Volume 6 Issue 3
$5.99 Fall 2017
Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community. . .
● Sky-High Dining at Cloud 9 ● Upshaw's Upscale Subdivisions ● Imirzian's Sunnyslope Creations ● AZUCA 2017 Membership Directory
● Monkey Business at North Mountain Hospital ● Moorish Bowling Alley Rolls a Gutter Ball ● Dr. Hall's House of Wonders ● Sunnyslope's Beer-Drinking Burro Fall 2017
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Publisher William Horner Billy@arizcc.com
Will celebrate the issue at Karl's Bakery in Sunnyslope.
Thanks to Kelley’s Machine Shop for rebuilding my 350 SB engine!
Your Ideas Your Stories Your Suggestions
We want to hear from
you!
contact@arizcc.com Help us make ACC the Best it can Four
Contributing Writers Carly Hanson Luke M. Snell Douglas Sydnor Isaac Windes
Will celebrate the issue at Karl's Bakery in Sunnyslope.
Production Manager Laura Harley Laura@arizcc.com
Will be checking out Sunnyslope Vintage N Resale after this issue.
Magazine Consultant Chuck Runbeck Chuck@arizcc.com
Publisher’s Representatives Tom Hogarty Tom@arizcc.com Rick Lafond Rick@arizcc.com
Your comments
Contact us
Editor Douglas Towne Douglas@arizcc.com
Barry Warner Barry@arizcc.com Advertising 602-931-0069 Arizcc.com/advertise.html
Visit us online at arizcc.com Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community… Then & Now Arizona Contractor & Community (ACC) magazine is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, & winter). 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. Arizona Contractor & Community Copyright © 2017 All rights reserved.
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FEEDBACK here are no words that can explain what Arizona Contractor & Community magazine means to me. I have lived in Arizona since 1959 and have had some connection or recollection to just about everything you have published. I read each issue, cover-to-cover, four or five times until the pages are so smudged I can't read them anymore. I've learned more about the history of Arizona and my industry from your magazine than from any other source.
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Respectfully submitted, Alan Miner, President A. Miner Contracting, Inc. Prescott, Arizona Editor’s Note: Mr. Miner is leading an initiative called Project 19, which proposes utilizing heavy equipment to create fire breaks to improve forest fire containment in Arizona.
subscribe to your great magazine. I am a Valley native and love the articles that show Phoenix from the 60s and 70s. I read your recent article on flight training in Arizona during World War II. I wanted to thank you for keeping the history alive. About 18 years ago my brother and I wrote a book on this very subject. We flew the state photographing and documenting all the fields. Attached is a crude cut and paste from the prologue from the book showing the airfields that we visited. Keep up the good work with the magazine. I eagerly await each issue.
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Steve Hoza, Archivist Huhugam Ki Museum, Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community Scottsdale, Arizona
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enjoy the historical side of the magazine. I've come up through the trades
in the Valley and can identify with many of the stories printed on a personal level having been involved with many of the projects and companies profiled. Additionally, I appreciate the local feel of the magazine and seeing how Phoenix has grown over the years and the stories surrounding the contractors involved. To be able to show someone a picture from the past profiling a particular building or project is very cool! Keep up the great work! Patrick Smith, Senior Superintendent Willmeng Construction, Inc. Phoenix, Arizona
thought your articles about my aviation experiences in Arizona Contractor & Community magazine were excellent. Anyway, I wanted you to know that I was very pleased with how you used information in my stories and blended it into two fascinating articles. Thank you. Until I saw your magazine, I had forgotten that it was construction related. The pictures of machinery brought back memories of my year at the Coast Guard's Cape Sarichef Loran Station on Unimak Island, Alaska. We were situated on the northwest corner of this easternmost island in the Aleutians. Unimak separates the Pacific Ocean from the Bering Sea. At that time it was a national wildlife refuge populated with enormous brown bears. Shortly after my arrival, our commanding officer put me in charge of road maintenance. We had 14 miles of road, 12 of it between the cape and our landing strip in Unimak Pass, the maritime highway into the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The road wound up through a valley about 1,200 feet high between a tall cinder cone and two volcanos, then back down to the coast. In the winter the road was covered in up to eight feet of snow. We used tracked Weasels to drive over the snow following eight-foot-tall two by fours driven into the ground to mark the road. My equipment for road maintenance included Caterpillar D-8 and D-4 dozers and a road grader. The job began in late April when
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snow began melting and washed out the road in many places. Two other miles of the road ran from the station to our lightering beach where we brought supplies such as engine parts, crates of canned goods, and barrels of diesel fuel and gasoline ashore. These were things too heavy for transport in our everytwo-week flight from Kodiak, 550 miles to the northeast, weather permitting. We had two LVTs (Landing Vehicle Tracked) for transporting cargo from ships anchored offshore in the Bering Sea. We carried up to 15 barrels of fuel on each trip from the ship to the beach, or directly to the station. I also operated one of the LVTs. With that beginning, it would not have been hard for me to be steered into the construction trades. Strangely enough one of my classmates at ASU received degrees in engineering and construction. Kent Goodman was one of the better-known lifting engineers in the world. Even after his retirement, his company called him back for large jobs in China and Korea. He also consulted on the new bridge at Boulder Dam, after wind damaged the first attempt. He lives in Henderson Nevada. Jim Baker, retired Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander and Arizona Highway Patrolman Chandler, Arizona
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Volume 6 Issue 3 Fall 2017
11435 W. Buckeye Road Suite #104-276, Avondale, AZ 85323
CONTENTS
(623) 925-8966 (O) | (623) 925-1072 (F) Travis Williams - General Manager travis@azdbm.com | (602) 292-1224
10.
Editor’s Column: A Distinct “Slope”: Phoenix’s Unique Community Douglas Towne
13.
Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices
36.
Building on the Past: 1947: Upshaw’s Upscale Sunnyslope Subdivisions
38.
Sky-High Dining: The Cloud 9 Restaurant Atop Shaw Butte - Douglas Towne
42.
North Mountain Hospital: Too Much Monkey Business - Douglas Towne
46.
A Goliath Gutter Ball: Sunnyslope’s Spanish Trails Lanes - Douglas Towne
50.
The King of Sunnyslope: Dr. Hall’s House of Wonders - Douglas Towne
55. 56.
Back When: Burger Chef and Jeff - Douglas Towne
Jim Latto - Business Development jim@azdbm.com | (602) 696-4139
Donavon Stewart - Operations Manager donavon@azdbm.com | (623) 271-5042 Avondale Plant #17 & #18 SWC Southern & El Mirage 20 trucks (safely can deliver 250cy/hr.) Ross 10 yd. Batch Plant Con-E-Co LO PRO 12 yd. Batch Plant
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Certified Cranes Certified Operators Machinery Moving Site Surveys - Storage
Filling the Tank: Sunnyslope’s Beer Drinking Burro Douglas Towne
58.
Architect’s Perspective: Marlene Imirzian, FAIA: Sunnyslope Architect - Doug Sydnor, FAIA
62.
Digging Through the Archives: Sunnyslope’s Construction “Web” - William Horner
67. 68.
Bid Results - Bidjudge ACC Advertisers’ Index
480-967-0026 Front Cover Facing east along Second Street and Dunlap Road, Sunnyslope Plaza Shopping Center, 1960s.
Eight
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Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine
Douglas Towne
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hoenix was a wide open town after World War II, where almost any crazy idea could become a reality. This mindset was especially evident in Sunnyslope, which was then an unincorporated part of Maricopa County located nine miles north of Downtown Phoenix. The community had a fiercely independent streak and voted against becoming part of Phoenix in 1949, 1953, 1955, and 1958, until finally officially joining the city in 1959. Arizona Contractor & Community magazine is proud to feature this special issue on Sunnyslope, in which we’ll highlight
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some of its larger-than-life, though often, overlooked characters. Individuals like Richard Barker, Dr. Kenneth Hall, and Charles Abels made Sunnyslope unique with these narratives: ● A mountain-top restaurant destroyed by a mysterious fire, ● A hospital with a primate zoo, ● A bowling alley set in a castle featuring gourmet French food, ● A house with a giraffe enclosure, and ● A gas station with a beer-guzzling burro.
These tales are in contrast to most accounts of Sunnyslope, which focus on its early days as a convalescent camp of residents who suffered from respiratory problems such as asthma or tuberculosis. Unwelcome in Phoenix in the early part of the 20th century, these often indigent health-seekers moved north of the Arizona Canal to squat in tents and tarpaper shacks, hoping the desert air would improve their health. Humanitarian efforts to assist their suffering led to the creation of the Desert Mission in the 1920s. Led by Marguerite
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man, filed a claim with the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office for acreage on the moon. “He would pass out certificates for deeds to a few acres on the moon to parade spectators,” says McGuirk. McGuirk‘s TV shop proved popular when movies such as the Wizard of Oz were aired. “Family and friends would assemble there to watch if I had a customer’s color set in the shop,” he says. Making television repairs, however, was a challenge in the early days. Phoenix’s lone TV station, KHPO Channel 5, was only on-air from about 5 to 10 p.m. “There was no signal at other times of the day to be able to fix TVs," he says. "We had to beg the station to transmit a test pattern during the day so we could do repair work.”
And maybe you can even unlock the mystery of Sunnyslope’s “Stonehenge” ruin.
We’ll be surprised, if after reading this special issue, some readers don’t dig deeper into this interesting community, which encompasses the area from the Arizona Canal to North Mountain and from 19th Avenue to 19th Street. Sunnyslope includes residences featuring a wide diversity of architectural styles, Victor Viking who watches over Sunnyslope High School, “S” Mountain that was created by students in 1954, and the oldest Mennonite Church in the Valley. And maybe you can even unlock the mystery of Sunnyslope’s “Stonehenge” ruin, located south of Hatcher Road on “Mission Hill.” If so, please drop us a line, as we never tire of uncovering unique stories. Opposite page: Sunnyslope's “S” Mountain, 1960s. Top right: Sunnyslope window decal. Below: "Stonehenge" (left) and "S" Mountain (right).
Images courtesy of Author
Colley and Elizabeth Beatty, a duo called the “Angels of Mercy,” these women provided the community’s first health care. Later, their efforts were augmented by Ellen Ekeland and Dr. Fred Holmes, the first nurse and physician at the Desert Mission. Local businessman John C. Lincoln’s generous donations eventually resulted in a hospital that was founded in 1954 and still bears his name. Post-World War II activities in Sunnyslope included real estate visionaries such as W. D. Upshaw, William P. Voita, and Leslie Mahoney, who replaced shacks with subdivisions and supplemented local Mom and Pop stores with shopping centers. Donn's TV Service at 617 West Hatcher was one such local shop. Donn McGuirk, who moved to Sunnyslope from Detroit in 1951, recalls the days when there was no need to lock your doors and rain caused electrical outages when the underground wires shorted out. The Sunnyslope Days Parade was a highlight for McGuirk, who remembers one year when a parade float featured the singing talent of Wayne Newton and his brother, Jerry. Harold Rothman was another memorable character. Rothman, a local business-
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Construction Around Arizona Images courtesy of ADOT
Construction Around Arizona Projects ∙ People ∙ Practices South Mountain Freeway on Track Carly Hanson
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here were significant developments this summer on the 22-mile South
Mountain Freeway, which will extend Loop 202 and connect to the I-10 in the East and West Valleys. These include girder placement on the future 17th Avenue bridge, straddle bent falsework on I-10 Papago Freeway at 59th Avenue, and the formation of two, half-mile bridges in Laveen that will carry traffic across the Salt River. The Arizona Department of Transportation has joined forces with Connect 202 Partners, a private developer, to execute the largest construction project in the state’s history. ADOT Public Information Officer Dustin Krugel said the expansion of the South Mountain Freeway should improve travel between the southeast and
southwest areas of the Valley, as well as reduce congestion on I-10. It is projected to save 15-million hours of travel time in the first year, worth $200 million, according to Maricopa Association of Governments’ regional travel model. ADOT and Connect 202 Partners understand there will be “significant traffic impacts” because of this massive construction project, Krugel said. “There’s never a good time to close a freeway, particularly one as busy as I-10.” However, he pointed out that the benefits of the South Mountain Freeway addition will outweigh the cost in the long run. Time is money, and commuters should expect to shave time off their trips once the freeway is open. According to 2035
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