Present day Scottsdale is well known for being an upper crust suburb of Phoenix and as an internationally acclaimed desert resort. However, the evolving nature of the city is all the more remarkable considering it’s humble beginnings in the late 19th century. For more than six decades Scottsdale was a small, obscure farming village known primarily for ranching and the production of forage crops such as alfalfa and sorghum. The climate was also ideal for citrus cultivation and helped put the fledgling frontier settlement on the map, founded by U.S. Army Chaplain Winfield Scott, on the site of an indigenous Pima tribe village in 1888.
During this period the Arizona territory became known for the five “Cs” – cattle, citrus, climate, copper, and cotton. Scottsdale had all of these attributes (except for copper which was mined in other areas of the territory). The balmy winter climate made the area ideal as a winter resort, with two major resorts such as the Ingleside Inn which were flourishing by 1920. Also, dams such as the Roosevelt built during the 1910s brought much needed water to the parched desert and kept agriculture prospering. Scottsdale really started to take off, though, during the post-World War Two era as thousands of pilot cadets (who had trained at the Thunderbird II Airfield Base in the early 1940s) chose to settle here permanently.
With the wide availability of open, relatively inexpensive land the Phoenix/ Scottsdale region became a magnet for technology oriented corporations such as Motorola to build state-of-the art plants there. This, in turn, attracted residential developers to build more attractive, affordable housing in the area- setting off a population boom that continues to this day. Scottsdale has also been a major draw for artists, writers and architects since the beginning of the twentieth century. The historic downtown core continues to host numerous galleries enjoyed by locals and tourists alike. World renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright was drawn to the Sonoran Desert and created Taliesin West which became his winter home and studio, adding to Scottsdale’s allure.
Taliesin West was his home from 1937 until his death in 1959, and is now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as of 2019, became a U.S. Historic Landmark in 1982, and was listed on the U.S. National Register Of Historic Places in 1974. Of course, Scottsdale is also justly famous as a major golfing destination and is a spring training center for such teams as the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks. These are all the things (and more!) that the Scottsdale Historical Museum documents so well in a relatively small space. The two room brick structure built in 1909 was the first substantial “little red schoolhouse” in town when there wasn’t much else around. Over the decades it served a number of uses such as town hall, city library and chamber of commerce before being abandoned and falling into disrepair with imminent threat of demolition by 1970.
However, concerned citizens decided to save the building which turned out to be a great plan. Eventually it was beautifully restored and by 1991 started serving it’s present function as the Scottsdale Historical Museum featuring numerous photos and exhibits charting Scottsdale’s progress from a small, hardscrabble farming village to fashionable resort city. This former school was also added to the National Register Of Historic Places.
For more information about the museum, please visit the following site:
http://experiencescottsdale.com/listing/scottsdale-historical-society/1916/amp
To find out more about Scottsdale generally, check out: http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov
