AZ: The History of Arizona podcast

14 years before his nationwide electoral defeat, Barry Goldwater was a successful businessman, city councilor, and Republican organizer who decided to take a bold swing and run for the U.S. Senate.

To finally get the Central Arizona Project through Congress in 1968, it took more than a few tries, a mountain of compromises, dramatic changes, and no small amount of political chicanery.

Carl Hayden’s push to get the Central Arizona Project approved started to clear the hurdles in Congress, only to run straight into two particularly hard obstacles - environmentalists and Amerindian interests.

Following the state’s Supreme Court victory, Carl Hayden expected to pass a bill authorizing the Central Arizona Project immediately. Unfortunately, his plans ran up against those of the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, who had his own ideas, and a powerful congressman from Colorado who was wary of any project downstream of him.

It took 11 years, $5 million and hundreds of experts and witnesses, but in 1963, Arizona finally managed a major court win against its sworn enemy - at least when it came to water - to the west.

Del Webb started off the 1960s by introducing Arizona to a new type of community, one that would forever alter how we view retirement. His affordable, amenity-rich, age-restricted community of Sun City became the model for active adult communities nationwide for decades.

In 1956, two planes collided midair over the Grand Canyon. This tragedy and the 128 people lost would change commercial air travel in the United States forever.

Governor J. Howard Pyle’s push to end polygamy on the Utah border not only fizzled, but it would create a massive political backlash against him. Even worse, it caused the fundamentalists to become more isolated and insular, which allowed the rise of Warren Jeffs and some of the worst abuses of plural marriage.

Following the raid on Short Creek, the men found themselves facing trial, while their wives and children were divvied up and sent to live in foster homes across the state. However, within four years every single one of them would be home again.

After all the planning and buildup, at 4 a.m. on Sunday, July 26, 1953, hundreds of law enforcement officers, social workers, and others converge on Short Creek and took dozens of men and women into custody.

If it’s true that amateurs study tactics while professionals study logistics, then Arizona Governor J. Howard Pyle resolved to be a thorough professional before trying his hand at stamping out polygamy in the community of Short Creek.

In which we blame the migraine from Hades for there being no new episode this week.

The polygamy of the fundamentalists living at Short Creek was always going to ensure that they were going to run afoul of the law. In the 1930s and 1940s first the state of Arizona, then the U.S. government decided they simply could not abide these scofflaws any longer. Unfortunately, the way they went about it had very mixed results.

To understand the 1953 raid on polygamous families living in Short Creek, we have to go back even further and understand where the community of Short Creek came from, and the theological controversies that led fundamentalist Mormon families to settle there.

The Korean War tends to be one of America’s more forgotten conflicts, but as the fighting waged during the early 1950s it would have several impacts on the state. And it was a Marine veteran from Tucson whose story made sure Korean veterans had access to the same benefits as all other servicemen.

After more than two decades of radio, television took off in Phoenix in 1949. And just five years later, an Arizona TV icon would first walk in front of the camera, kicking off a 35-year career of making children laugh.

Along with its population explosion, Arizona in the 1950s dealt with the proliferation of cars on its roads and highways. As part of its efforts to keep up, the state would upgrade one particular highway that became a paved connection between the Valley of the Sun and the Rim country to the north.

The 1950s was a period of explosive growth and development for Arizona, especially for Phoenix, which not only rapidly expanded its population, but city boundaries and economy. But the unsung hero of this development was the one thing that makes the desert a tolerable place to live - air conditioning.

The Central Arizona Project became a reality within our lifetimes and today delivers water to Maricopa and Pinal counties. But the genesis for such an idea actually goes back nearly a century. And the real fight to get the thing built would start in the latter end of the 1940s, as Carl Hayden made it his mission to bring Colorado River water to central Arizona.

In 1946, organized labor in Arizona managed a critical victory against Phelps Dodge in Clifton-Morenci. Oddly enough, that same year, unions would be dealt an existential loss as voters enshrined right to work in the state constitution.

Starting in 1942, Phoenix’s leading businessmen and citizens decided that something had to be done about local government. Their efforts over the next seven years would completely revamp how the state capital was governed, and also help kick off the political career of one of the most famous of all Arizonans.

Following the end of the war, Black, Mexican and Amerindian veterans returned home to find that, despite being treated as fully American during their service, the nation tried to treat them as second-class citizens. It didn’t take too long for these veterans to decide they were not going to tolerate that.

Arizona celebrated V-E and V-J Day along with the rest of the country. But as the veterans started coming home, it was an Arizona senator who helped lead the charge to make sure there was a place for them.

Today the Navajo Code Talkers are one of the most famous stories to come out of the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. However, following the victory they helped come to fruition, they were all sworn to silence and languished in obscurity for more than two decades before that story was finally told.

For the Marine Corps, the nightmare scenario was a Navajo code talker falling into the hands of the enemy. However, for the code talkers themselves, an equally grim prospect was being mistaken for the enemy by their fellow Marines.