AZ: The History of Arizona podcast

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.

The Navajo code premiered at Guadalcanal in 1942, and soon proved its worth as it went from island to island, wherever there was combat. And with it went the code talkers themselves, who had to survive everything the Japanese could throw at them.

Chester Nez In 1942, 29 men were locked in a room and told to come up with a code the enemy couldn’t break. The result would be an unbeatable encryption that sounded to outside observers like a cross between gibberish and random noises. But now came the tricky part - teaching the code to hundreds of men who needed to commit it to memory.

It turns out that Navajo is an incredible rich and astoundingly complicated language, which made it perfect to become the secret weapon of the Allies in their fight against the Japanese in the Pacific.

As fighting men from across America marched off to fight in World War II, they were either joined or supported by two groups who made lasting impacts on ending the conflicts - women and Amerindians.

During World War II, more than a few Arizonans left their marks on the battles raging across Europe and in the Pacific. A Marine from the state would even be captured in one of the most iconic war photos of all time.

January has not been kind for the podcast schedule - and now it’s taken out my voice so I couldn’t release this week’s episode on time.

As World War II erupted halfway across the world, back in Arizona, thousands were asking the same question - what can I do? From rationing to finding people to pick cotton, it turns out they could do a lot.

Even as the camps for Japanese Americans were going up, plans were in the works to have them move permanently away from the West Coast. By early 1945, thousands had left for opportunities in education, the workforce, and even the armed services while the slow-moving legal system finally decided that there was no good reason to lock up loyal U.S. citizens.

Life in a concentration camp, even an American one, was never going to be pleasant. But the tens of thousands of imprisoned Japanese Americans found ways to get through the day, embracing the philosophy that the situation just couldn’t be helped.

Starting in March 1942, 120,000 Japanese Americans were removed from the West Coast and sent to 10 camps where they would ride out the majority of the war. Two of those camps were located in Arizona, introducing tens of thousands of people to the rigors of living in the desert … without the option for leaving.

Even in the decades before the 1942 executive order to remove them all from the West Coast of America, life for Japanese Americans in Arizona wasn’t easy. And it only got worse when literal bombs started flying.

After their daring breakout on the evening of December 23, 1944, the 25 escaping German POWs tried various methods to get to freedom. They would be hampered by things like rain, cold, patrols, wary citizens, cactus and a dry river bed, ultimately resulting in all 25 being back in custody just over a month after breaking out.