at age 85, and Sam Hauert’s final day was at age 89 when the business closed.

The large property was purchased by Fox Restaurant Concepts, which creates restaurants in historic locations. After doing a $9 million conversion on the building, Fox opened Culinary Dropout at Grant Road Lumber in 2017, which retained the lumberyard’s original sign. It’s fitting that Grant Road Lumber’s signage, for so long an enduring symbol of value and integrity, remains a part of Tucson’s streetscape.

Top left: Competitor’s lumber ads were designed to attract tradesmen, 1962.

Below: Fire at Grant Road Lumber, 1968.

Image Courtesy of Fred Bair, Sr. and Bob Ring

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“Can you help us with supply chain logistics?”

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Left: John Drexler, left, on his first day in business, 1966.

Above: John Drexler, 1990s.

Bottom left: Drexler’s Parking Stripes Company notebook, 1966.

Below: Parking Stripes Company van, 1966.

SALUTING ARIZONA’S BUILDERS: JOHN DREXLER

I

t certainly wasn’t preordained that John Drexler would launch Ace Asphalt of Arizona in 1981 and a decade later be selected by the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce as the “Small Business Person of the Year.” Based on his challenging childhood, Drexler seemed destined for a hardscrabble life rather than becoming a construction executive.

Born in Hungary at the start of World War II, Drexler’s father was conscripted into the German army in 1943, while he and his mother endured Allied aerial bombing and invading Russian troops.

The Drexler family’s difficult life continued after arriving in the U.S. in 1952. Sponsored by a Wyoming rancher to oversee 3,000 sheep and maintain his household,

they worked long hours, used a dictionary to communicate, and were treated as indentured servants. Fortunately, a visiting relative offered to fund their move to Milwaukee.

There, Drexler began his ascent in the world, helped by a promise he had made to his parents when they arrived in New York City after a long sea voyage from Europe.

Inspired by the Statue of Liberty, Drexler vowed to one day become successful and strove to fulfill that statement.

Drexler took the first steps toward that goal by delivering newspapers and learning English. He dropped out of school at age 16 for a series of jobs, as a meat butcher, parts

Images Courtesy of John Drexler

SIXTY TWO

JULY AUGUST 2023

Left: Ace Asphalt paver with original company logo, early 1990s.

Above: Drexler with a new striping machine, 1991.

Below: Ace Asphalt crew, early 1990s.

stocker at Allis-Chalmers, and forklift operator at an American Motors factory.

In 1966, Drexler started Parking Stripes Company, which painted lines in parking lots. He purchased a used striping machine for $250, an old van for $213, and a notebook from Walgreens for 13 cents for record keeping. He scrambled for customers and coaxed his worn machine through each job.

The company eventually found enough work that Drexler had a light installed on the top of his van so he could work during the evening. He later expanded into filling cracks and potholes using a modified machine, which became Wisconsin’s

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largest seal-coating maintenance company.

He sold it to an employee in 1984.

In 1981, Drexler launched Ace Asphalt in Phoenix with his son, Tim Drexler.

Located at Seventh Avenue and the Salt River, it evolved into a 36-acre facility. The company performed earthwork, paving, and concrete and later grew to more than 300 employees as it expanded to Tucson and Flagstaff. Drexler retired in 2006, and in 2011, Ace Asphalt merged with Sunland Asphalt & Construction.

He also launched Drexler Companies, Inc., which built commercial buildings, and Drexler Enterprises, Inc., which invested in real estate holdings. Along with his wife,

Kathleen, he founded the John & Kitty Drexler Foundation, which aids nonprofits in helping those in need.

Drexler died in 2018 at age 78, having attained his goal to be dependable, reliable, honest, trustworthy, and never let his customers down.

“If you decide to go into a worthwhile venture, try not to accomplish ten other things simultaneously,” Drexler said in 2011. “Focus on what you’re trying to do at the time and not get sidetracked. Always keep your word, and be determined to do what you say you will do.”

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

SIXTY FOUR

JULY AUGUST 2023

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

JOHN W. “JAY” LATTIMORE: A BIGHEARTED CONCRETE CONTRACTOR Cheryl Wamsley

M

y parents, John W. “Jay” and Virginia Lattimore, lived and planned their life knowing that their livelihood was based on an industry that was feast or famine. Virginia used to say that being in construction was a “chicken today-feathers tomorrow” existence. But that didn’t stop my father from being one of the most generous people in the industry.

Dad was instrumental in getting a local underground contractor, Ken Swengel, his start in 1971. Using his influence with Valley National Bank, Dad helped him secure initial funding for a new company, Swengel-Robbins, which is still in business today.

Top right: John W. Lattimore, 1970s.

Below: John W. Lattimore on a commercial project, 1970s.

But this wasn’t the first time Dad stepped in to offer his help and assistance.

He was known to pick up “hot checks,” pay bail money, give loans with the assurance that he would never be paid back, and buy Christmas gifts for needy families. But this kindhearted concrete contractor also believed in hard and honest work and could be a taskmaster who never accepted mediocrity. So, here’s the inspiring story of my dad, someone who grew up as a migrant farm worker and became a successful concrete contractor.

My dad was born in Hamlin, Texas, located north of Abilene, in 1920 and was the oldest of nine children. His parents, Jesse and Leona Lattimore were cotton pickers who inadvertently moved to Arizona in 1929. The family was traveling to

California, where they thought they might find a better way of life, but their car broke down just shy of the Golden State in Parker, Arizona. So once Dad was old enough to walk through the fields, he learned to pick cotton.

My father often spoke of picking cotton alongside his parents and younger brother, Harry, while pulling their baby sister, Gwen, through the cotton rows on a blanket. Their fingers would be bloodied by the end of the day, but it was necessary to feed their growing family. Dad was a good

Images Courtesy of Cheryl Wamskey

SIXTY SIX

JULY AUGUST 2023

Above: John W. Lattimore Contractor Co. using a Marco crane to erect concrete tilt panels at their new office at 38th Street and Winslow Avenue in Phoenix, 1974.

Top right: John W. Lattimore at Arizona Bank, 1970s.

Right: John Lattimore shows Eddie Featherstone, a salesman for United Metro, a bike path slip form he built, 1970s.

student, intelligent, intuitive, and always a hard worker.

Eventually, my grandfather got a job with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a program for the unemployed that was created in 1935 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped build infrastructure and buildings in Downtown Phoenix. Dad went to Wilson Elementary School and Phoenix Union High School, enrolling in ROTC, hoping he might go to college by getting a scholarship to a military academy. But unfortunately, he didn’t realize that those positions were rarely provided to kids from his background growing up in south Phoenix. He just wasn’t well enough connected for that dream to come true.

In 1938 after high school, he joined the Marine Corps and spent four years proudly serving his country in communications and construction at home and on Guam during World War II. He dreamed of becoming a pilot, but since he was color-blind, he couldn’t become a candidate.

After his honorable discharge, my dad returned to Phoenix and began working ARIZCC.COM

in the construction industry. Along with his father, Jesse, and brother, Harry, they started with the Del Webb Construction Company in 1942, when Webb won the contract to build barracks and camps in Ft. Huachuca in southeastern Arizona. Dad liked to say that the company only had one truck when he started with Del Webb. Sadly, after the war, the company demolished the camps they had constructed there.

In Bisbee, my dad met my mom, Virginia, and they moved to Phoenix in 1946.

With his experience overseeing a crew of workers, both he and Harry became superintendents for Del Webb.

They left Del Webb in 1948, and after a two-year stint with Krumtum Contracting, Dad went into the curb/gutter business, operating out of his home north of McDowell Road in 1951. The following year, Dad opened a Yuma branch which Harry ran. After a few years, Harry purchased the operation and operated it as Kofa Construction until 1979, when he retired to ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Images Courtesy of Cheryl Wamskey

Left: Family members in front of the John W. Lattimore Concrete Contractor sign at 24th Street near Sky Harbor, late 1950s.

Above: Archie Gulliver, John Lattimore, Bill Rouse, Tony Pulice, and A. Deal Beck (l-r), during a leadership ceremony for Arizona Concrete Contractors Association, 1964.

Bottom left: John W. Lattimore with Cheryl Wamsley, his daughter, at a company Christmas Party, 1970s.

Below: John W. Lattimore (second from left), with other AGC members, examines the work of those in an apprenticeship program for concrete masons at 3220 North Third Street in Phoenix, 1968.

Watsonville, California, to become an apple farmer.

In 1951, Dad incorporated and became John W. Lattimore Cement Contractor.

The company purchased several pieces of equipment, including a Caterpillar blade, grading tractor, trucks, forms, dump trucks, and flatbeds. He employed many family members, friends, and young athletes from ASU, including future professional football player Curley Culp.

Dad fostered loyal friendships with his employees. Our annual Christmas Eve tamale fest tradition began in the 1950s when one of his foremen, Alfonso Barrios, delivered his wife’s delicious tamales to our home. Since then, our family has honored these important relationships by continuing

the tradition even though the tamales will never compare to the original delivery. My dad could always be counted on to be there for his family, friends, employees, and fellow construction colleagues.

Yet, despite all his success, Dad sometimes felt a bit inferior because he never attained a college degree. This factor made education vital to him. So, as Dad’s business became more successful, he offered to pay for his younger siblings to attend college. Sadly, none of them took him up on the generous proposal, but there was never any doubt that his children would be raised with the expectation that they would get a degree.

My parents, when not working, loved to fish and bought a houseboat they kept

at Lake Powell. They enjoyed quality time with friends, family, and colleagues on the water there. They also bought an RV and especially enjoyed traveling along the West Coast to Vancouver, BC, for the scenery and to host happy hours with their Canadian friends.

My brother, John T. Lattimore, and our families were the beneficiaries of the most exceptional and loving parents. Losing my dad suddenly in 1989, just months after his 68th birthday, due to a heart attack tore our world apart. The legacy that he and my mom left keeps us going to this day. Dad was admired and respected because he was a man of integrity and a good friend to all. You could always count on “Jay” Lattimore to be there in good times and bad.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

SIXTY EIGHT

JULY AUGUST 2023

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

JOHN W. LATTIMORE:

BUILDING A SOLID FOUNDATION IN ARIZONA Billy Horner

S

ome knew John W. Lattimore for his company’s quality concrete work for almost three decades throughout Arizona.

But others knew Lattimore for the behind-the-scenes work he did for his community. Whether it was KBUZ radio saluting him as Phoenix’s “Citizen of the Week” in 1963 or Reverend Louis Vasquez, Pastor of St. Anthony’s Church in south Phoenix, sending him a letter of gratitude for construction services in 1966, Lattimore’s philanthropy work did not go unnoticed.

Both his construction and charitable work provided Arizona with a solid foundation after World War II as the state’s population and associated infrastructure grew SEVENTY

by leaps and bounds. Here’s the story of his business, John W. Lattimore Company, and the many vital projects it helped construct.

The post-World War II housing boom in Arizona provided opportunities to entrepreneurs, including the John W. Lattimore Company, which became renowned for its concrete construction shortly after its launch in 1951. The company secured contracts with several developers, including John F. Long and Cavalier Homes.

By 1952, the Lattimore Company had poured the concrete curb and gutters in Cavalier Villa at 24th Street and Indian School Road. Krumtum Contracting held the contract for Long’s Maryvale Park at 27th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, as

well as Maryvale Manor at Seventh Avenue and Vista Avenue (now Orangewood).

For both projects, Krumtum subcontracted Lattimore to complete the curb and gutters and subsequently subcontracted the curb and gutter work for the Townhouse Terrace subdivision at 10th Street and Missouri Avenue.

The Lattimore Company also worked for Hallcraft, Lennar, Knoell, Suggs, Elmer Bradley, Continental, and Mastercraft. Lattimore purchased two acres on South 24th Street to keep up with the workload and built a new office just west of Sky Harbor Airport in 1957.

In the 1960s, Lattimore expanded his company into commercial structures, pouring floor slabs for the Mayer Central building at Central Avenue and Earll Drive in 1960 and parking structures for the United Bank building at Central and Osborn Road in 1963. A year later, when Route 66 was overhauled through Winslow, the firm poured two miles of curb and gutter, sidewalks, and drainage structures for both east and westbound lanes.

JULY AUGUST 2023

Far left: John W. Lattimore with his brother Lonnie Lattimore (r-l), 1940s.

Left: Lattimore crews pouring monolithic sidewalk and curbs in Maryvale, 1960.

Top right: John W. Lattimore advertisement, 1952.

Above: Lattimore recognized by builder John F. Long for Maryvale Manor, 1952.

Below: Lattimore crew with finished monolithic sidewalk and curb in Maryvale, 1960.

Lattimore’s reputation grew, and he was elected Arizona Concrete Contractors Association president in 1963. He was also active in Kiwanis, Shriners, and the Associated General Contractors (AGC), which awarded Lattimore’s company numerous safety certificates for no disabling job site injuries.

In 1965, Lattimore’s company finished the concrete on three towering sugar storage silos at the Spreckels Sugar factory south of Chandler. MacDonald Engineering broke ground for the California company’s new facility in November 1964, a few months after Arizona won a U.S. Department of Agriculture allotment for planting 20,000 acres of sugar beets.

The silos were built in two stages, according to an article in The Arizona Republic. First, the base of the silos extending 13 feet below ground, was completed in a continuous 17-hour pour of 3,200 yards of concrete. A month and a half later, the second pour of 4,250 yards of concrete into slip forms that reached 120 feet in height required six days.

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Images Courtesy of Cheryl Wamskey

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Above: Lattimore crew encasing pipe across the Salt River for the County Club Bridge, 1965.

Left: Town & Country Village Mall parking lot under construction by Lattimore Co. at 20th Street and Camelback Road, 1965.

Below: John W. Lattimore concrete stamp given to ACC as a gift by John T. Lattimore, 2023.

SEVENTY TWO

JULY AUGUST 2023

Right: Concrete work for the giant silos at the Spreckels Sugar factory in Chandler, provided

by Lattimore, 1966.

Below: Dean Johnson and John T. Lattimore (John W.’s son) during construction of their new Phoenix office at Winslow Avenue and 38th Street.

In May 1967, the plant began converting 4,250 tons of beets per day into about 1 million pounds of gleaming white sugar until it eventually closed and was razed in 1998.

The company won a contract from the City of Phoenix to construct a bridge over the Salt River at 19th Avenue in 1966. Lattimore completed the structure in record time using two shifts for $115,000.

The following year, Lattimore poured slabs for a community housing project in Window Rock on Navajo Tribal Lands and for structures and curbs at Los Arcos Mall.

He would later perform concrete work for Westridge Mall in 1980.

Much of Lattimore’s work came from the Arizona Highway Department and Valley cities during the 1970s. In 1974, his company poured 100,000 linear feet of curb and gutter at McCormick Ranch, along with drainage structures. Two years later, his firm poured the major storm drains and a low-flow bridge at Indian Bend Wash at Indian School and Chaparral roads for the City of Scottsdale.

At his company’s peak, employment ranged from 100-150 workers and featured a fleet of vehicles, work trucks, blades, flatbeds for forms, and miscellaneous

equipment. In 1974 Lattimore purchased 3.5 acres at 38th Street and Winslow Avenue in Phoenix to create a more extensive facility. The new complex housed a 20,000-square-foot concrete tilt panel shop and a 3,600-square-foot office.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

In 1980, ADOT started the Maricopa Freeway Beautification Project, for which Lattimore did the landscape areas and retaining walls. During the project, protesters were angry about using non-union labor and picketed the job site. A judge issued an order temporarily limiting picketers, whom Lattimore said had threatened violence and used profanity toward his employees. Eight patrolmen were dispatched, and a final ruling permitted a maximum of six picketers carrying signs no closer than 30 feet from the project.

Lattimore served as the general contractor for a wastewater treatment plant for Markland Properties Inc. at Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale in 1984. The $3.17 million project comprised significant concrete structures and sediment ponds, which employed new treatment technology.

During construction, Lattimore told Southwest Contractor in a 1984 interview that he would retire after the project’s completion.

Five years later, Lattimore passed away on January 16, 1989. His funeral included long-time employees, construction colleagues, family, and many friends. But his legacy lives on as a mentor who developed an apprenticeship program for cement finishers and helped create a training program for plasterers and cement masons in 1968.

It’s obvious Lattimore liked to build a solid foundation wherever he went.

Image Courtesy of Cheryl Wamsley

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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SEVENTY FOUR

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5582 DARK SKY RD FLAGSTAFF, AZ 86001 Parcel No. (APN): 116-04-013E Land Use: VACANT LAND Lot Area: 87,120.00 sqft (2 ACRES) Owner: FLAGSTAFF RANCH SELF STORAGE LLC

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50.00' (ROW)

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10.00'

R40.00' PROPERTY LINE

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19.50'

PROPERTY LINE

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R10.00'

30.50'

30.50'

S89° 58' 33"E 131.31 FT R10.00'

136.50'

R=20.00' L=15.50'

ACCESS 30.00'

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336.50'

R10.00'

31.00'

31.00'

R=50.00' L=85.12' DRIVEWAY

2.00' 17.50'

503.00'

9.00'

9.00'

9.00'

9.00'

9.00'

18.00'

9.00'

18.00'

9.00'

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8.50'

2.00'

13.00'

396.50'

CURB & GUTTER

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427.00'

280.50'

9.00'

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9.00'

PROPOSED BUILDING

9.00'

201.50'

N00° 08' 22"E 340.01 FT

9.00'

PROPERTY LINE

339.94 FT S00° 00' 00"E

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9.00'

50.00'

9.00'

50.00'

9.00'

9.00'

2.00'

9.00'

50.00' 20.00'

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100.00'

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50.00'

6.00'

2.00'

18.00'

427.00'

20.00'

6.00'

9.00'

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9.00'

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6.00' 29.50'

20.00'

15.00'

14.00'

18.00' 2.00'

26.00'

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50.00'

50.00'

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20.00'

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12.00'

20.00'

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2.00'

9.00'

2.00'

9.00'

2.00'

61.00'

PARKING

2.00' 17.50'

543.39 FT N90° 00' 00"W PROPERTY LINE

N

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

OLD SCHOOL EQUIPMENT: THE LOGGING TRUCK Billy Horner

T

imber logs floating down waterways or loaded on railcars are a historic and inexpensive method of transporting these heavy materials to mills to be processed into lumber and other wood products. But most logs today are shipped by logging trucks or timber lorries, a method first used near Covington, Washington, in 1913.

Timber companies typically used flatbed trucks or trailers to move the dense logs. One unusual method involved transporting them on trucks with flange wheels, which rode on the rims without rubber tires, along logs staged as an elevated road.

Another technique used wood planks to make a linear path for trucks transporting logs out of the forest.

In the 1920s, a truck trailer was developed with an adjustable wooden structure, allowing trucks to haul more weight and carry logs of varying lengths. Trucks could also be equipped with winches to pull trees to the road, a process called “yarding,” and load the logs onto a trailer.

Improved logging trucks were available by the mid-1930s, equipped with multi-axles and engines with more torque. Oregon and Washington had roughly 900 trucks in operation, transporting as much logging material as the railroads.

As equipment and machines evolved, so did transport haulers. Today, the standard log-haul tractor is a tandem-axle truck with a steel set of 8-foot, 6-inch bunks

Above: A Caterpillar 977 track loader folding a log trailer into a piggyback position during Reed Smith Company logging operations near McNary, 1961.

Below: A Mack truck with flange wheels set on a pole road, 1920s.

and stakes attached to a turntable and mounted to the trailer frame. Depending on the log size, the stakes allow multiple logs to be stacked up to 8 feet high. When a truck operates empty, the trailer folds into a “piggyback” form, where no trailer axles touch the ground to reduce tire wear.

Arizona had several logging haulers operating by the 1940s, including Doy Reidhead of Show Low, who worked in the White Mountains. His fleet of 12 haul trucks supplied mills belonging to Southwest Forest Industries.

Image Courtesy of Coos Historical and Maritime Museum

SEVENTY SIX

JULY AUGUST 2023

Left: A driver with a Kenworth hauler working for R.T. Holliday & Sons Inc. in northern Arizona, 1972.

Above: Doy Reidhead (left) briefing one of his drivers during logging operations in the White Mountains, 1970.

Below: A loaded Kenworth truck during Reed Smith Company logging operations near McNary, 1961.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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Building on the Past 1960S: DEL WEBB’S RAIL CRANES BILLY HORNER

T

he Del E. Webb Corporation traveled far and wide to build structures in the 1960s. They also went sky-high. The company built several high-rise complexes, which utilized cranes, lifts, and other methods to assist construction as they rose in height to accommodate workers, space, and materials. On several projects, Del Webb constructed a bed of aggregate and laid wooden ties and steel railroad tracks to move a crane around a job site.

PAGE

In 1963, Del Webb built the 10-story Twin Tower Apartments for Phoenix Memorial Hospital. The $1.8 million project, currently called Memorial Towers Senior Apartments, was at the northeast corner of Pima Street and Seventh Avenue. The company operated a Bucyrus Erie tower crane on rail tracks to assist with construction.

That same year, Del Webb put a Bucyrus Erie tower crane on rail tracks to build their $25 million project at the

12.5-acre Rosenzweig Center. The 25-story hotel and office tower, near Central Avenue on the north side of Clarendon Avenue, was Arizona’s second-tallest building when completed.

Del Webb implemented the rail system on three other projects using a 120-foot Pecco tower crane. In 1966, the company used its rail crane on a $5.9 million contract to construct the University of Arizona College of Medicine’s largest building in Tucson. In 1969, Del Webb laid 260 feet of track to reposition the crane during the construction of Boswell Memorial Hospital in Sun City. A decade later, in 1979, the Pecco crane was again put on rail tracks to construct a $6.15 million, four-story maximum security cell block at the Arizona State Prison in Florence.

JULY AUGUST 2023

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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Opposite page: A Bucyrus Erie crane positioned on rail tracks during the Twin Tower Apartments construction for Phoenix Memorial Hospital, 1964.

Left: A Bucyrus Erie rail track crane during construction of the Rosenzweig parking garage in Phoenix, 1964.

Above: Construction of the rail track for a Pecco tower crane for the Boswell Memorial Hospital in Sun City, 1969.

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

I

n Arizona’s unforgiving Sonoran Desert stands a series of unexpected elegant and sophisticated structures, which are the architecture of James T. Flynn and Associates. The firm was active from the early 1970s through the late 1980s.

James T. Flynn, AIA, received his Bachelor of Architecture degree at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1956. He taught from 1958 to 1959 at Idaho State College (now Idaho State University), followed by a Master of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1960.

Afterward, Flynn studied in Italy under a Fulbright Scholarship and worked for Gustoff Lettstrom in Stockholm, Sweden, and Carl Koch & Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He met his wife in Sweden, and they later had two children. Flynn became an Instructor of Architecture at Kent State University in 1961 and specialized in urban renewal. In 1963, Flynn received the Rotch Traveling Prize, which funded travel to study architecture.

Flynn came to Arizona in 1964 and became a full-time faculty member at Arizona State University’s College of Architecture. He was an Assistant Professor of Architecture and a Third Level Studio Design Critic until 1979. Flynn received his Arizona architectural registration in 1964, which remained active until 2018. He became an American Institute of Architects member in the Central Arizona Chapter in 1965.

Starting in 1966, Flynn was a partner in the firm of Doyle, Flynn and Associates,

Architect’s Perspective: James T. Flynn, AIA: Delivering Permanence Doug Sydnor, FAIA

Doug_sydnor@outlook.com with architect Gerald Doyle, FAIA. The firm created Valley National Bank branches and custom residential homes. In 1970, he launched James T. Flynn and Associates with an office studio at 6122 North 51st Place in Paradise Valley. Flynn was on his subdivision’s Architectural Control Board and became a long-distance runner, often participating in the Boston Marathon.

“I’m on a permanence in architecture kick now,” Flynn told The Arizona Republic in 1971. “I don’t like wood for use in the desert. Wood twists, turns, and shrinks. I believe anyone who uses non-permanent materials to produce architecture is fiscally irresponsible.” This attitude is reflected in his work over his long career, as he typically used masonry, steel, and glass. The article stated that Flynn “…designs structures fitting their surroundings, functioning for individual families, and pleasing passersby with some contrasts of color, materials, and forms.”

The following projects capture this priority of permanence.

Flynn designed the Sunshine Land and Cattle Co. office building at 1545 West

Thomas Road in Phoenix for Robert B. Kaiser. National Western Corp. completed the construction in 1974. Sunshine Land was developing a master-planned community 30 miles west of Phoenix on 10,000 acres.

The building is located on a corner property within the Margarita Place subdivision and overlooks the Encanto Golf Course.

The main 4,000-square-foot structure is elevated four feet to address flooding concerns but is more likely to capture the dramatic golf-course views and sunsets.

The structure consists of exposed steel tube columns, W flange, and channel beams; and has a continuous open bay wrapping three sides of the building. This perimeter zone has trellised metal slats, which partially shade the recessed glazing.

Some mesh screening arrived later, probably as a deterrent to discourage birds from flying into the windows. The solid walls are a dark brown concrete masonry unit, and subtlety shift out from the surrounding steel frame, effectively differentiating these materials. The office has a flat roof built up over lightweight concrete with a light well that brightens the interior.

Flynn’s firm completed about 25 K-12 schools throughout Arizona, including the John F. Kennedy Middle School for the Roosevelt Elementary School District No. 66 at 6825 South 10th Street in Phoenix.

This innovative school won the 1976 Western Mountain Region AIA Design Award that same year.

The school has a grand courtyard, surrounded by one-story structures of exposed masonry classrooms, administration, and support spaces. The solid walls facing the public side and streets are fluted split-face concrete masonry units. In contrast, those facing the courtyard are fullheight glass that provides a spatial connection between the indoors and outdoors and introduces natural light. Between the building wings are the courtyard’s open breezeways. This layout creates a safe, vandal-resistant perimeter that provides a pleasant environment for the students and staff to gather.

The courtyard is capped by an overhead black steel “space frame,” essentially a two-way truss system that achieves enormous clear spans between the

Images Courtesy of Author

EIGHTY TWO

JULY AUGUST 2023

OTHER ARIZONA PROJECTS:

masonry columns. A lower steel-framed canopy defines the courtyard perimeter and shades the windows. Underneath is a raised platform, concrete walkways and seating, turf, shade trees, and lighting. Such durable site improvements have held up well for 47 years. Additional support spaces such as mechanical, receiving, and a large dumpster enclosure are defined by curved walls, which is a soft counterpoint to the cubic building volumes.

In 1980, Flynn’s firm also designed the Valley National Bank (now Chase Bank) at 12240 North Tatum Boulevard in Phoenix.

The bank is within Paradise Valley Mall village and visually anchors a retail shopping center. The pavilion-like structure is defined by a looming black space frame over the composition. This lightweight assembly extends to define outdoor spaces as the primary bank entry with the ATM and the drive-thru lanes. Below this large canopy are cubic volumes of exposed 4 x 8 x 16-inch tan concrete masonry unit walls that slip underneath with deeply recessed windows. The warm-colored palette of materials is natural and holds up in our severe climate.

James T. Flynn and Associates completed various building types, including

custom homes, commercial, multi-family residential, industrial, institutional, and public schools. Many were highly publicized and received professional design awards. Flynn’s International-style architecture adapted to our harsh environment with durable structures and materiality, delivering a refreshing permanence.

• 1967 Tolone Residence, Town of Paradise Valley (demolished 2023) • 1971 Casa Grande Junior High School and K-5 Additions, Casa Grande • 1971 Flynn Residence, Town of Paradise Valley • 1973 Cook Residence, Town of Paradise Valley • 1973 Roth Development Corp. Office, 8828 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix • 1974 Apache Junction High School Addition, Apache Junction • 1978 Butler Tempe subdivision (now Papago Square), College Avenue & McKellips Road, Tempe • 1978 Valley National Bank Branch, 915 W. Camelback Road, Phoenix (now Goldberg & Osborne) • 1981 Frye Elementary School, Chandler • 1983 Copperwood Elementary School K-7, Peoria Unified School District, Peoria • 1984 Four Peaks Elementary School, Apache Junction • 1985 John D. Anderson Elementary School, Chandler • 1985 Gold Canyon Elementary School, Gold Canyon • 1988 Administration Building, Chandler Unified School District, Chandler Douglas B. Sydnor, FAIA, is Principal at Douglas Sydnor Architect + Associates, Inc. and the author of three Arizona architecture books.

Left: Sunshine Land and Cattle Co. office, Phoenix.

Above: John F. Kennedy Middle School, Phoenix.

Right: Valley National Bank at Tatum Boulevard and Cactus Road, Phoenix.

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DIGGING THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: ROCK ‘N’ ROLL INFLUENCES SIDEWALK CONSTRUCTION Billy Horner

I

n the late 1950s, Al Jones was an employee of the John W. Lattimore Company when he invented a machine to pour sidewalks and, in the spirit of the times, dubbed it the “Jiggle-Bug.” Jones’s concept was similar to an asphalt laydown machine

and combined three operations utilized in concrete work: screeding, tamping, and floating. These steps smooth out the wet ready-mix concrete brought to the job site by concrete trucks, which was poured into sidewalk forms at the time.

The Jiggle-Bug used two parallel screed bars that operated in a combined vertical and lateral motion, creating a rocking and rolling action. “The whole operation was automatic; it was only necessary to start the small gasoline engine mounted to one side,” Jones said in a 1959 interview.

The wheel edge of the machine rode on either wood or steel concrete forms.

On one side sat the forms for the back of the sidewalk, and on the opposite side, the wheel rode on the back side of the curb and gutter, which were already in place. “We can set the 300-pound machine to operate

Above: Arizona Sand & Rock ready-mix truck delivering concrete to a John W. Lattimore crew using the Jiggle-Bug machine in Maryvale, 1960.

Right: John W. Lattimore crew using the Jiggle-Bug machine in Maryvale, 1960.

Below: Concrete curb stamp, 1953.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

EIGHTY SIX

JULY AUGUST 2023

Images Courtesy of Cheryl Wamsley

Left: John W. Lattimore crew with X-100 machine in Maryvale, early 1960s.

Above: John W. Lattimore crew with X-100 machine in Maryvale, early 1960s.

Below: An unknown machine operator, Billy McGough and Jim Lattimore (l-r), with the X-100 monolithic machine, early 1960s.

on forms set at various widths, from 4 to 6 feet sidewalks depending on the specs,” Jones said. “The Jiggle-Bug could lay up to 1,600 linear feet per hour.” The Jiggle-Bug was first used in John F. Long’s Maryvale development in 1959.

Soon after the invention of the Jiggle-Bug, John W. Lattimore developed the X-100 in 1961. This was the first monolithic sidewalk curb and gutter machine used in Arizona, and it changed the game in concrete construction. Lattimore and Jones are

listed on the patent as co-inventors of the X-100, as variations were tried and tested in Maryvale in 1960.

By then, Jones had left the Lattimore company to launch Jones Manufacturing Co., which had an office at 4239 North

Image Courtesy of John T. Lattimore

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Above: Concrete crew demoing a third version of a sidewalk curb and gutter machine in Maryvale, 1960.

Right: John W. Lattimore crew with X-100 machine in Maryvale, early 1960s.

Below: Concrete crew with another version of an automatic sidewalk machine in Maryvale, 1960.

Seventh Street in Phoenix, where the VA Medical Center is now. Homebuilder John F. Long used a monolithic machine similar to the X-100 in Maryvale in the early 1960s.

It’s unclear if Jones sold versions of the X-100 to other Arizona contractors.

John T. Lattimore, John W. Lattimore’s son, describes how the X-100 was operated. “We used Massey Ferguson tractors to run down the staked row with different forms for proper depth. Then a tamper was used for compaction before the machine was set in place. The machine was heavy, so we used the tractor bucket to hoist it into place. The machine could pull a cul

de sac curve if the radius were gradual enough, but using wood forms was harder, which gave you the perfect circle.” He adds that sometimes it was easier to form and pour a radius using wood flex forms, as the machine could sometimes derail and waste concrete.

Other machines capable of pouring sidewalks and curb and gutter debuted nationally in the mid-1960s but weren’t mass-produced until the late 1960s.

The Jiggle-Bug and monolithic sidewalk machines from Phoenix were the only roller-type equipment until then. “We purchased the first Easi-Pour slip form machine

Image Courtesy of Cheryl Wamsley

from South Dakota in the late 1960s,” says John T. Lattimore. “This was an advanced machine used for curb and gutter work.”

Lattimore says that Jones was a talented guy who later designed and made the conference table for his dad at their new Phoenix office on Winslow Avenue. He doesn’t recall his father ever making or selling the monolithic machines to any other concrete companies during those early days. With the company’s heavy workload, they purchased newer, more advanced equipment but continued to use the X-100 until the company closed in 1987.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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JULY AUGUST 2023

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Beloat Self Storage RV Buckeye Campbell Development $17,000,000 5/25/23

Bike Pedestrian Improvements Country Club Low Mountain Pro Low $5,995,212 6/6/23

Apache Junction Old West Granite Construction $6,788,352 5/19/23

Bungalows Norterra Alexander Building Co. $91,000,000 5/25/23

(JOC) Speed Hump Cushion Program 2023 MR Tanner Construction $3,600,000 6/8/23

Ehrenberg Phoenix Dome Rock Rd Fisher Sand & Gravel $28,200,200 5/19/23

City Wide Concrete Asphalt Repairs Program Gonzalez Asphalt Construction Arizona $1,363,480 5/31/23

7 Eleven Phoenix ESI Engineered Structures $4,000,000 6/8/23

West Air Cargo Reconstruction J Banicki Construction Co. $23,999,974 5/23/23

Deer Valley Airport Blast Pads Desert Services International $1,513,803 5/31/23

Thornton Road Interstate 8 Selma Highway iSX Construction $6,524,033 6/9/23

London Bridge Road Pavement Rehabilitation Frys 656 Fuel Station Queen Creek Pioneer Earthmovers Inc ESI Engineered Structures $1,176,115 $1,500,000 5/24/23 6/1/23

Minor Concrete Improvements 2023 2024 Vincon Engineering Construction $2,169,250 6/14/23

Pulliam Douglas Roadway Reconstruction Fann Contracting $1,571,677 5/24/23

Runway 12R 30L Reconstruction Schedules Pulice Construction $8,811,653 6/1/23

Drake Road Reclamation Asphalt Paving & Supply $1,590,290 6/15/23

Airport Taxiway South Apron Reconstruction J Banicki Construction Co. $2,480,934 5/25/23

(JOC) Roadway Repair Maintenance Tucson Asphalt Contractors, Inc. $10,000,000 6/1/23

Ben Avery Shooting Facility Water Phase 3 Red Hawk Solutions $2,808,423 6/15/23

Prasada Parkway Extension Traffic Signal DCS Contracting Inc. $5,000,000 5/25/23

Peoria 73rd Ave Stadium Meridian $2,953,610 6/2/23

Bodaway Gap Health Center Okland Construction $45,000,000 6/15/23

La Vida Solstice Alexander Building Co. $6,000,000 5/25/23

Willcox Business SR 10B Arizona Ave Granite Construction $3,892,698 6/2/23

Cordes Flagstaff McGuireville Haydon Building Corp. $6,052,750 6/16/23

After final approval from the Highway Commission, Governor Jack Williams signs the State Highway Budget for 1968-69, totaling $288,266,000.

Fisher Contracting, Phoenix $929,494 Grading, Drainage, Paving 5 Miles SR-387 The Ashton Co., Tucson $493,108 Grading, Drainage, Paving, 11-Span Bridge 1.4 Miles US-80 Bentson Contracting, Phoenix $1,846,351 Sealcoat, Resurfacing 8.5 Miles I-19 Morrison-Knudsen, Phoenix $2,779,307 Grading, Drainage, Paving 12.8 Miles I-40 Martin Const., Tucson $598,088 Grading, Drainage, Paving 1.38 Miles SR-82 Robert Ewing, Phoenix $163,393 4-Span Bridge 7th St. & Salt River New Pueblo Constr., Tucson $1,032,986 Grading, Drainage, Paving, 4-Span Bridges 2.37 Miles I-19 The Ashton Co., Tucson $1,791,664 2.3 Miles I-10 Grading, Drainage, Paving, 5 Bridges

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