Volume 8 Issue 1
$5.99 Jan - Feb 2019 Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community. . . Then & Now
The Wild Hayride of Phoenix’s Rodeo Drive-In Ned Sawyer: Site-Specific Architecture Tom Hogarty retires from ACC John Baehr: Contracting from Vietnam to AZ
Jack Stewart’s Phoenix Legacy • Stewart Construction Co. • Stewart Motor Co. • The Stewart Apartments
Arizona’s Timeless MagAzine
We've Got You Protected! Hydraulic Shores Trench Boxes Trench Plates Slide Rail Confined Space Equipment Competent Person Training Trench Shore Rentals
Phoenix Division
Editor Douglas Towne Douglas@arizcc.com
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Touring new Arizona roads not experienced yet. A different World Series champion!
Contributors Alison Bailin Batz Michael Bernstein James Busch Sean B. Ray Dzevida Sadikovic Octavio Serrano Billie Snell Luke Snell Doug Sydnor Isaac Wildes Rayan Vatti Tom Yount Anne Zell Production Manager Laura Horner Laura@arizcc.com
Competing for a national badminton title.
What are you most looking forward to in 2019?
Summer Vacation!
Magazine Advisor Chuck Runbeck Chuck@arizcc.com Publisher’s Representatives Tom Hogarty Tom@arizcc.com
Spending time with family, especially my lovely wife , Ann.
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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 © 2019 All rights reserved.
Jan-Feb 2019
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TOM YOUNT
ANNE STEWART ZELL
Article on page 54
Articles on page 32 + 38
Although Tom Yount has been a resident of the Valley for 40 years, he had never really thought much about Phoenix history until he passed by the Williams Family Cemetery on Van Buren Street. Now he is hooked. Tom was born in the Midwest, but his family moved to Scottsdale when he was one. He spent his youth and teenage years skateboarding and playing drums in punk bands, unaware of the area’s history. Tom has maintained his passion for drumming and played in several local bands across various genres including Autumn’s End, Jedi Five, Redfield, and Kingdom Of Dis. He currently plays in the local band, We Were Stereo. For the past 15 years, his “day job” has been facilities manager at a Scottsdale technology company. His main interests over the years have been expanding his music, baseball and military aviation collections, but now local history is his passion. He has explored from the top of the Luhrs Tower in downtown Phoenix down to the remains of the Joint Head Dam in the Salt River bed. He enjoys conducting independent research and connecting with other local history enthusiasts. Tom and his wife of 10 years, Rhonda, reside in Paradise Valley Village with their two spoiled Boston Terriers.
Born and raised in Phoenix, Anne Stewart Zell graduated from North Phoenix High School. She attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville New York and was awarded Master’s degrees in Anthropology and Counseling from ASU. Her professional life has encompassed a variety of pursuits. She was a professor of Anthropology at Mesa Community College and had a private practice as a mental health counselor. Her business experience includes working as a stockbroker, realtor, and chief operating officer of an oil company. Anne travels extensively visiting historical and archeological sites and has been a docent at Pueblo Grande Museum in Phoenix. Anne is currently researching and writing about Arizona and her family’s history. She recently published Jack P. Stewart, Phoenix’s Mid-Twentieth Century Visionary, which she dedicated to her mother, Rose Stewart. The short book explores her father’s business activities in the automotive and construction industries in Phoenix, focusing on the post-World War II period. Her historical research includes compiling an account of the lives of her grandparents, W.R. and Mae B. Stewart who settled in Mesa in 1913. Their lives reflect the excitement experienced by residents as Arizona became the 48th state in 1912.
Jan-Feb 2019
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From The Editor: Rodeo Drive-In Was One Wild Hayride - Douglas Towne Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices Mid-Century Home Construction Innovator: Jack P. Stewart - Anne Stewart Zell A New Spin on Phoenix Auto Showrooms: The Stewart Motor Co. - Anne Stewart Zell Back When: Blue Ribbon Entertainment Douglas Towne The Stewart: The High Rise that Changed City Policy Isaac Windes From Vietnam to Arizona: John Baehr’s Contracting Career - William Horner Building On The Past: 1957: Phoenix’s Foremost “Checker” Swilling’s Monument: A Modern-Day History Mystery - Tom Yount Architect’s Perspective: Edward B. ‘Ned’ Sawyer, Jr, AIA: Site-Specific Architecture - Doug Sydnor
Digging Through the Archives: Roland Hamberg William Horner
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Bid Results - Bidjudge
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ACC Advertisers’ Index
Front Cover Stewart Motor Co., 1947. Story on page 38. Inset Jack Stewart Story on page 32.
Jan-Feb 2019
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Left: Red Garters poster. Right: Red Garters movie premier at the Rodeo Drive- In, 1955.
Editor’s column Rodeo Drive-In Was One Wild Hayride Douglas Towne
T
he Rodeo Drive-In opened in 1953 in an industrial area of Phoenix near 12th Street and Buckeye Road, which was then called Henshaw Road. The theater owners paved the entire site with asphalt for comfort—and to dissuade excavations on land that was once the Jacob Waltz ranch. “Every inch of that property had been dug up by treasure hunters, hoping to find the fabled gold of the Lost Dutchman mine reported buried on his ranch,” J. B. McCorTen
mick, theater co-owner, told the Arizona Republic. The Rodeo was the Valley’s seventh drive-in at the time. The 10.5-acre site included room for 550 cars, a 64-foot screen, and a snack bar. “Popcorn is the sweetheart of theater owners,” added McCormick. “We’d all go back to cow pastures without it. As long as we charge only $1 per car for admission with as many as eight persons per car and show three features on weekends, it’s the popcorn that
keeps us in business.” Opening night featured the movies, Branded, Flying Leathernecks, and The Sniper, all just “24 Short Blocks from the Heart of Phoenix.” The drive-in, which included “Always Two Cartoons,” was built by John C. Kelton & Son Contractors, signage by Myers-Leiber Company, and enclosed by American Fence Company. Patrons could walk-in for 40 cents, children for just 10 cents. The Rodeo expanded its entertainment offering the following year by hosting a circus with elephants and acrobats under the big top for three days. In the spring of 1955, the theater featured Red Garters, a musical spoof of Westerns starring Rosemary Clooney. Female employees of the Rodeo got into the film’s spirit, dressing in costume for the opening night. That same year, moviegoers were treated to a wedding performed in front of the snack bar between films, uniting two Jan-Feb 2019
Left: Rodeo Drive-In newspaper advertisements. Right: Rodeo Drive-In, 1965.
employees who met at the theater. The bride was a snack bar cashier, whose family lived nearby, and the groom was a parttime usher from Luke Air Force Base. Republic columnist Don Dedera interviewed Rodeo co-owner Wade E. Allen for insights into the theater business in 1957. Allen complained about the hundreds of stolen speakers along with “thrill-happy girls” who occasionally climbed the ladder behind the back wall to dangle their legs over the top of the screen. Allen also commented on the strange items people lost at the drive-in. “I have had six sets of false teeth in my lost-and-found department at one time.” Allen noted that, as an act of goodwill,
he had run speakers to two houses situated behind the drive-in so that the residents could have sound to go with the movie. “If this business weren’t mostly fun, I’d have been out of it long ago,” he concluded. But the drive-in was already experiencing challenging times. An employee who was changing the theater marque had a bullet hit the letter next to him in 1955. The drive-in was robbed several times during the next two decades. Crime escalated, as a 16-year-old theater patron died after being shot, perhaps in a case of mistaken gang affiliation in 1978, according to the Republic. Problems peaked when the film, Shanghai Joe, was halted because of a
“Every inch of that property had been dug up by treasure hunters, hoping to find the fabled gold of the Lost Dutchman mine reported buried on his ranch,”
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fire at the snack bar in 1976. A customer became so angry that she bit two police officers who responded to the disturbance. “She really took a good chunk of those officers,” a lieutenant told the Republic. The policemen needed treatment at St. Luke’s Hospital, where medical officials said that “human bites are often more infectious than dog bites.” All that conflict occurred over a film that garnered sub-par ratings. By then, the price was $5 per carload. Besides the typical drive-in slasher horror films, the Rodeo featured Kung-Fu fests, R-rated flesh shows such as Sins of Adam and Eve, and movies oriented towards the African-American community such as Muhammad Ali in The Greatest, Gladys Knight in Pipe Dreams, and Billy Dee Williams in Blast. The drive-in closed in 1981. The Central City Campus of Gateway Community College now occupies the site.
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Projects . PEOPLE . PRACTICES
Construction 101: Sundt Partners with Central Arizona College Sean B. Ray and James Busch
I
n an industry that faces a shortage of two million workers nationally over the next three years, creating a pipeline of qualified labor is an ongoing challenge. The construction industry has grappled with a
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growing skills gap for a decade, particularly as technology changes the way companies operate. To help alleviate the labor shortage, Tempe-based Sundt Construction and Central Arizona College (CAC), located in nearby Coolidge, are working on unique ways to recruit and train skilled workers. In the spring of 2016, Sundt – one of the nation’s largest builders of everything from hospitals and light rails to highways and water treatment plants – approached CAC to explore an apprenticeship partnership in Heavy Equipment Operations. During these discussions, a more significant gap in available skilled workers emerged, leading Sundt and CAC to conclude that expanding the collaboration beyond the apprenticeship was necessary and warranted. Based in Pinal County, CAC already had a robust Career Technical Education (CTE) and skilled trades department, along
CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Projects
CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA
Above: A heavy equipment instructor operates a 938G Caterpillar loader owned by CAC. Left: A welding professor inspects a SUNDT/ CAC student’s weld.
with acres of open space for utilizing heavy equipment. The Coolidge campus is home to dormitory space that allows students to come from across the state. Most of the construction courses and curriculum at CAC were outdated and focused primarily on residential building. To meet the growing needs of commercial construction, CAC administrators worked with Sundt leadership to develop trade pathways in five key areas: 1. Structural welding 2. Industrial construction 3. Pipefitting 4. Concrete construction technology 5. Heavy equipment operation With a focus on putting trained graduates directly into jobs where they’re needed, the five one-year programs were Arizona Contractor & Community