It's always been easy to remember Arizona's birthday -- February 14, Valentine's Day. This year, 2012, is also the Centennial of the Grand Canyon State, the last of the Lower 48 to join the US of A. As the newest kid, Arizona sure gets a shit load of attention. Arizona and New Mexico, which also celebrated its Centennial this year on January 6, could have been granted statehood much earlier than 1912.
Following the 1846-48 Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought much of the Southwest into the union. Different versions of the Arizona Territory, some overlapping into New Mexico, existed until the Civil War, when the southern halves of Arizona and New Mexico seceded together to create the Confederate Territory of Arizona. This region was recaptured by the North in 1863, and the currently-shaped Arizona and New Mexico Territories were established, but it took nearly a half century to add our stars to the flag.
One group longing for statehood was organized labor -- the Wobblies, "Big P" Progressives, socialists, and other unions and associations hoping to improve working conditions in the mining industry, one of the most important economic engines in Arizona at the turn of the century. Even though the Arizona Territory was Democratic, its politics and economy were often controlled by huge corporate powers, like railroads and mining companies, who rarely supported the goals of the working class. The business elite had no desire to invite either union or federal oversight into the region, and so the move toward statehood, as Tom Sheridan writes in his history of Arizona, was largely led by progressives:
The result was a strong but evanescent coalition of populists, progressives, and labor leaders who joined the statehood crusade. Arizona: A History
Sheridan says that in order for this progressive coalition to bring about statehood, more than a few powerful forces had to be overcome, not the least being the entrenched business sector, which was largely exploitative -- of people and land. When President Theodore Roosevelt set aside the Grand Canyon as a National Monument in 1908, which he could do with the stroke of his pen, the Territorial governor and legislature, local chambers of commerce, and the powerful mining lobby went nuts, because TR's executive act restricted further exploitation of the Canyon. Given the current fight over uranium mining in one of the world's most celebrated places, little seems to have changed.
A second obstacle to statehood was Republicans in the US Senate, who feared Arizona would dilute their power by sending two new Democratic Senators to Washington DC. They were right, of course; Arizona's first Senators were both Democrats, as was the lone Representative, the invincible Carl Hayden, who was later elected to the Senate in 1926. Hayden eventually became the nation's longest-serving congressman (1912-1969!) until Robert Byrd surpassed him.
The soft-spoken and unassuming Hayden was remarkably effective, and never shy about securing federal money for his state, especially when it came to water. The Central Arizona Project, the mammoth $4 billion canal that brings Colorado River water 330 miles across plateaus and deserts to Phoenix and Tucson, was first proposed by Hayden in the 1920s. When LBJ signed the bill in 1968, as an aging Hayden looked on, the CAP was one of the largest federal appropriations to a single state. And yet today the goobers here rant about "federal intrusion." The truth is, this place couldn't exist as it does without federal subsidies -- for water reclamation, cattle ranching, mining, timber, agriculture, military bases, national parks, and reservations (21 tribal nations call Arizona home).
Senator Hayden was a growth proponent but you gotta wonder if he ever imagined this. He never saw the completion of his life-long dream to bring more water to his very dry state. He died in 1972 at age 94, well before the canal was finished in 1992. Hayden's biographer Jack August sums it up: "He began his public career riding a horse and buggy to his office and ended it voting for funds that ultimately enabled him to watch people walk on the moon." The home where he was born is a popular Tempe restaurant, Monti's. Hayden's memory lives on in landmarks throughout the Valley -- streets, mountains, libraries, schools, parks. One should be so remembered.
During Territorial days Hayden and fellow western Democrats were statehood proponents because federal dollars and projects (dams!) fed their pro-growth agenda. When it became apparent the question would have to be addressed, the Republican chair of the US Senate committee that had jurisdiction over territories, Albert Beveridge of Indiana, proposed a solution to his party's predicament: admit Arizona and New Mexico as one state, so the more populated and Republican New Mexico would cancel out the Democrats in Arizona. However, not only was New Mexico more Republican and nearly twice as populated as its western neighbor, it was more ethnically diverse. Arizona's mostly white and Democratic base reacted in horror at the notion they'd be answerable to Hispanic Republicans in Santa Fe. Sheridan writes:
Arizonans reacted with an indignation that was as much racist as righteous -- an indignation the newspapers controlled by the railroads and copper companies carefully stoked... As one senator from South Carolina proclaimed, Arizona's opposition to joint statehood was "a cry of a pure blooded white community against the domination of a mixed breed aggregation of citizens of New Mexico, who are Spaniards, Indians, Greasers, Mexicans, and everything else."
Oh, for a second there I thought I was listening to the GOP primary debates. Or the Republican Party in my state, who might as well just put on pointy sheets. Arizona may have been solidly Democratic in its early years, but that changed at the end of WWII with the population boom, driven by retirees and phony "rugged individualists," who brought us Barry Goldwater and the GOP in the 1950s. Hayden retired in 1969 and Goldwater won his Senate seat; he'd made himself popular traveling around Arizona to show his movies of rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Yeah, Goldwater was a utilitarian when it came to the environment, but you won't find a lot of
Democrats today who experienced and cared as much for the land and its indigenous people. One of Goldwater's legacies as a young city councilman was stopping development on Camelback Mountain.
As a life-long supporter of Planned Parenthood (his first wife Peggy helped establish the first chapter in the state), Barry Goldwater would look at the GOP today and freak out. Here in Maricopa County 80-year-old Joe Arpaio will run for another term as Sheriff, recalled Senator Russell Pearce now blathers racist rants on a radio show, and the stripped-down SB 1070 remains in play. The legislature has axed a multicultural curriculum in Tucson that tells kids whose ancestors were oppressed that their ancestors were oppressed. And so it goes, like the old days.
New Mexicans supported joint statehood by a margin of nearly 2:1, Arizonans rejected the proposal by more than 5:1. Back to the two-state drawing board. Arizona's Democratic Party and labor worked together to write a progressive platform, modeled after liberal charters in Oregon and Oklahoma. At the 1910 Constitutional Convention unions had a voice: the proposed Arizona Constitution outlawed child labor, created an eight-hour workday, established worker protections, and gave women the vote. Just the same, in a nod to bigots the new platform restricted "alien" labor, which threatened Arizona's economy because more than 60% of miners and workers in the agricultural sector were Mexicans. Happily, that provision was defeated before the Constitution made its way to President Taft's desk in 1911.
But another controversial provision remained: the Arizona Constitution gave citizens the right to recall judges. Taft would not approve statehood unless this provision was removed, calling it "pernicious in its effect, destructive of independence in the judiciary, and injurious to the cause of free government." Arizonans took out the offending language, Taft signed the statehood papers on February 14, 1912, and the very first order of business for Arizona's new legislature was to re-insert the judge recall provision, where it remains today. Anti-federalism has a long history here too.
That's a short version of how Arizona arrived at its first Valentine's Day. A few things to like (or not) about the nation's petrie dish are below the Centennial squiggle. Add your own in the comments.
PEOPLE
EDWARD ABBEY: Cactus Ed, a 20th-century Thoreau, grave in the desert outside Tucson only known by a few.
REX ALLEN: Cowboy star of over 200 westerns, born in Willcox.
JOE ARPAIO: Bull Connor lives.
JAN BREWER: "Yes, we has did!" It took 16 seconds to think of that.
GLEN CAMPBELL: "By the time I get to Phoenix" I'll be hot as hell.
CÉSAR CHÁVEZ: A powerful voice for the 99%.
COCHISE: Buried somewhere in the Dragoon Mountains.
MARY JANE COLTER: Architect extraordinaire, buildings all over Grand Canyon.
ALICE COOPER: The former Vincent Furnier, still lives here with his snake and mascara.
WYATT EARP: Except the shootout at the OK Corral was not at the OK Corral.
DUANE EDDY: Twang twang.
GERONIMO: His surrender to Gen. Crook in 1886 pretty much ended the Indian Wars. Got a raw deal. What else is new?
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS: Get well, Gabby.
BARRY GOLDWATER: He wouldn't even get in the door of today's GOP.
GONZO: 2001, 7th game, bottom of the 9th, tie game. Boink! I can die happy.
ZANE GREY: Wrote books about cowboys and stuff, cabin burned down in the Dude Fire but they rebuilt it in Payson.
SHARLOT HALL: State's first historian, the Territorial Capitol (a log cabin) is located at the Prescott museum named for her.
IRA HAYES: Member of Gila River Indian Community, one of the Marines who hoisted the flag at Iwo Jima. Descended into alcoholism, died at 32, buried in Arlington.
WINNIE RUTH JUDD: The [probably innocent] Trunk Murderess, Chop! Chop!
FATHER KINO: Built 24 missions and brought Catholicism to more than a dozen tribes.
ERNEST McFARLAND: Only Arizonan to serve in legislative, executive, and judiciary roles: Congressman, Governor, State Supreme Court. Father of GI Bill.
EVAN MECHAM: MLK fiasco, pickaninnies, impeachment, ah the good times.
CHARLES MINGUS: "The Angry Man of Jazz" was born in Nogales.
ERNESTO MIRANDA: A sleaze-ball who left a good policy; murdered in a Phoenix bar, suspect read his Miranda Rights and released, no conviction.
TOM MIX: Cowboy movie star killed driving drunk south of Florence; there's a monument (don't wreck looking for it). His South Phoenix house is a great restaurant - Los Dos Molinas.
N. SCOTT MOMADAY: First Native American to win Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
STEVIE NICKS: Her dad ran Compton Terrace amphitheater, she was in a band.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR: Arizona cowgirl is the first to wear a robe.
BUCKY O'NEILL: Killed fighting alongside TR in Cuba, his log cabin is on the Grand Canyon's rim.
RUSSELL PEARCE: Recalled nativist scumbag, just elected #2 man in the state GOP.
LORI PIESTEWA: First U.S. woman killed in combat in Iraq, a Hopi heroine. Offensive Squaw Peak in Phoenix renamed in her honor.
ROADRUNNER: Official State Bird, beep beep!
LINDA RONSTADT: It's so easy to fall in love.
PAOLO SOLERI: Student of Mr. Wright's, just retired from his 50-year effort to build Arcosanti.
STEVEN SPIELBERG: Phone home, you wouldn't know this place.
JACK SWILLING: Founder of Phoenix, died in a Yuma jail awaiting trial for stagecoach robbery. Set a precedent.
PAT TILLMAN: 42!
MO UDALL: Too funny to be president.
STEWART UDALL: Congressman, JFK and LBJ's Interior Director: Endangered Species Act, Wilderness Act, and more.
TED WILLIAMS: His head anyway (it's in a Scottsdale cryonics lab).
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: He designed a few things.
PLACES
ARIZONA TRAIL: Not quite as long as the Appalachian Trail, but Governor Mark Sanford could still get himself lost along its 800+ miles.
BISBEE: Funky and fun to say. Dave's Electric Beer started here.
BIOSPHERE 2: Whoops, maybe nature is more complicated and remarkable than we thought.
CANYON DE CHELLEY: Gawd, entire civilizations lived in this magical place.
FUNKY BROADWAY: And here you thought this 1966 song by Dyke & the Blazers was about Broadway in NYC.
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK: Major league hole. According to state Senator Sylvia Allen it's at least 6,000 years old.
HAVASUPAI FALLS: The Garden of Eden does exist.
HARMONIC CONVERGENCE: Sedona is wonderful enough, knock off the goofball stuff.
FOUNTAIN HILLS: One of the world's highest fountains is in water-starved Arizona.
JEROME: Nearly a ghost town, revived by macramé-making hippies.
KARTCHNER CAVERNS: Remarkable place with a great story.
KITT PEAK OBSERVATORY: With 24 giant telescopes it's the largest collection on Earth.
LONDON BRIDGE: Naturally, it's in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
McCARTNEY RANCH: Paul's place, "Jo Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona."
PAINTED DESERT: It really does look airbrushed.
PETRIFIED FOREST: People still steal tons of petrified wood every year. Don't! It's wrong and there's a $300 fine.
MISSIONS: San Xavier del Bac, Tumacacori.
MONUMENT VALLEY: In every John Ford western ever made.
MOUNT HUMPHREYS: Tallest point in the state (12,637 feet), also site of protests to stop ski development on Native land.
NAVAJO NATION: At more than 27,000 square miles, it's bigger than ten states.
OATMAN: Burros wild in the streets.
OLD ORAIBI: Oldest continuously inhabited town in America, on the Hopi mesas.
PRESCOTT NATIONAL FOREST: Largest stand of ponderosa pines in the world.
ROUTE 66: Get your kicks.
SAHUARO NATIONAL PARK: Majestic giants that grow to 60 feet and live 200 years; it's blossom is the State Flower.
SOUTH MOUNTAIN PARK: At more than 25 square miles, these Phoenix desert mountains make up the largest city park in the nation. Miles of trails, lots of petroglyphs.
SULTANO BAR: In Williams, longest operating liquor establishment in the state. Shit on your shoes/boots is a requirement.
SUN CITY: Just shoot me if I ever talk about moving there.
TOMBSTONE: Best place to buy a rubber tomahawk or scorpion in amber.
WHISKEY ROW: Prescott street that took all the cowboys' money every Friday night.
WHITE MOUNTAINS: Where Aldo Leopold shot the wolf and modern environmentalism was born.
WINSLOW: "Standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona." Although they still debate whether Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey were ever in Winslow.
OTHER STUFF
AzSCAM: Yep, Arizona legislators have been corrupt a long time.
BISBEE DEPORTATION: Throw union workers in boxcars and ship them to New Mexico (don't give Governor Brewer ideas about how to handle public unions).
DON BOLLES MURDER: Journalist killed in 1976 while investigating political corruption. Ben Affleck bought the movie rights, but to which story?
HOTEL CONGRESS: John Dillinger was captured at this Tucson icon. And no, his giant penis is not kept at the Smithsonian.
BOB CRANE MURDER: Hogan we hardly knew ya.
EXCELLENT! Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and hundreds of other films were shot here including, yes, Raising Arizona.
GADSDEN PURCHASE: 1854 settlement that added land south of the Gila River. Today, it's the dividing line for the saner half of the state who want to create Baja Arizona.
JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT: Arizona had two of the largest camps; the line that determined who went and who didn't ran through the middle of Phoenix.
KEATING FIVE: The S&L scam is not good news for John McCain.
NATIVE SEEDS SEARCH: Important farm near Patagonia saving indigenous foods.
PLUTO: Discovered at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, when they thought it was a planet.
PSYCHO: Hitchcock's 1960 classic begins with a tryst in Phoenix's historic Luhrs Tower.
SOUTHWESTERN SOUND: Colexico, Gin Blossoms, Dead Hot Workshop, Meat Puppets, Refreshments.
SPRING TRAINING: Put me in coach.
SB 1070: Jeers.
THE THING: Billboards for miles and miles and miles, WTF is that mummified slug?
WALLACE AND LADMO: At 36 years, one of the nation's longest running TV shows. Got your bag?
Oh, and remember: Arizona does not observe Daily Savings Time; it's a commie plot, you know. Exception: The Navajo Nation, which occupies almost a fourth of the state does observe DST. Exception to the Exception: The Hopi Nation, which is within the Navajo Nation, does not observe DST. Got that?
Happy birthday, Arizona. Now get it together! Wallace Stegner once urged the West to create a society to match its magnificent natural environment. If Arizona could do just half that we might at least slow down this clown car.
Fifteen years ago, even a few kids from Tempe knew the world is full of stupid people, many of whom ended up in the Arizona legislature.
And when you vacation here, remember that Arizona law prohibits anyone from owning more than two dildos. True.