Nov/Dec 2018

Volume 7 Issue 6

$5.99 Nov - Dec 2018 Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community. . . Then & Now

Arizona’s Timeless MagAzine

The Casa Grande Issue

• • • • • •

Gorraiz Book Celebrates Casa Grande’s Past Casa Grande’s Futuristic Domes Seek a Concrete Future An Architect on the Move: Hiram Hudson Benedict Arizona Machinery’s James Bowlin Jr.’s Pinal County Legacy A “Noble” Endeavor: Casa Grande’s New Sign Park Life in a Cotton Crossroads: Friendly Corners

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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, and 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.

Arizona Contractor & Community Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved.

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Luke M. Snell Article on page 27

Marilyn Szabo Article on page 48

I have spent most of my professional life teaching and consulting on concrete projects.

My career path started in college, assisting civil engineering graduate students on their research projects. I performed grunt work such as running the materials lab that included testing fresh concrete and concrete cylinders. Two professors encouraged me to build on these experiences. They co-authored my first paper on concrete testing and provided support for my further studies in graduate school.

After seven years of consulting and troubleshooting on concrete projects, I had an opportunity to start a Construction Management Department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. By working with construction workers and students, I thought I could improve the quality of their concrete.

Concrete has given me some unique opportunities. I have been asked to go to some unusual places to help start concrete programs and certifications, including Algeria, China, Mongolia, Saipan, Taiwan, and Tunisia.

I enjoy sharing, what it took me years to learn, with students and professionals in our industry. Arizona Contractor and Community magazine has given me an opportunity to tell some of my stories, communicate good concrete practices, and document the history of concrete. Hopefully, my contribution will improve concrete practices in Arizona, and maybe bring a smile to readers as we relive some not-so-successful concrete stories.

Photographer Marilyn Szabo has been capturing striking imagery fueled by her love of history for 25 years. She was trained in photography and received her BA from Virginia Commonwealth University in history. Her portfolio includes images from her extensive domestic travels and while living in Paris.

Her photography creates stunning and intimate works by exploring a variety of diverse subjects including architecture, landscape, and people. She prefers to create compositions as part of a series.

Szabo’s artwork has been featured in numerous publications including Triumph of Our Communities, Bilingual Press, Tempe, Black and White Magazine, and The Sun. She received the Alligator Juniper’s 2010 National Photography Award, and her work was featured on the cover. She has won five arts commission awards, garnered many grants, and her work is found in numerous collections.

In 2003, Szabo began curating the At Work in Arizona Collection commissioned by Alliance Bank of Arizona. The collection consists of 375 black and white images depicting the economic history of the state.

The book, At Work in Arizona: The First 100 Years featuring 80 of Szabo’s photographs, was published in 2014.

Her most recent solo show was Life&Death:Portraits at the Mesa Arts Center. She is currently working on an accompanying portrait book and the Gorraiz book project.

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Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices

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Back When: A “Grande” Slam - Douglas Towne

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P: 928 567-6585 E: btippett@networxcs.com. www.networxCS.com Eight

From The Editor: Art Deco Reimagined: Casa Grande’s Railroad Station - Douglas Towne

Streets with No Name: Bowlin’s Audacious Sign Language - Laura Joy DeLay Bowlin Futuristic Domes Seek a Concrete Future in Casa Grande - Douglas Towne Building On The Past: 1957: Banking on Casa Grande’s Growth A “Noble” Endeavor: Casa Grande’s Sign Park Douglas Towne Friendly Corners: Life in a Cotton Crossroads Douglas Towne Documenting a City: The Gorraiz Book Project Marilyn Szabo Architect’s Perspective: Hiram Hudson Benedict, AIA: Always on the Move - Doug Sydnor

Digging Through the Archives: Roman Candelaria William Horner

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Bid Results - Bidjudge

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ACC Advertisers’ Index

Front Cover - A sign erected by the Casa Grande Jaycees on Arizona Highway 87 in the mid-1950s.

Article on page 48.

Inset - Filling a water truck during construction of I-10 near Picacho, 1960. Article on page 56.

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R

ailroads were the genesis of many Arizona settlements. Steam locomotives, roaring into town belching smoke, brought in more than just passengers and freight, however. The ornate stations constructed by the railroads were often the architectural showpiece of the communities.

Some communities have been fortunate to repurpose these irreplaceable buildings. One example is the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad station in Douglas, a striking example of Classic Revival architecture that opened in 1902 and is now used as headquarters for the city police department.

Sadly, Casa Grande is not one of those Top: Architect’s rendering, 1939.

Below: Casa Grande Railroad Station, 1940.

PAGE

Editor’s column

Art Deco Reimagined: Casa Grande’s Railroad Station Douglas Towne

cities that managed to preserve its station. This is especially tragic since it was a rare Arizona example of an architectural style unique to the Southwest. The station opened in 1940, and its Pueblo Deco architecture resulted from regionalization of the Art Deco style. How did Casa Grande come

to have an outstanding example of this unique style?

The Southern Pacific railroad founded Casa Grande, unceremoniously, while laying tracks in 1879. The work was progressing eastward from California when construction was temporarily halted because

Nov-Dec 2018

Casa Grande Railroad Station, 2006.

The following year, the Southern Pacific railroad released an architectural sketch of the new depot that was of Pueblo design with Native American ornamental enrichments. The station was designed at the Southern Pacific headquarters in San Francisco, where J.H. Christie was the chief architect; staff architect William F. Meaney signed the drawing. The facility was to be semi-fireproof with wire fabric and stucco on the exterior and plaster and cement stucco on the interior. The floor plan provided for a waiting room and ticket office, baggage room, and freight room.

On January 16, 1940, the new Casa Grande railroad station was dedicated by Arizona Governor Robert Jones and officials from Southern Pacific. The building was Pueblo Deco, an American regional architectural style, popular in the early 20th century. The design fused elements of Art Deco and Pueblo Revival and was influenced by architect Mary Colter’s work. The term was popularized in the 1984 book, arizcc.com

Pueblo Deco: The Art Deco Architecture of the Southwest by Marcus Whiffen and Carla Breeze.

Casa Grande’s prized railroad station, however, was to suffer an ignoble demise.

By the late 1990s, the building was closed and its windows boarded up. After Southern Pacific was acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad, the city made overtures about obtaining the station. Architect Bill Otwell prepared a Historic Building Preservation Plan for the community in 2009. Casa Grande officials had an agreement with the railroad to take over ownership of the building, provided it would be moved to a new site.

Moving the building was not practical though, according to a 2009 article in the Arizona Republic.

That same year, the station was damaged by fire, necessitating the demolition of the best example of Pueblo Deco architecture in Arizona. “The afternoon and evening of the fire can be counted as one of my saddest memories of losing Casa Grande’s history and fine architecture,” says Marge Jantz, chairwoman of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission. A few pieces of the station were saved, and are on display at the Museum of Casa Grande.

It is unfortunate the plea contained in Pueblo Deco: The Art Deco Architecture of the Southwest couldn’t be realized. “One can only hope that a use will be found for it [as] it merits preservation both as a building of intrinsic architectural quality and as the only example in Arizona (apparently) of the combination of Pueblo form and Indian ornament.”

Arizona Contractor & Community

Images courtesy of Author

of heat and a lack of supplies at what is now Casa Grande. The temporary camp established at the railhead was named Terminus, for its location at the “end of the line.” The settlement, which consisted of five people and three buildings, persisted once work resumed and the railhead moved east in 1880.

A railroad station built in 1887 served Casa Grande for the next 50 years until it was destroyed by fire in 1937. The building, however, had been due for replacement.

“We had plans 10 years ago for a new station at Casa Grande, but the Depression made it necessary to abandon the project,” William Wilson, Southern Pacific division superintendent, told the Casa Grande Dispatch.

Residents were astonished when plans for the new station were announced in the Dispatch on April 1, 1938. Groundbreaking for a new Southern Pacific railroad depot was an “…elaborate modernistic type of building with all of the facilities of the Grand Central Station in New York City. The building will be 10 stories in height built of marble shipped from Georgia. Solid-gold hardware will be used through the building…” At the conclusion, the Dispatch noted that it was April Fool’s Day.

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PROJECTs . PEOPLE . PRACTICES

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA

My Casa Grande Construction Roots William Horner

M

Images courtesy of Author

y first paying construction job was working summers during high school for Achen Gardner. On days I wasn’t practicing on drums with my high school marching band, I would ride to work with my Dad, Uncle, and Cousin.

I recall this period as a lot of fun. I was being chauffeured to work, making good money, and keeping in shape by shoveling and chasing stakes. In my off-hours, I played in a punk rock band and did other fun teenage activities.

Achen Gardner had several jobs in Casa Grande, including the Maricopa Highway/ Cottonwood Lane project. This Top: Bill Horner cutting curb was three miles of road construcgrade along Sacaton Street tion starting at State Highway south of Florence Blvd, 1996.

Left: Billy Horner and his dad, 387 (also known as Pinal Avenue) that passed by the Frito Lay plant Bill, working for Achen Gardner near Casa Grande, 1996. arizcc.com

Arizona Contractor & Community

BRANTLEY GALLIMORE TRAFFIC CONTROL SERVICES 22640 North 21st Ave Phoenix, AZ 85027 O. (623) 879-0610 I F. (623) 879-0611 E. BRANTLEY@METROTRAFFICCONTROL.NET

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Nov-Dec 2018

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects Left: Curb machine laying

grade and finish the streets. at work for Christmas pres- ribbon curb at the Palm Each time I visit Casa ents. Before visiting Uncle Creek Resort, 2012.

Dan in Scottsdale, we headed Right: Concrete workers at Grande, I try to revisit a construction project and locate to Casa Grande. My dad was Palm Creek Resort, 2012. where I scratched my name operating a blade cutting curb grade south of the railroad tracks as part of in the wet concrete. During these visits, the Casa Grande street improvement pro- I’ve come to appreciate the neon signs along State Highway 387 including the Silgram.

I found myself back in Casa Grande ver Bullet, the Se-Tay Motel, and Jewel’s again in 2012. This time I was on the blade Desert Sand Cocktail Lounge, which was finishing streets in an expansion of the Palm built by the A&A Creek Golf & RV Resort. The golf course Sign Company of was originally built by Phoenix contractor Phoenix.

R.J. Myers in 1997. After the RV pads were constructed, our crew came in to cut curb

Images courtesy of Author

and Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing plant.

My Uncle Dan cut subgrade, knockeddown material, and built slopes and shoulders for the channel between the railroad tracks and the new road. I’ll never forget when my Cousin Danny and I skipped work for a week, yet were paid because our supervisor swore he saw us on the job.

The construction firm also had a small commercial project and subdivision called Parkview 3, where my Dad would rode the blade from project-to-project, finishing up the ABC work.

In 1996, my Cousin Danny and I decided we would take some photos of our dads

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Arizona Contractor & Community

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Churchill’s “Ship” Has Come In Douglas Towne

A

Images courtesy of Author

recent commercial development brings something different to the Evans Churchill historic neighborhood in Downtown Phoenix. “It takes pieces of places and concepts we have seen all over the world and kind of blends them all together to create something new and unique,” co-owner Kell Duncan says. “We wanted to create a collection of small and local businesses with an open concept and the shipping containers allowed for us to complete everything.”

The Churchill, located at First and Garfield streets, features 10 locally owned restaurants, bars and shops utilizing 20 repurposed shipping containers. They enclose a shared outdoor courtyard with picnic tables and lawn games. The shipping containers were always an essential part of the development. “They were co-owner

arizcc.com

Hartley Rodie’s idea,” Duncan says. “I just loved it when he told me about it, and we ran with it.”

Duncan says that Rodie was the catalyst for The Churchill, which offers below-market rent to small local businesses in exchange for those businesses completing community service as part of their lease agreement. “He was looking for a way to create something special that had a soul, and benefited the community where he was going to do business,” Duncan says.

“We connected over our want to create a sort of profit with a purpose model, and this is what we came up with. “ The project was not without its challenges. Financing the project proved difficult. “The SBA 7(a) program [Small Business Administration] allowed for us to mitigate some risk and make this a viable project for private investors and banks,” Duncan says.

Hiring a design/build firm like Local Studio Design Build, which had some “skin

in the game,” was beneficial, according to Duncan. “Then they are motivated to build the project on budget, on time, and there is less finger pointing,” he says. The firm had experience working with shipping containers through their two residential projects, The Oskar and Containers on Grand Avenue.

“Our project was about $700K over budget, and Local Studio Design Build came in and saved us from being dead in the water with very creative and cost-effective solutions,” Duncan says. “We were lucky enough to find them when we needed them most.”

Duncan says that Local Studio Design Build helped bring the space to life and focus attention on what was most important to Rodie and him on this project. “Having a contractor/architect/GC that you can trust makes a world of difference,” Duncan says. “We never had to worry about the decisions being made because I know they were being made for the right reasons.”

The biggest surprise after The Churchill opened in early September is the diversity in people who come to the space and enjoy it. “We hoped in building this that it would be a place where all feel safe and welcome, and that has been a very pleasant surprise,” Duncan says. “The overwhelming support has also been a huge surprise. We knew that this project would be well received by a majority of people, but also that it would not be for everyone. The support has been amazing, and we hope that this can inspire others to take the extra time and effort to focus on supporting small, local businesses.”

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I

is to be able to take apart the elements of the design, replace them if need be or recombine them with other components, depending on office space needs. With this level of customizability, modular office design is perfect for a growing business.

There are many benefits to an adaptable office: Cost savings – The efficiencies of these modular systems will ultimately translate into cost savings since the materials are all prefabricated, making for a quicker installation process.

Speed – Modular elements are delivered and assembled faster, posing minimal disruption to the office. The walls are pre-finished, pre-glazed, and pre-wired, making for an efficient installation.

Sustainability –Modular elements can earn LEED® points for your company. For example, modular wall systems are reus-

able, recyclable, and their installation is practically dust-free, which improves the air quality.

Adaptability –Modular design can evolve, such as wall face panels that can be easily switched to accommodate new technology, modify the aesthetics of the interior space, or be moved to provide more space for a growing business.

Company Culture and Productivity – These flexible systems invite the dynamics of the workplace to change, a factor directly related to improved team productivity and employee retention.

The benefit of modular office design is that what may have worked for your company last year may no longer work for you today. It’s vital that your workspace can evolve with the constant technology changes of the current business world.

Images courtesy of Author

n today’s business world, environmental responsibility and flexibility are fast becoming the driving force behind office design. Faciliteq has incorporated a sustainability mission through adaptive re-use of materials and the integration of modular office construction.

Faciliteq was founded in 2005 by Quentin Abramo with one mission—to create sustainable, economical, and employee-centered workspaces. The key to this goal was to design work environments which inspire, are comfortable, and provide technological advantages that the end-user will benefit from, something that Faciliteq has been delivering since its inception.

“Our success comes from our ability to design and provide high-performance architectural interiors, including modular walls, modular power and data distribution, and raised access flooring platforms,” John Shinners, company president, says.

But why is modular office design essential to consider when developing an office space?

“With technology quickly changing, it’s essential that organizations can adapt and change along with it,” Shinners says.

“This characteristic is one that doesn’t end with employers but extends to an office’s attributes, like heating, air, furniture, and walls.”

Faciliteq takes design seriously, as one of a few Haworth dealers, a workspace company founded in Holland, Michigan in 1948, that delivers all these items.

The intent behind modular office design

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Sustainable Office Designs Go “Mod”

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Arizona Contractor & Community

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

Maricopa Highway to be Smoother, Safer and Faster Camryn Dilger $4.2 million roadway improvement project on the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway is estimated to begin in early December.

The Arizona Department of Transportation plans to widen the existing two-lane highway from Porter Road to White and Parker Road into four lanes with a median to alleviate heavy traffic and provide a safer road for drivers. Shoulders and turn bays also will be added to the stretch of highway, located approximately two miles south of downtown Maricopa.

“Now, it’s just one lane [in each direction] with no shoulders,” Reed Dalbik, ADOT engineer, said. “We’re going to improve it to two lanes in each direction with shoulders.”

Additionally, the existing asphalt on the road will be removed and replaced with an ADOT-approved asphalt mix to offer drivers a smoother ride.

“The road needs to be wiped,” Bill Fay, public works director and city engineer for Maricopa, said. “It’s not fast enough, it’s not straight enough, and it’s not safe enough.”

The timeline for construction on the 1-mile segment of highway is approximately eight months, and traffic patterns will be impacted by reduced speed limits and lane restrictions.

“Road construction is like surgery,” Fay said. “People don’t get surgery just for the heck of it. And sometimes it hurts a lot, but when it’s done, you’re better. It’s two weeks of pain, or in this case, several months of pain to get a four-lane, normal road.”

Frank Henderson, design project manager with Ritoch-Powell and Associates,

Image courtesy of Author

A

Intersection of Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway and White and Parker Road.

said these improvements to the highway are necessary to support the existing traffic volumes. “It’s going to provide additional capacity, reduce congestion and implement some drainage improvements,” Henderson said.

Although construction hasn’t started yet, Fay said the new road likely will be built from the outside in, and traffic will be shifted from one side of the road to the other.

“There are going to be traffic barricades,” Fay said. “You’re going to have to shift here, then you’re going have to follow in this direction. That’s the inconvenience.”

This design plan by Ritoch-Powell also includes upgrades to the cross-street intersections.

Ritoch-Powell’s design services have since been completed, and ADOT is now in the process of publicly advertising the design plan and its specifications for contractors to bid on the project, Henderson said.

Camryn Dilger is a student reporter at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects

F

ifth-grade students graduating from Casa Grande’s Saguaro Elementary School won’t have far to go for their middle school days, just a walk across campus.

The newly constructed school, located one-half mile north of downtown, shares a 46-acre campus with the new Casa Grande Middle School. Originally built more than 40 years ago, the new schools and facility will improve the learning environment for students and staff. Saguaro Elementary School has 525 students in grades K-5th, and Casa Grande Middle School has 580 students in 6-8th grades.

Dr. JoEtta Gonzales, superintendent of the Casa Grande Elementary School District, expressed her appreciation for the efforts of everyone involved in the project.

“The collaboration on this project was fantastic. It brought out the best in thinking and teamwork from individuals throughout our district as well as for our partners at McCarthy Building Companies, SPS+ Architects, subcontractors, and our community.”

The campus modernization project allows the two schools to share some spaces for cost-efficiency, including the administration offices, media center, and cafeteria. A committee of Casa Grande citizens initially recommended the shared campus modernization project after considering factors such as renovation costs, long-term use of the facility, and community needs.

The new school buildings were constructed atop the middle school’s former athletic fields. Renovations also added 270 new parking spaces. arizcc.com

“This project is a prime example of what can be done when a district wants to maximize their funds for facility improvements,” said Steve Poulin, executive vice president of operations at McCarthy.

“The new combined school campus was well thought out and now offers greatly enhanced amenities for students attending both schools and while also providing the community of Casa Grande with athletic fields that can be shared and enjoyed by everyone.”

“With this school, we broke the mold of schools in Casa Grande, from the types of spaces, the colors and the furniture by focusing on the TOTAL learning environment,” said Mark Davenport, a partner at SPS+ Architects. “One of the notable features is the learning neighborhoods; this is where real collaboration and flexible learning happens.”

The project was funded by a bond measure that was approved in the November 2016 election to fund district facility improvements. McCarthy is ranked the 20th largest domestic general contractor and has offices across the nation, including Phoenix. SPS+ Architects is an architecture firm located in Scottsdale.

Images courtesy of McCarthy

Unified School Campus Completed in Casa Grande

Arizona Contractor & Community

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ow did you get your start in the solar industry?

About 11 years ago I started working with Chris Wood (current business partner) and a solar industry veteran, John Balfour, selling, installing, and servicing residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. John’s business was one of the oldest and most successful in Arizona. I worked and managed nearly every aspect of that business for a few years. John’s wealth of knowledge gave Chris and me an incredible start.

What do you want Sunny Energy to be known for?

We invest in our employees. We invest in a better customer experience.

We demand that ethical business practices drive our decisions. We have an environmental conscience. We’re involved in our community. We reinvest for a sustainable company future, for our employees, our customers, our environment, our community, and our families.

What are some of the challenges in the industry?

Consumer education is a significant concern. Most people have never purchased solar, and those that have will only buy it once or twice in their lifetime. This lack of consumer knowledge allows misconceptions to proliferate, sometimes allowing consumers to make bad buying decisions or to get frustrated with conflicting messages.

Regulation – We’re an unregulated company trying to do business in a regulated utility environment, and solar causes grid-stability problems. Very often, it appears that utility companies are out to get rid of solar companies. They may not like the competition, but they realize we’re not going away. We need to learn to coexist better.

Policy – Federal, state and local policy concerning solar is a maze. It varies greatly from state to state, which makes it hard for solar to grow. Standardizing procedures across the U.S. would be beneficial.

Tell us the story behind Sunny Energy.

Following my time with John, I joined a solar manufacturing and distribution company. Their German manufacturing roots, dating back to the 1980s, taught me a lot about the products I was selling, what consumers wanted and how solar contractors could become very efficient. We sold to several hundred solar contractors in the U.S. and hundreds more in Europe. Still working with Chris, we saw that most contractors had enough business, so efficiency wasn’t really a focus. What we did see, however, was that sales tactics had become less professional. Using my prior business experiences over the past 25-plus years, I knew there was a better way to run a solar contracting company and a much better way to take care of customers -- from the sales process through years of service and support.

One of our contractor customers (the team of Terry Rials and Jake Stanwood) had the same business values as Chris and I and were considered one of the best solar What’s life like for you outside of work? contractor teams in Arizona. When Chris I live in the Cave Creek/North Scotts-

arizcc.com

CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA People

Kelsey Makings

approached them with the idea of forming a new company, it became apparent that the combination of their expertise and our business background would allow us to build a better solar contracting company and a better customer experience.

Image courtesy of Author

Interview with Joe Cunningham, Sunny Energy co-founder and director of operations

dale area with my wife of 22 years, Resa.

Together, we have four grown children and one grandchild. I love riding a bicycle and have a long history of amateur competitive cycling. I’m about to pass 100,000 miles on my latest bike, but I have more than an equal number of miles on nine prior bikes.

We love family gatherings, and I’m usually the chef, although most of our kids (and sometimes their spouses) are competing for that title.

What does the future hold for Sunny Energy?

We just expanded into Sacramento, California and expect that market to at least double our business. We’re investing in R&D on new hardware and software technology that will allow our customers to become more integrated with the electric utility grid. With our employees, we’re developing a whole new group of entrepreneurs, technical gurus, business people, solar craftsmen, and customer experience managers to continue doing what we started indefinitely into the future.

Arizona Contractor & Community

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Images courtesy of Author

his article is the first installment of a three-part series that discusses ways that engineers and contractors can reach out to our next generation, which will to build our roads and buildings. These activities are ideas to interact with scout troops, church groups, and grade-school classes.

The next generation of constructors and engineers is sitting in our grade school classes. Many times, these students have no idea of what contractors or engineers do. They might think that an engineer drives a train and a contractor digs ditches; they do not see these as exciting job opportunities.

In a survey done by the authors, grade school students were asked the question: “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Many answered that their careers would be in medicine, law, or sports. One student wanted to build rockets (engineering?), and one stated that she/he wanted to be an electrician. More than 99 percent of the students expressed no interest in either construction or engineering.

Another study shows that by fifth grade, students have made up their minds whether they would like to go into technical or non-technical fields. Developing programs for high school students may be too late to create interest in professional fields

arizcc.com

The first sample is made with sand, cement, and water. We tell the students to add water so that the concrete looks like a brownie mix, which many students have made. The second sample has the sand replaced by vermiculite, which weighs about 5 pounds per cubic foot or about 20 times lighter than sand. When mixed by volume of one part cement to three parts vermiculite, the concrete sample is light enough so that it will float.

This is a two-day activity. The first day, students spend a few hours making the concrete samples. Typically, the students, while mixing the concrete, will be asking if the blend has enough water. For a large class, we recommend that two people experienced in concrete advise the students.

On the second day, the concrete samples are tested to see if they float in a water-filled plastic tub. The first sample made with sand and cement will sink like a rock. We remind the students that concrete is a man-made rock, so this should not be a surprise. The second sample made with vermiculite will float, until becoming waterlogged and sinking. If the student allows the sample to dry out, the sample will again float. Some teachers have a competition to see whose sample floats the longest. Most samples will float between 5 minutes to an hour.

Teachers can have the students weigh and graph the weights of the samples daily. This can be a challenge for the students since it does not start with a 0, 0. There is also an excellent video on YouTube that explains how cement is made and how cement is used to make concrete (On YouTube, search “Portland Cement Association, Stoneage”). The video shows the entire process from the quarrying the rock to making cement. Students enjoy watching the blasting of the rock surface in the quarry and the heavy equipment used in the cement manufacturing process.

The concept of making floating concrete has been used as an educational activity across the world. Several organizations have promoted Concrete Kits for Kids including the Portland Cement Association, state Ready Mixed Concrete Associations, state Contractor Associations, and the World of Concrete.

If we hope to develop our students to consider and enjoy the careers we have had, we must actively reach out to the next generation. This is just one way of becoming involved. In the upcoming two articles, we will discuss other ways to connect with future generations.

Practices

Luke and Billie Snell

such as construction and engineering. This finding should be a significant concern for those that plan on hiring new people into our industry. Our grade school students do not find our sector interesting or attractive.

Luke, an engineering professor, and Billie, an elementary school teacher, teamed up with our Associated General Contractor’s chapter and the Ready Mixed Concrete Association, both in Illinois, to help increase awareness of construction and engineering by developing a hands-on kit using concrete. Luke advanced the technical content while Billie made sure that the material was age appropriate.

Concrete is the most common construction material in the world, used for roads, bridges, and buildings. Students have a curiosity about this familiar material, thinking of it as heavy, strong, and functional. They see their sidewalks, roads, and parts of their homes and schools composed of concrete. Concrete survives both hot and cold weather, rain, snow, and hail storms, and vehicles driving on it without problems. Thus, when we challenge the students to make a floating concrete structure, they think they are doing something unusual and are excited about the opportunity The packages are called “Concrete Kits for Kids,” and have students making two small concrete samples. The concrete is mixed in a plastic bag, shoveled into 2-ounce cup forms with plastic spoons, and finished with a craft stick.

Arizona Contractor & Community

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Images courtesy of Bigfish

xactly 100 years ago – in 1918 – there were 1.75 million cattle in Arizona.

“There were nearly two million cows and only about 300,000 people,” says Joe Pizzimenti, owner of Bigfish Creative Group in Scottsdale. “Similarly, thanks to irrigation that started here in the late 1800s, citrus started to thrive here around the same time.”

Copper mining soon joined cattle and citrus as a hot industry in Arizona.

“Then, thanks in great part to our amazing climate and increased demand after World War I, the cotton industry took off here,” says Pizzimenti.

And that, according to Pizzimenti, is how Arizona came to be known for its iconic “Five Cs.” “Each of these pillars of Arizona industry is certainly still relevant, but over the past hundred years, our state has done so much more, and it is time someone shined a light on our more progressive attributes,” says Pizzimenti, who – along with his team at Bigfish – put pen to paper on how to do it earlier this year.

Inspiration Pizzimenti loves Arizona.

Joe Pizzimenti grew up in a blue-collar family with five older brothers and a younger sister in Detroit, where the family business was in – of course – the auto business.

And while his siblings all made plans

Bigfish Cre­ative Group team members. arizcc.com

to work for the family business, Pizzimenti had other ideas, moving to Arizona in 1984, sight unseen, to attend ASU. And while he would be pulled to New York City and then back to the Midwest after graduation, he made his way back to his adopted home by 1992.

“Even then – but certainly to a lesser degree than now – people were coming here, and there was a spark of electricity in the air,” says Pizzimenti, who would work for KTAR and then start several of his own businesses before launching Bigfish Creative Group in Scottsdale in 2006. “Over the past dozen years, that spark has turned into an explosion of industry, both big and small.”

Pizzimenti was not alone in this feeling.

When he gathered his award-winning team – individuals lauded with local, regional and national creative, digital, and advertising honors several times over – they practically burst painting the picture of how they saw Arizona today.

Enter Bigfish’s passion project: The New AZ 5Cs. Over the past year, the team has worked around the clock in developing an interactive website, digital campaign and even merchandise to shout from the rooftops how far Arizona has come in the areas of: • Culture • Community • Connectivity • Commerce • Catalyst

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Arizona’s 5 Cs – Redefined

Joe Pizzimenti.

“The linchpin of the program is our campaign video. But we then spent about six months researching and reaching out to some of the most respected business, event, and nonprofit folks across Arizona, interviewing each, one by one, to tell their story of success and share with the world how they fit into the new AZ 5 Cs as well,” says Pizzimenti.

Result Launched in mid-September and now live, the platform boasts an impressive list of profiles. These include folks from the Camelback Flowership, the Fiesta Bowl, the Agency Arizona, Beckett’s Table, Arizona State University, AXA Advisors Southwest, Washington Federal, Quarles & Brady, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Avnet, the Arizona Commerce Authority, Wilde Wealth Management Group, Local First, Genuine Concepts, Carvana, Hickman’s, and many more.

The site and its campaign video are being pushed through paid search and traditional marketing right now, and the team hopes to launch a second, more interactive phase of the campaign with new interviews and insights in early 2019.

“Arizona is at the forefront of connecting data, ideas, processes and people in new and effective ways. Arizonans are competing and winning, while at work and at play like never before,” says Pizzimenti.

“Arizona has a new story to tell, and we want to help tell it to the world.”

For more information, or to share how you relate to the “New Five Cs of Arizona” with Bigfish (and potentially, the world), visit az5c.com.

Arizona Contractor & Community

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Nov-Dec 2018

Back When A “Grande” Slam

Images courte

sy of Arizona Co

unity ntractor & Comm

Douglas Towne

W

hen San Francisco Giants baseball owner Horace Stoneham wanted a combination resort/spring training facility built in Casa Grande in the late 1950s, he insisted that everything be “big league.”

The Francisco Grande resort lived up to his vision.

The $1.5 million complex was baseball-themed; most memorable were the matching baseball and baseball bat-shaped arizcc.com

swimming pools. Stoneham spared no expense, burying power and telephone lines underground so as not to mar the beautiful desert vistas. The resort re-erected a grandstand from a defunct Oregon dog track to provide seats for 3,000 fans at the complex’s stadium, according to Arizona Days and Ways.

More than 200 baseball players in the Giant’s farm system trained at the facility in 1963, including future Hall of Famers Willie

Mays, Gaylord Perry, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, and Juan Marichal. The Giants used the complex until 1982, and soon afterward, the resort abandoned its alter ego as a training site.

After recent renovations, Francisco Grande is marketing its unique heritage: “If you left your heart in San Francisco and want to go back, you have come to the right place.”

Arizona Contractor & Community

Images courtesy of the Bowlin Family

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Nov-Dec 2018

Streets with No Name:

Bowlin’s Audacious Sign Language

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Top left: The Bowlin family poses with a Caterpillar D8 bulldozer, 1950s.

Left: The Bowlin family next to a Caterpillar crawler and Bee Gee leveler attachment, 1950s. arizcc.com

Laura Joy DeLay Bowlin

here are many ways of leaving your mark on the landscape. For one man, his calling was to distinguish the unnamed roads near his farming machinery company. He not only put up signs identifying these thoroughfares, he also named them.

Pinal County roads such as Hidden Valley, Miller, and Chandler were created by James Bowlin Jr., who managed the Arizona Machinery Company stores in Casa Grande and Coolidge in the 1950s. Along with his assistant manager, Jack Wheeler, they had the street signs made and installed on the roads.

While Bowlin had many occupations including farmer, welder, salesman, maintenance man, and mobile home park manager, his stint as a farm machinery manager in central Arizona remains his greatest legacy.

Bowlin was born in 1914 on the IVI Ranch near Imperial, California, where his father raised cotton. The family soon moved to Coachella Valley, near Thermal, to grow truck crops. In school, Bowlin learned Mexican slang from the kids and Spanish from his teacher. He graduated from Coachella Valley Union High School in 1934 and enrolled at U.C. Davis, majoring in Agricultural Engineering.

He returned to Thermal with a wife, Joy DeLay, who had just graduated from high school in 1935. Bowlin, his father who was known as the “Sweet Potato King” in Coachella Valley, and George Ames grew sweet potatoes and truck crops. Their brand was the Devil’s Sugar Bowl, with a logo featuring the devil with his arms around a farm. In each box of produce, they added sweet potato recipes.

After Ames left the company, they changed their brand to J-B and featured a blue jay and a bumble bee. The Bowlins received the top price for their produce because it was all hand-sorted and graded; only the best was shipped, no culls.

Still, Joy recalls the many challenges the couple faced. “There was no money coming in between crops, and a baby was on the way,” she recalls. ”We lost our new Pontiac car since we couldn’t make payments on it.”

Bowlin took a job picking dates at the Tropical Date Garden Ranch near Thermal, for a dollar a day, six days a week. “We Arizona Contractor & Community

Top left: Bee Gee leveler (left) and Caterpillar engine in Bowlin’s Casa Grande yard, 1953.

Top right: James Bowlin, 1960s.

the hospital to pay the bill. “Every Sunday he delivered fryers, all ready for the pan, and as many eggs as the hospital needed,” Joy recalls.

Bowlin then did road work for Riverside County. The crew lifted and carried big rocks and loaded them into the trucks.

He subsequently worked at Lake Hemet, doing boat maintenance. “He enjoyed the job until he had to help drag the lake for a fisherman who had drowned and pulled the body out of the lake,” Joy says.

His next job was as a timekeeper for a labor camp being built by the government

near Indio. “The pay was $125 a month; we thought we were rich as that was a big salary in those days,” Joy says. “After the camp was finished, Jim was out of a job, and we were poor again.”

Bowlin subsequently landed a job as a linesman for a telephone company in Thermal. He met some interesting people, including Jackie Corcoran, the famous aviatress who became the first woman to take off and land on an aircraft carrier as well as break the sound barrier in an F-86 Sabre.

Corcoran had a large house built near Palm Left and right: A cotton harvester sold by the Arizona Machinery Co. in Casa Grande, 1953.

Bottom left: Miller Road sign sponsored

by Arizona Machinery Co., early 1950s.

Images courtesy of the Bowlin Family

would take $5, always put $1 back in case of an emergency, and go to Indio to the A&P Store, buy our week’s groceries, a six-pack of beer, go to the movies and have a hamburger and a root beer on our way home,” Joy says. “Jim worked hard for that $5, but we enjoyed spending it on Saturday night.”

The couple had a son, James Bowlin III, who was born at Casita Hospital in Indio.

The medical bills totaled $125. Bowlin made a deal to furnish chickens and eggs to

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Nov-Dec 2018

Springs, and Bowlin installed her phones.

“He liked phone work, but it worried him because it was dangerous,” Joy says.

“He had to climb the poles and work near electric lines. He quit after he had to climb up and remove the body of one of his co-workers who had been electrocuted.”

When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, Bowlin learned pipe welding at a school in Pasadena. The Bowlins then moved to Portland, OR where he worked at Kaiser Shipyard.

Near the end of the war, Bowlin was offered a position to teach agriculture and farm machinery in Argentina, but instead accepted a job with Faure Tractor and Machinery Company in El Centro. Their daughter, Delinda Joy, was born in 1945.

Bowlin however, would soon work south of the border, when the company opened a store in Mexicali, Mexico. “I need someone to manage the store who could understand the people, and read, write, and speak Spanish,” Faure said to Bowlin.

“You and I are the only ones in this company who can do this, and I’m not going!”

Bowlin supervised the construction of the store, which was called Importadora de Maquinaria. He sold Caterpillar and John Deere tractors, other types of farm machinery, Pontiac cars, GMC trucks, and generators.

Three years of working in Mexicali was enough for Bowlin. “He got along with the Mexican people, but he wouldn’t talk about some of his experiences in Mexico,” Joy said. “He said I would worry if I knew some of the things that happened to him.”

Bowlin then took a position in Coolidge, Arizona as a manager of the Arizona Machinery Company store in 1948.

The following year, he also began managing the company’s Casa Grande store.

“Coordination of all available parts, service, and equipment under one manager will enable the company to serve remote areas of Pinal County more efficiently. It will also pave the way for expansion, which has been made necessary by the rapid growth of the Casa Grande Valley,” James Deaderick, president of Arizona Machinery, told Arizona Builder and Contractor magazine.

Bowlin would spend ten years working for the company and leave an indelible impact. For marketing purposes, Bowlin and Wheeler had signs made identifying unnamed farm roads in the vicinity.

Underneath the street name, a placard was placed that read, “Courtesy Arizona

Machinery Company, Caterpillar, and John Deere Sales and Service.”

During his time in Casa Grande, Bowlin and Fred Bowlin built a racecar which they entered in the jalopy races at Manzanita Park in Phoenix. Bowlin refused offers to drive the car, saying that he was too old at 30.

One driver who raced Bowlin’s car a few times was Bill Cheesbourg, who later drove in the Indianapolis 500.

Bowlin later became manager of a

“Three years of working in Mexicali was enough for Bowlin.”

arizcc.com

farm machinery store in New Mexico until eventually tiring of the business. “There wasn’t money in it anymore, too many small farmers were edged out by the ‘big guys,’” he said.

The family subsequently moved to Corpus Christi, where he became a Jewel Tea Man delivering fresh coffee, teas and spices direct to households for 11 years.

They moved back to California to be near Bowlin’s mother after his father died.

Bowlin passed away in 1994 while managing the Travel Lodge Mobile Home Park in Santee, CA.

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The location was to be the new headquarters of InnerConn Technology Inc., which manufactured circuit boards in Mountain View, a city in California’s Silicon Valley.

Circuit boards were used in equipment ranging from quartz watches to computers.

Casa Grande was selected for the company huge concrete caterpillars have become headquarters because of its available labor, an unofficial tourist attraction. Some think aided by recent layoffs in nearby copper the domed architecture facilitates spiritu- mines, and inexpensive land prices. al experiences while others feel the site The company planned to spend $4 attracts dark forces. The property has been million on the project, which would be featured on the Travel Channel show, Ghost constructed in three phases, according to Adventures. “This may be one of the most LaMarr C. Moffitt, InnerConn Technology’s unusual, yet sinister places we’ve ever vice president, in 1982. An office building investigated in America,” the host dramat- followed by five manufacturing plants and ically claimed. three assembly structures would be built What’s known for sure is that the on 10 acres. An Arizona Republic article graffiti-marred domes are a magnet for indicated the new electronics manufacturteenagers seeking a funky place to party. ing firm was projected to create jobs for But perhaps not for long, as Pinal County 500 people, and the remaining 125 acres has condemned the buildings. The prop- would be leased to other companies. erty owner, however, refuses to act on the The domed complex would be built county’s demands to raze the structures, by a subsidiary of InnerConn Technology: calling the action unjustified.

Dome Industrial & Homebuilders, Inc. The In the meantime, the Domes located construction company also had plans to near South Thornton Road and Interstate 8 enter the local housing market by building south of Casa Grande, linger in limbo.

2,300-square-foot homes priced between The Domes were part of an industrial $40,000-45,000. The unusual buildings park proposed in May 1982 for a 135-acre were claimed to have low energy and consite, located 10 miles south of Casa Grande. struction costs and could be built relatively quickly, in approximately six weeks.

During the July 1982 groundbreaking ceremony, Patricia Zebb, company president, said the firm had already received dozens of inquiries about jobs at the firm, which would hire 35 employees by NovemTop: Domed manufacturing plant, 2017. ber. The Republic article added Far left: Cross-section of a dome. that the 14-yearLeft: Industrial plant layout, 2017.

Futuristic Domes Seek a Concrete

Future in Casa Grande Douglas Towne

A

n unusual industrial park on the outskirts of Casa Grande is populated with buildings that resemble futuristic spaceships. But it’s been tough for the industrial complex in the desert to take off. The facility was constructed in 1983 and has been unused in the 35 years since.

The property has been for sale since 2009.

What’s popularly called the Casa Grande Domes, however, has long been on the radar for those seeking unusual places.

The flying saucer-shaped building and three other domed buildings that look like

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Nov-Dec 2018

old company had sales of $2.9 million in 1981, and was predicted to reach $4 million in 1983.

By December, two futuristic structures were under construction at the site: the flying saucer-shaped office building and a three-domed manufacturing plant. An Arizona Daily Star photo caption indicated more domed buildings were scheduled to be built for other firms and as residences.

The dome buildings were erected like an upside down swimming pool, with a giant balloon-like tarp attached to the concrete foundation. Large fans inflated the balloon and workers built the dome from the inside, first spraying the sides with three inches of polyurethane foam, then adding a steel skeleton and three inches of sprayed concrete.

In February 1983, work was halted at the site because finance companies were reluctant to back the project’s unusual construction concept, according to a Daily Star article. Zebb was confident that construction would resume in four months. “If everything goes right, within two years, I expect to have close to 200 people manufacturing printed circuit boards at the plant,” she said.

Four dome structures were eventually built, each for about $150,000. The office was briefly used, but the manufacturing plant never opened. InnerConn Technologies defaulted on a loan from Union Bank of California, which assumed ownership of the company’s assets in 1983.

After several ownership changes, Simplicity Communications purchased the property in 2007. “We didn’t have any specific intentions for the buildings,” says Dan arizcc.com

Images courtesy of Author

Left: Flying saucer-shaped office building, 2017.

Right: A dome used as an artistic canvas.

Peer, who manages the family-held corpo- off potential buyers. The four structures ration that owns the complex. Peer, who totaling 20,300 square feet, on five acres lives near the Domes, adds that the pur- with utilities, were listed for $750,000 chase allowed him to exercise control over in 2009. There have been no takers. “We the property, which sometimes has ram- hope to sell them to someone who can repurpose the buildbunctious, uninvited Persistent rumors of occult ings for business,” Peer activities late at night.

With the partial Over the years, activity are perpetuated by says. collapse of the largest Peer has rented out the Domes out for the occa- unlit spaces that echo strange dome in 2016, about 10,000 square feet of sional photo shoot, but noises from dark places interior space remains, they have mostly sat vacant. Although on private property, many and the price has been reduced.

In 2017, the Pinal County Board have explored the structures, entering the site through a damaged barbed-wire fence. of Supervisors condemned the Domes The property is a site for parties, squatters, because of the partially collapsed structure and illegal dumping, attracting photogra- and subsequently ordered the demolition phers, graffiti artists, and others inspired of all four. Peer appealed the decision and said it was the county’s responsibility to by abandoned places.

“The ‘No Trespassing’ signs disappear use a structural engineer to prove that the as quickly as we can post them,” Peer says. remaining domes are unsafe. “The building “Virtually anyone who was raised in Casa that partially collapsed was the result of Grande and went to high school or college vandals chipping away at it,” he says. “The remaining buildings are well reinforced and here has partied at the Domes.”

The concrete domes have cracked, the just have some cosmetic cracks.”

Peer laments the injustice of the counpolyurethane foam has turned orange with age, and decades of graffiti, some of it artis- ty’s decision without reliable analysis. “No tically impressive, decorate the interiors. engineering report, just willy-nilly telling Persistent rumors of occult activity are per- me to hire someone to prove them [the petuated by unlit spaces that echo strange board of supervisors] wrong,” he says. noises from dark places, such as tunnels “We’re currently in a stalemate.” that run below some of the domes.

The Domes are still extant, but their Jesus Gonzales, now a Christian pastor future is fuzzy. Many hope they’ll continue in Casa Grande, told the Casa Grande Dis- to exist, including the anonymous author patch in 2017 that he had been involved in who wrote about their allure on the Arizoa Luciferian group when he was a teenager na Commission on the Arts website. [Indiin the early 1990s. He said the meetings at viduals drawn to the mysterious nature the Domes involved satanic rituals, read- of the structures] “…must be yearning for ings, chants, and often animal sacrifices. something visually unique and engaging, in Perhaps these dark tales have scared a world of beige boxes.”

Arizona Contractor & Community

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Building on the Past 1957: Banking on Casa Grande’s Growth

C

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

asa Grande became a “two-horse town” when First National Bank opened its 41st branch there on June 1, 1957. The new office, which had the motto, “In this Bank, Everybody is Somebody” etched in the glass at the entrance, made Casa Grande the first community in Pinal County to have competing banks, as Valley National Bank had operated a branch there since 1934.

The bank’s dedication attracted a crowd of 2,373 and was First National Bank’s third office in Pinal County. Mont E. McMillen, president of the financial institution, noted in his speech that the bank had opened 17 offices in Arizona in the past 18 months.

The Casa Grande branch was designed by architect H.H. Green and located on Florence Avenue and Fourth Street. The bank’s exterior sign was built by the Virgil Moss

Neon Sign Co. of Phoenix. The 42-foottall sign, equal in height to a three-story building, was supported by 8-inch steel columns encased in concrete to a depth of 12 feet. The bank design included auto tellers behind bullet-proof glass, which allowed customers the convenience of making transactions without leaving their automobiles. The bank featured a 3-ton vault door. “It weighs 6,000 pounds but, when it is unlocked, the door swings readily at a finger’s touch because of its perfect balance on ball-bearing mounts,” said bank property manager E.A. Hamilton to the Casa Grande Dispatch.

The following firms, mostly from Casa Grande, contributed to the construction of the bank: • K-W Construction - General Contractor • Robinson Electric - Electrical • • Acme Steel - Steel and Cranes • • • •

Customers at the First National Bank of Arizona's grand opening, 1957. arizcc.com

Walsh Bros. - Furniture Virgil Moss Sign - Signage T.F. Wilson - Painting Eddie Givens - Concrete Elzie Shirley - Sand & Gravel and Hauling • Coxon Floor Covering - Floor Tile • Ritchey Plumbing - Plumbing • O’Malley Lumber - Lumber and Hardware • D.W. Haley - Masonry • Nathan Coxon - Fire Extinguishers • L.B. Webster - Sheet Metal • Preston Roofing - Roofing • Pinal Nurseries - Landscaping • Jones Furniture - Office Equipment • Pinal County Office Supply - Office Equipment • Fab’s - Office Equipment First National Bank was founded as “Kales & Lewis, Bankers” in Phoenix in 1881. The private bank was chartered as a national bank and renamed the National Bank of Arizona in 1887. In 1926, it became the First National Bank of Arizona.

First National and Valley National banks, along with Southern Arizona Bank and Trust, controlled 81 percent of Arizona’s bank assets by 1939 due to bank closings and mergers brought on by the Great Depression. By 1956, First National Bank and Valley National Bank would control 93 percent of the state’s bank assets. Federal oversight would subsequently force divestitures on both of the giant financial institutions to create more competition.

The building is currently the home of Root to Route Botanicals & Natural Medicine.

Arizona Contractor & Community

Jimenez

Images courtesy of AGE Landscaping

os Images courtesy of Carl

Casa Grande’s Sign Park Douglas Towne

C

asa Grande’s new park is a gas – neon gas, specifically.

At twilight, its elements flicker to life and create a buzz that lasts all evening. Bearing names both evocative (“Sun-

set Court”) and pedestrian (“Goddard’s Shoes”), they glow in the darkness as if drawn with a magical luminous pen. Burning brightly in the night, the neon signs that promoted businesses in the city south of

Images courtesy of Author

A “Noble” Endeavor:

the Valley have found a second career as objets d’art in the Neon and Vintage Sign Park.

The luminous relics are mostly products of the post-World War II economic boom. Their designs, which capture the period’s unbridled optimism, have received acclaim as American folk art.

But when their mom and pop businesses closed, these orphaned signs lost their purpose, and almost their existence. Casa Grande, not wanting to lose the sense of place created by these local landmarks, set out to preserve them in a vintage sign park.

The city entered a historic preserva-

Top: Neon & Vintage Sign Park concept.

Left: Horseshoe Motel, 1997.

Right: Cotton’s Wonder Bar, 2006.

Forty

Nov-Dec 2018

Images courtesy of Marge Jantz

arizcc.com

carried more vehicles to California than did Route 66.

Casa Grande’s roadside is still graced by memorable neon signs from this pre-interstate era, including the Boots and Saddle Motel, Cotton’s Wonder Bar and the Se-Tay Motel, all of which were installed in the 1940s. The latter name is an inside joke; it’s the original owner’s name, “Yates,” spelled backward. Many of the city’s other mid-century neon displays were destroyed or obtained by private collectors after busi-

nesses closed. A lucky few were donated to Casa Grande organizations.

Amidst this darkening of the city’s heritage, a ray of light appeared from an unlikely source in 2012. Marge Jantz, an energetic Scottsdale transplant with swirls of purple running through her silver hair, believed that relighting historic signs would be a catalyst for revitalizing the downtown area. “I have an extravaTop: Goddard gant fondness for the color Shoe Store sign. and flash of neon signs,” Below: Sidewalk

“Signs are a proverbial walk down memory lane, and they almost always conjure up fond memories.”

for new sign park.

Image courtesy of Oscar Perez

tion contest in hopes of funding the project. Impassioned supporters instigated a massive crowdsourcing campaign to attract votes to win a major grant and see their dreams come to light. The project’s success was helped by good timing, according to Rina Rien, executive director of Casa Grande Main Street. “Mid-century modern is the style trend of the moment and appeals to both the baby boomers’ nostalgia and millennials’ ironic desire for both authentic and kitschy experiences,” she says.

The new Casa Grande park follows a national trend of nostalgia for all things neon – a piece of bygone America that played a prominent role in her automotive heyday. Neon signs transformed outdoor advertising beginning in 1923 when this noblest of lights made its domestic debut in Los Angeles at the Earle C. Anthony Packard dealership in Los Angeles.

Neon light, dubbed “liquid fire,” is created by electrifying a noble gas, most commonly neon or argon, in a vacuum-sealed glass tube. Neon gas produces a reddish-orange glow; argon gas creates a blue radiance. Additional colors are formed using other gases or by baking a phosphorescent powder onto the interior of a glass tube.

Neon signs quickly became popular across the nation. In Casa Grande, neon displays were used by downtown merchants and by entrepreneurs hawking gas, food, and lodging on Arizona Highway 84.

The road was a shortcut between Tucson and Gila Bend for travelers on U.S. Highway 80, a busy cross-country thoroughfare that

Arizona Contractor & Community

Images courtesy of Marge Jantz Image courtesy of Author

she confesses. As chairwoman of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission, Jantz led efforts to obtain a grant for a Historic Resource Sign Survey, and to partner with the Casa Grande Main Street organization to raise funds to restore orphaned signs.

The commission’s initial project was the sign from Sunset Court, a business started by Earl Osborne Sr. and his wife, Gertrude, in 1929. The couple lived in a tent during construction of their general store,

Texaco gas station, and 10-cabin court.

Gertrude’s diary notes that the first and most important building the family built was an outhouse. The Osborne family eventually sold the business in 2001. The Sunset Court sign, dating from the 1940s, was deteriorating at the vacant property when it was donated to the commission. It was refurbished and mounted above a mural featuring historic local landmarks on the side of the Western Trading Post building downtown. The

Images courtesy of Author

“I have an extravagant fondness for the color and flash of neon signs,” she confesses.

Top left: Sunset Court sign, 2017.

Left: Sunset Court, 1993.

Above: Sunset Court, 1937.

Top right: Sunset Court sign and mural on Western Trading Post building, 2017.

Right: Marge Jantz by the mural, 2017.

display was re-lit with three generations of the Osborne family watching during a ceremony in 2017.

The restored Sunset Court sign raised public awareness about the city’s historic resources. In 2017, the city entered its proposed vintage sign park in the Partners in Preservation: Vote Your Main Street competition sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “I think people were both in awe and disbelief that our small community could possibly be competing in a nationwide contest with such high stakes,” Jantz says.

Casa Grande came in second behind a 20th century Africa-American historic site in Philadelphia, ahead of 23 other projects including those in Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and Salt Lake City, and was awarded a

Left: Se-Tay Motel sign, 2006.

Right: Boots & Saddle Motel sign, 2006.

Far right: Map of the Casa Grande area, 1935.

Forty Two

Nov-Dec 2018

says. “Signs are a proverbial walk down memory lane, and they almost always conjure up fond memories.”

Casa Grande has capitalized on this sentiment and is ready to let the good times glow.

Images courtesy of Author

space in which signs that have lost their homes can be displayed.”

But nothing is likely to happen soon in Mesa or elsewhere in the Valley. “Right now the goal is to save at-risk signs, and then worry about re-installation down the road,” Linoff says.

The evolution of vintage signs from marketing tools to an essential part of a city’s aesthetic is the result of a powerful, unseen factor. “I think the common thread that runs through preserving vintage signs is emotional,” Tod Swormstedt, founder of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati,

$144,000 grant. The sign park is currently under construction and is scheduled to be finished by December. The Kramer family, which owns Casa Grande Valley Newspapers Inc., donated property for the park, which will link downtown with the city’s arts district. Sign restoration will be done

by Graham’s Neon in Mesa and Cook & Company Signmakers in Tucson.

Casa Grande’s sign park is part of a nationwide movement towards displaying orphaned signs. “This is great for nostalgic locals and design-loving tourists,” says Debra Jane Seltzer, author of the 2017 book Vintage Signs of America. “It keeps the signs in their outdoor element, where they were meant to be seen.” Sign parks are considered a last resort in preservation, however; business owners are encouraged to leave their signs on site when possible.

“Without vintage signs, the entire country will be characterless, with nothing but chain stores from coast to coast,” Seltzer says. “When we travel, there will be no regionalism, no fun, no design and nothing to photograph.”

With upstart Casa Grande about to unveil a vintage sign park, what are the prospects for something similar in the Valley? “Ever since the tragic fall of Mesa’s iconic Diving Lady sign in 2010, and its reinstallation three and a half years later, the Valley has experienced a renaissance of interest in the colorful, magical gas,” Victor Linoff, president of the Mesa Preservation Foundation, says. “Mesa has led the effort to inventory its remaining historic neon.

We’re working with the city to create a arizcc.com

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Images courtesy of Friendly Corners Arizona

Friendly Corners: Life in a Cotton Crossroads Douglas Towne

C

asa Grande is surrounded by desert, Picacho Peak near the Santa Cruz River. The farms—and a few corners. Borree settlement was founded in the 1930s to Corner, 11 Mile Corner, and Friend- serve nearby farms. The hamlet grew as a ly Corners are farm crossroads that once result of the Farm Security Administration, provided housing and services to seasonal agricultural workers in Pinal County. But as farm mechanization improved, less labor was needed to harvest crops, and the hamlets lost their residents, businesses, and vitality.

A recent visit to Friendly Corners failed to turn up a smile, or even a wave. It wasn’t that the residents were unfriendly, there were just none to be found.

The current dearth of activity at Friendly Corners masks its lively history. The community grew from New Deal farm policies that provided housing to Okies fleeing the Great Depression, and later World War II, when POWs were brought in to harvest cotton. But how did this once busy community morph into such an empty and lonely place today?

Friendly Corners is located Top: FSA farmworkers camp at nine miles south Friendly Corners, early 1940s. of Eloy, on the Right: Farmworkers watch west of side of a movie at the FSA camp in

a New Deal agency created to alleviate rural poverty in 1937. After several false starts, the FSA focused on building relief camps in California and Arizona for migratory farm workers from the Dust Bowl states. By late 1941, permanent camps had been set up in Arizona at Coldwater, 11-Mile Corner (11 miles from Eloy), and Yuma, while mobile camps were in place at Lost Camp (20 miles northwest of Casa Grande), Friendly Corners, and Waddell.

“Each [mobile] camp has a capacity of

Friendly Corners, early 1940s.

Forty Four

Nov-Dec 2018

Images courtesy of Friendly Corners Arizona

150 families who live in tent shelter houses with modern toilet facilities, and a clinic with a registered nurse,” stated the Arizona Republic in 1941. The newspaper noted that all the units at Friendly Corners, officially known as Arizona Mobile Unit No. 1, were filled. Families in the mobile camps were required to perform one hour of camp labor per day to cover their rent.

Many of the migrant farm workers arriving in Pinal County during this time period were Okie families from Texas, Okla-

homa, and Arkansas, according to “Cotton and Figs: The Great Depression in the Casa Grande Valley” in the Autumn 1991 issue of the Journal of Arizona History. “The unrelenting seasonal nature of cotton-field work created ‘hordes of hired laborers huddled in work camps’ who did a few weeks of poorly paid, back-breaking labor in the spring and fall. They were idle and poor the rest of the year.”

Friendly Corners featured a Bashas’ Friendly Corner grocery store, a Shell gas

station, and a cotton gin. Dean Isaac’s parents, Elwood and Norma Isaac, ran the store and gas pumps while his aunt and uncle, Beth and Earl Sanderhoff, managed the cotton gin from 1940-1943.

“I remember my parents saying they heard about Pearl Harbor when they were standing by the gas pumps in Friendly Corners,” he says. “The store was only open during the cotton picking season,” Isaac says. “Bashas’ had three other stores in the Eloy area too.”

Image courtesy of Dean Issac

Top: Farmworkers at the FSA camp in Friendly Corners, early 1940s.

Below: Shell gas station located across the street from the Friendly Corners grocery store, early 1940s.

arizcc.com

Arizona Contractor & Community

Images courtesy of Dean Issac Image courtesy of Author

Isaac isn’t sure of how Friendly Corners got its name. “My uncle used to say he named it but I’m not sure if that’s true,” he says.

“My guess is that Friendly Corners got its name from the Sanderhoffs and, my cousins, the Isaacs, who were always friendly,” says Frank Thomas, who grew up in Eloy.

Isaac states that the farmworkers were paid in script, which they exchanged for cash on Saturdays. “There’s a little building attached to the side of the store,” he says.

“My aunt would sit there and cash in the farmworkers’ scripts. She was alone with all this money on hand and yet never had a problem with anyone trying to rob her.

And then the farmworkers would head to Eloy and spend the cash in the nightspots on Front Street.”

Dick Myers, president of the Santa Cruz Valley Historic Museum Board in Eloy, describes why script was used on cotton farms, which might have each had 100 workers. “Gamblers and prostitutes would be attracted because of all that cash,” he says. “When workers instead received a punch card they could trade for goods, it took care of a lot of the crime.”

Norman Pretzer, a local farmer, was interviewed about Friendly Corners by the Republic in 1979. “During the days of handpicking [of cotton], 20,000 to 25,000 people would cram into Eloy on a Saturday night,” he said. “The people who came here were pretty unruly. They had not a thing to lose.”

The farmworkers didn’t resemble the characters from John Steinbeck’s novel,

The Grapes of Wrath says Thomas. “One farmer decided to upgrade farmworkers’ housing, building homes with cement floors and plumbing,” he says. “The workers damaged the homes and were soon outside again using outhouses and cooking over open fires. It’s hard to upgrade people from the culture that they’re raised in.”

Many of the cotton farmers became quite wealthy, including receiving payments not to grow the crop, and drove “Eloy pickups,” Thomas says. “They were Cadillacs that the farmers would tear-up driving around the fields for a year and then trade-in for a shiny new one the next year.”

The hard work of harvesting cotton and other crops such as potatoes, carrots,

Top: Friendly Corner Store with the connected script-cash exchange booth to the right, early 1940s.

Above: Friendly Corner Store in 2018.

Top right: Friendly Corner Store ad, early 1940s.

Right: A refreshment stand next to the script-cash exchange booth, early 1940s.

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Nov-Dec 2018

Image courtesy of Friendly Corners Arizona

lettuce, cabbage, Right: Mobile power unit and cauliflower at the FSA camp in Friendly was interrupted Corners, early 1940s. by events such as a Fourth of July celebration in 1942. The event featured “50 pounds of the finest beef obtainable barbecued by expert Allen Lattie over an open fire” and a sports carnival, according to the Casa Grande Dispatch.

The festivities were capped by “a real oldtime dance held under the stars.”

By 1943, Friendly Corners had a new source for agricultural labor: German POWs. “They came from the POW camp in Florence and lived temporarily in Friendly Corners,” Issac says. “They got paid to pick cotton. A lot of these POWs ended up moving back to Arizona, so I guess it wasn’t that bad of an experience.”

There was another farming link to World War II. Many of the large irrigation wells were powered with engines formerly used on P-38s and other warplanes. “The was still a viable store at that point in the water would shoot out of a 12-inch diame- 1960s,” he says.

“I returned again about 30 years ter discharge pipe with such pressure that it only began to drop after about 8 feet,” ago, and the store was still open, but the Mexican lady working there didn’t speak Thomas says.

Isaac’s family moved to Phoenix in 1943 English,” he says. “It was pretty dilapidated and opened three neighborhood markets. and probably closed shortly afterward.”

The rural depopulation of Arizona And Friendly Corners began to change. In the early 1950s, machines started replac- farming areas was noted in the 1979 Repubing people to harvest cotton. Most of the lic article about Friendly Corners. “It used migrant workers left. “The farmers hired to be they’d bring in a hundred or more the best workers from the cotton pickers, people here to the farm to hoe weeds in and kept them on the farms as irrigators the fields,” a resident said. “Now they may have two or three people out here.” and tractor drivers,” Myers says.

Today, the store, gas station, and cotBashas’ sold the Friendly Corner store in 1954. Isaac’s family still had relatives ton gin are closed, and most of the remainin Eloy, and on one such visit, his parents ing structures are in ruins. Many of the took him to the Friendly Corner Mercantile, residents who had remained in the area which had an A-1 Beer sign out front. “It relocated to Eloy. But the community’s leg-

acy remains intact, captured on film.

In the 1930s, the Farm Security Administration hired photographers to convey the challenges of rural poverty. The talented group included Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Russell Lee, who later became the first instructor of photography at the University of Texas at Austin.

Lee is famous for documenting rural life in many settings, including Friendly Corners. His images portray migrant farm workers living in harsh conditions, yet happily raising their families or playing marbles in the dirt. Thanks to Lee, their smiling faces and the story of this cotton crossroads community will not be forgotten.

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Arizona Contractor & Community

Wayland’s Pharmacy Delivery, Phoenix.

Marilyn Szabo

I

’m the curator of the book At Work in Arizona, which is also an ongoing blackand-white photographic collection of the economic history of Arizona, commissioned by Alliance Bank of Arizona. The Casa Grande Valley was underrepresented Forty Eight

in the project, so I visited the Museum of Casa Grande to research possible images.

In their archives, I discovered a gold mine: the photos of mid-20th-century photographer James “Jim” Lauda Gorraiz.

The photographer’s background is

Nov-Dec 2018

tesy of Doug

as interesting as the images he captured. Gorraiz was born in Tempe in 1926 to Victor and Anne Marie Lauda Gorraiz. His father came from Pamplona, Spain and was of Basque origin.

The family moved to northern Arizona to herd sheep. They later moved to the Valley, where Jim’s grandfather, Victor Sr., ran Victor’s Café at 1237 East Van Buren for 28 years. The business then morphed into Victor’s Cocktails, which was run by Jim’s

Images cour

The Gorraiz Book Project

las Towne

Documenting a City:

Images courtesy of Author

father, Victor Jr. until shortly before the of the iconic Zep’s Drive-In, which he took building was razed in 1984. with his 4 x 5-inch, a large-format camera During high school, Gorraiz worked that captured incredible detail. part-time at the Photo Shop in Phoenix.

Returning to Phoenix, Gorraiz worked This experience helped him as a freelance photographer become a campus photogra- “Gorraiz’s work is a in downtown Phoenix for pher while attending Arizona several years, saving money State College. After graduat- historical portrait for his future business. He ing, he enrolled in the Archer moved to Casa Grande in of the state.”

School of Photography in Los 1949 and opened the Casa Angeles for two years of intensive study. Grande Photo Shop in 1950, later to be Fred Archer, the founder of the school, was renamed Casa Grande Photograph and a pioneer of advertising photography and Record Shop. He also freelanced for the cinema on the West Coast. In Los Ange- Casa Grande Dispatch. les, Gorraiz learned the skills of the trade, Gorraiz became a leader in the commudeveloped his aesthetic, and began to doc- nity, teaching photography and sponsoring ument the area. An example is his image a photo club. An avid traveler, hunter, and arizcc.com

Top: Arizona Water Company

fisherman, he promotional image. traveled exten- Left: Funk’s Jewelry, Phoenix. sively in Mexi- Right: Gorraiz’s Casa Grande co and was flu- Photo Shop. ent in Spanish.

His interests included helping preserve and promote Native American culture.

Gorraiz spearheaded the creation of the O’odham Tash Celebration held annually in Casa Grande from 1968-2010 and became chairman of the ceremonial dance program in 1989. “We want to promote better relations between our neighboring tribes and our community,” Gorraiz, as the O’odham Tash president, told the Dispatch in 1977.

Gorraiz’s main work as a photographer was to provide advertising images for local Arizona Contractor & Community

Images courtesy of Author

Top: Gerdes Chevrolet Agency, Casa Grande.

Below: Zep’s Drive-in, Los Angeles.

Right, top: Pat Boone (on right) at the Francisco Grande resort.

Right, below: Sedillo Trust Company, Casa Grande.

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businesses. For more than 30 years he used his 4 x 5-inch camera to produce hundreds of high-quality negatives. He, unknowingly, also created an encompassing portrait of the post-war expansion of central Arizona, mirroring the rest of the nation. Images such as “Funk’s Jewelry, Phoenix,” and “Wayland’s Pharmacy Delivery, Phoenix” show businesses with modern facades and updated ways of conducting commerce.

Gorraiz did not think of himself as an “art” photographer; his work was utilitarian, frank, and unadorned. But his vernacular body of work is part of a lineage that includes Walker Evans and Robert Frank and represents a unique period in Arizona and American history.

In the 1950 census, the population of Casa Grande was a little over 4,000. That number doubled by 1960 to 8,311 and continued growing. The image “Gerdes Chevrolet Agency, Casa Grande” depicts a salesman posing with new 1955 Chevys and two elephants to promote autos to a growing middle class.

The image “Stewart Title and Arizona Saving, Casa Grande” shows Mid-century architecture with modern, clean lines leading the way for economic progress through loans. For the “Sedillo Trust Co.” image, eight young women pose with microfilm readers to represent the promise of American prosperity.

Entertainer Pat Boone visited the city to market the “Francisco Grande Hotel & Golf Resort,” a spring training facility that opened for the San Francisco Giants in 1959. Gorraiz’s images document the unique architectural concept that brought together a Brutalist-style hotel, a baseball bat-shaped swimming pool, a hot tub resembling a baseball, and an overhang on the tower that mimicked the brim of a baseball cap.

The agricultural development in Maricopa, located north of Casa Grande, began in the early 1950’s, with cotton a popular crop. The “Arizona Water Co.” image shows a high-heeled beauty relaxing on an irrigation pipe, which spouts life-giving water for plants and future suburbia.

Gorraiz’s images are a window into the world of the average American, documenting everyday people and events. His wide range of subjects also encompasses the socio-economic divide: people whose days were filled with hard work and few luxuries, but morphing into a new, middle class.

These photographs are potent not only in composition but also for the information they contain. Underlying these seemingly ordinary images, the viewer can extract arizcc.com

information about the period’s politics, racial tension and harmony, the persistence of poverty, the fruits of hard work, and the power of friendship. Gorraiz’s work also is a historical portrait of the state, recording the changing dress and habits of Arizonans and the evolution of the Casa Grande Valley from farms to suburbia.

In 2016, the Museum of Casa Grande created a 501 (c) (3) to produce a coffee-table book highlighting 150 images from the collection curated by myself and Marshall Shore. With a degree in History and 30 years as a photographer, I brought to the

project my knowledge of photography and curatorial abilities.

Marshall Shore, known as “Arizona’s Official Hipstorian,” is assisting, having immersed himself in Arizona’s history since he arrived in the Valley 17 years ago.

Shore’s obsession with history was kindled by some slides he found in a Phoenix vintage store. When Shore projected the slides in his backyard, he had an epiphany that they contained forgotten stories that would be meaningful to tell. He is a now a public speaker, touring Arizona telling audiences what makes our state so unique.

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Arizona Contractor & Community

Architect’s Perspective: Hiram Hudson Benedict, AIA: Always on the Move Doug Sydnor, FAIA

Doug_sydnor@outlook.com one year.” Benedict followed this advice and was employed in Pasadena, Tampa, and Atlanta. In 1925, he went to New York where he worked for James Gamble Rogers and did some design detail for the Yale University Sterling Memorial Library.

Upon returning to California in 1935, he worked in Palm Springs for Gene Verge, followed by firm partnerships of Brewster & Benedict and Finlayson & Benedict. Benedict worked briefly in Phoenix from 19391940, and then returned to Palm Springs in 1940. During World War II, Benedict served as an architect in the 13th Naval District at the Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle, Whidbey Island, and Klamath Falls, Oregon.

After the war in 1946, he returned to Palm Springs and set up an office for Bain, Overturf, Turner & Associates of Seattle.

In 1950 Lescher & Mahoney in Phoenix invited Benedict to design the front of the new St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. The following year he started one of the first Scottsdale-based architectural firms and, through the mid-1970s, he was active in Scottsdale, Phoenix, Carefree, Palm Springs, and San Diego. Benedict was known for many fine custom residenc- Left: Paradise Valley

Image courtesy of Arizona Republic

W

Hiram Hudson Benedict, 1962

es, including those for well-known personalities Walter Winchell, Dr. & Mrs. Loyal Davis (Nancy Reagan’s parents), Elliot & Minnewa Roosevelt, Phil Harris & Alice Faye, and Claire Booth Luce. He also designed numerous commercial, recreational, hospitality, and multi-family residential projects in Arizona and California.

Benedict appears to have had eight marriages, including to artist Lois Grace, who also designed landscaping for many of Benedict’s projects. He and Lois retired to Nordland, Washington and he passed away on November 17, 1984.

In the early 1950s, a group of Hollywood investors including actor John Racquet Club.

Ireland, Joanne Dru, and Sydney ChapBelow right: Paradise Valley Country Club. lin (Charlie Chaplin’s son) acquired 18 acres on the north side of Camelback Mountain. They hired Benedict to design a clubhouse, five tennis courts, and a prototype casita, which became Ireland’s Arizona home. “Architectural design and cost of the buildings planned will be a credit to the entire winter resort district from Arcadia to Paradise Valley,” Ireland said. “Architecture will be modernistic but will harmonize with

Images courtesy of Scottsdale Historic Society

hile researching local history, I discovered a talented architect named Hiram Hudson Benedict, AIA, who was active in Scottsdale during the 1950s and 1960s. My inquiry included contacting some professionals who worked with him.

“Considering that he had no college education and basically learned by the seat of his pants, he was a great talent, and his projects were well received,” says Don Woods, a Sedona-based architect that worked with Benedict. “He was a great salesman. He would sketch upside down in front of clients, and that alone knocked their socks off.”

Benedict was born in 1901, probably in Riverside, CA. Benedict intended to be a civil engineer but did not attend college as he was short on high school credits. Instead, he worked as a draftsman in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara for a few years. Architect John C. Austin told Benedict, “Go out and get experience. Go all over the country and don’t work in any one place more than

Fifty Two

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Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

arizcc.com

Shoemaker; and professional tennis players Jimmy Connors, Pancho Gonzales, and Pancho Segura.

Edward L. Varney and Associates, AIA, along with Hiram Hudson Benedict, designed the 1954 Paradise Valley Country Club at 7101 North Tatum Boulevard and at the base of Marshmallow Hill. The first phase was the ‘Homestead’ that included a kitchen, a 150-person capacity dining room, lounge, large open fireplace, and lockers. The structure had laminated wood ceilings, native stone walls, redwood plank and batten walls, and roof of cedar shake shingles. There was an irregularly-shaped swimming pool with a flagstone deck, and all views were toward the 9th and 18th greens on the Lawrence Hugh-designed golf course.

Having attended events in the ranchstyle Homestead before it was demolished, I can attest to the architectural character as low-scaled, warm, and intimate for its club members and guests. The Club was within the 1954 master-planned, 270-acre Paradise Hills Subdivision. Custom home sites surrounded the golf course and extended west of Tatum Boulevard. Many exceptional

ry Club

the surroundings, with plentiful use of native stone. A wide use of glass will predominate to take advantage of the views available to the site.”

The project was known as the Paradise Valley Racquet Club at 5300 East McDonald Drive, later renamed John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch in 1969, and the Sanctuary in 2001. John Gardiner and investors had purchased the property at an auction. They then hired Richard Caviness in association with Benedict to design the casitas. The original two-story clubhouse had showers and a women’s beauty shop below; the kitchen, cocktail lounge, dining room, and dance floor with dramatic views were on the upper level. Natural stone, concrete masonry units, horizontal plank wood siding, exposed wood beam and slat ceiling, cantilevered roof structure, and extensive glazing composed the structure. Stadium seating stepped down to focus on the main tennis courts. A swimming pool was at the upper west level offering sunset views of Camelback Mountain and Praying Monk.

My family, who all played tennis, were members of the Paradise Valley Racquet Club and John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch from 1966 into the 1970s. We particularly enjoyed attending the Annual Celebrity & Senators tennis tournaments, watching actors George Peppard, Ron Ely, Merv Griffin, Zsa Zsa Gabor; Senators Howard Metzenbaum and John Heinz; jockey ‘Willie’

Image courtesy of Paradise Valley Count

Top: Paradise Valley Racquet Club.

Right: Paradise Valley Country Club.

architects including Benedict, Bennie Gonzales, Calvin Straub, Alfred Newman Beadle, William F. Cody, Blaine Drake, Paul Christian Yaeger, and Weaver and Drover designed these custom homes.

Among Benedict’s beautiful houses, the 1970 Boulder Reign Residence designed for Carl Hovgaard stands out.

Located on North Stagecoach Pass Road and on the southeastern slope of Black Mountain in Carefree, the 4,500 squarefoot house was placed on two boulder-covered hillside lots totaling 5 acres.

A few boulders were moved to provide an approach drive, and the swimming pool was held to one side of the home. “It is a house that has everything,” Hovgaard said.

“Site preparation was high.”

The living area views are phenomenal and framed by 17-foot-high, wrap-around glazing. The two-level residence floats Arizona Contractor & Community

#1

#1 - Biltmore Estates Residence, 1952. #2 - Casserole Residence, Paradise Valley, 1954. #3 - Electronic Laboratory, Phoenix, 1956. #4 - Hovgaard Residence, Carefree, 1970. #5 - Davis Residence, Phoenix, 1955. #6 - Oostermeyer Residence, Phoenix, 1954.

#2

#4

#6

Images courtesy of Author

#5

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among the boulders, with some rocks projecting boldly into a courtyard. The upper level has continuous cantilevered balconies constructed of cast-in-place concrete and often supported by high stone-clad retaining walls.

The house was used in the movie, Zabriskie Point, produced by Carlo Ponti and directed by the Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. The 1970 film starred Rod Taylor, Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, and, in an uncredited role, Harrison Ford. Benedict served as a technical advisor when the home was used as a shooting location and in the movie’s final scene, in which 17 cameras captured the Boulder Reign Residence being blown up—or at least a full-scale mock-up in Death Valley.

Needless to say, Hiram Hudson Benedict stayed on the move his entire life with working at various firms, experiencing many places, establishing his own practices, and in marriages, but he managed to focus on delivering some inspirational architecture along the way.

Other selected Arizona projects include: 1952 - Private Residence, Biltmore Estates, Phoenix 1954 - Walter Winchell Residence, E. Yucca, Paradise Valley 1954 - Mr. & Mrs. Jan Oostermeyer Residence, W. Butler, Phoenix 1954 - Eugene A. Casserole Residence, N. Dragon Lane, Paradise Valley 1955 - Dr. & Mrs. Loyal Davis Residence, Biltmore Estates, Phoenix 1956 - Bairds Bread Co., 2601 E. Washington Street, Phoenix - demolished 1956 - Electronic Laboratory with Research Tenants, SW Corner 52nd St. and McDowell Road, Phoenix 1959 - Elliott & Minnewa Roosevelt Residence or ‘Hangover House,’ N. Palm Canyon Drive, Phoenix - remodeled 1960 - Claire Booth Luce Residence, Biltmore Estates, Phoenix 1961 - Mrs. Lucius Boomer Residence, Biltmore Estate, Phoenix 1962 - Fred Bohen Residence (of Better Homes and Gardens fame), E. Shea Boulevard, Scottsdale - demolished

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San Diego projects include: 1959 - Half Moon Inn (Humphreys), Shelter Island, Point Loma 1963 - San Diego Yacht Club, Shelter Island, Point Loma Douglas B. Sydnor, FAIA, is a Principal at Douglas Sydnor Architect + Associates, Inc. and author of three architectural books. arizcc.com

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Image courtesy of Roman Candelaria

Digging Through the Archives: RomAn Candelaria

inquired about employment opportunities involving the Interstate 10 construction project. The tavern owner offered him a room for the night across the street, to help William Horner Candelaria.

The next morning, Candelaria showed oman Candelaria is no stranger to our The two men first met in northeast magazine. We’ve covered his RoBil Arizona while working for Nesbitt Contract- up where Givens Contracting was doing contracting firm, paid tribute to his ing, Mesa, in the late 1950s. Candelaria road construction, 5 miles from the tavern. late business-partner Bill subsequently joined Local To his surprise, Candelaria was greeted by “They even hauled Sudbrack, and showcased 556 Labor Union and took his crew from Holbrook and a boss he knew Vernon. “You got one,” was supervihis vintage Allis-Chalmers aggregates in cement a job with “MK” Morrison from sor Richard Van Weelden’s response to blade that I used to grade in Knudsen, working near trucks to meet demands his request for a job. Van Weelden was a tight quarters. We’re now Holbrook. seasoned blade operator and had served covering another aspect of Candelaria later of the I-10 project.” his career thanks to a tip returned to Concho, bor- under General Patton in World War II. The from his son, Richard Candelaria, president rowed $100 from Dale Wolford of Valley two became lifelong friends and Candelaria named his secof Sharp Creek Contracting. The topic is National Bank, and headed south ond son after Van Candelaria’s first road construction project looking for work. He arrived at Top left: A Givens Contracting Weelden. in 1959-60 while working with Casa Grande the Picacho Tavern near Eloy on a Cat crawler operating for the Ful­lerform Co. in Phoenix, 1952.

Candelaria contractor, Eddie Givens.

Sunday. While ordering a beer, he Top right: Roman Candelaria, started as a stake center, sporting his new belt chaser—and that’s buckle and watch fob with two not all he chased friends, 1950s.

Left: Roman Candelaria with the down on the job. belt buckle he purchased almost “One night while 60 years ago in Zuni N.M., 2018. standing between road-marking burners, I was flagging traffic during a rainstorm,” Candelaria says. “A truck loaded with turkeys skidded down off the side road, and rolled over. No one was injured, but turkeys were everywhere. It was quite a mess to clean up.”

He also worked nights at the crush-

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

R

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Nov-Dec 2018

Top left: A Euclid scraper constructing I-10 near Picacho, 1960.

Mid left: Givens Contracting mechanic at Picacho, 1960.

Bottom left: George Willett running an Adams blade with Robert Lee Robin­son chasing stakes, 1960.

Left: Mechanic working on Adams blade, 1960.

Images courtesy of Roman Candelaria

Right: Ray Ramirez and Al Gomez hold a “Truck Crossing” sign for Givens Contracting, 1960.

Below: Images from 1960 and 2009 of the I-10 interchange at Picacho.

Roman’s 1956 Ford pickup is shown in the 1960 photo and his new truck is in the 2009 photo.

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Images courtesy of Roman Candelaria Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

ing plant, assisting with operations. “On these road projects, we worked a lot of long hours,” Candelaria emphasizes.

There were four blades on the project, but Candelaria primarily teamed with operator George Willett. The two became fast friends. Candelaria was proud of his ability to ride on the blade’s moldboard and simultaneously grab the lath while keeping his eye on the elevation hub. Once the moldboard passed over the hub, he would jam the lath back into the ground to mark the spot.

The contract for building an 8.6-mile stretch of Interstate 10 from Picacho south to Red Rock was Givens Contracting’s largest project to date. The contract was awarded in September 1959 by the State Highway Department with all work to be completed on or before December 1960.

Candelaria recalled roughly 80 men working on the job to meet the deadline.

James Bond Trucking and Eddie Givens hauled the materials, and for a week even transported aggregates in cement trucks to meet demands. The paving was done by Pioneer Constructors of Tucson.

One of Candelaria’s favorite memories of the project was working with Eddie Givens. “He was a really nice guy,” Candelaria says. Givens grew up in Casa Grande and was active in local sports, and later sponsored many teams and clubs. He started as a ditch-lining contractor before expanding into heavy construction. The Eddie Givens Ditching Company performed concrete ditch lining, pump-back systems, and compacted berms. They worked alongside the Fullerform Company, assisting in installing the “Fullerform Method” of concrete-lined ditches throughout Arizona.

Givens purchased the Casa Grande sand and gravel Top left: Candelaria’s coworkers in the Picacho Tavern, 1960. operations from Bentson ConTop mid: Cooking food at the Picacho Tavern, 1960. tracting of Phoenix in 1956.

Top right: Tending bar is Pete, the brother-in-law of Angelo Stubus, who owned the Picacho Tavern, 1960.

The acquisition included a Above: Picacho Tavern ad, 1950.

60-foot-high batch plant and Left: A Givens Contracting Cat crawler with a cutting blade apparatus attachment forming a ditch, 1952.

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the largest concrete-mixing unit in Pinal County. He moved the operations to his yard at 40 North Brown Avenue, just north of Jimmie Kerr Boulevard.

With his readymix capabilities, Givens supplied ditch-lining projects and Casa Grande’s growing commercial and residential development. These included the Casa Grande Mills, the Elks Lodge on Florence Boulevard, and all concrete, earthwork, and paving for the Arizona Employment Security Commission office on Marshall and East Third streets.

Givens went on to secure other road contracts with the State Highway Department in southern Arizona, but none were as significant as the Picacho project. Candelaria stayed with Givens for a few more projects before working for other companies, including Kiewit and JWJ Design Builders. He started his own company, RoBil, with Bill Sudbrack in 1968.

Top left: Eddie Givens (left) with employee, 1956.

Above: Givens’ transport trucks parked near Picacho, 1960.

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