You can’t believe everything you read in books–even travel books.
Take Phoenix, for example. One of the well-respected guidebooks I turn to for information calls it “the most unpleasant town in the Southwest.”
All I can say is, that travel writer must have had a very bad day. This sunny town of 2.3 million that reigns over Arizona’s Sonoran Desert certainly has the traditional big-city problems of crime, pockets of poverty and virulent smog. But there’s a vigor here seen in the renovation of the downtown area and a friendly openness that welcomes visitors. Even the saguaros, those prickly sentinels of the desert, seem to be waving a cactus version of hello.
Fans coming for baseball’s spring training (see story on Page 1) or football’s Super Bowl (next Sunday at Sun Devil Stadium in nearby Tempe) will find a wealth of interesting places to visit, including:
Pueblo Grande Museum and Cultural Park: “If you’re coming to help out with the mud wall, you’re out of luck. I’ve run out of mud,” a mud-spattered fellow hollered up to me as I strolled along a trail winding one-third of a mile past prehistoric American Indian ruins next to the museum.
George Butler, a research entomologist with the United States Department of Agriculture and a volunteer at the museum, was restoring and shoring up some of the adobe walls that slice through this site of a prehistoric Hohokam village.
It’s an ongoing process, he said, but worth it. This site marks Phoenix’s beginnings. The Hohokam Indians lived here more than 1,000 years before disappearing in 1450. The desert farmers established four canals stretching 16 miles across Phoenix (forerunners of today’s canals seen throughout the city) and an intricate village on top of a football-field size, 25-foot high mound. Once, there were 50 mounds, Butler said; two are left–this one, and one in nearby Mesa.
The trail winds through a maze of small rooms; interpretive signs speculate on their use. Butler pointed out the remains of a game court below the mound and told me about the little room with a hole in the wall that lines up perfectly with Hole in the Rock mountain some miles to the east. Perhaps used by the village astronomer? No one really knows, for there are many mysteries and mazes here, not the least of which is what happened to the Hohokam people.
Visitors can come to some of their own conclusions by studying the museum’s 10-minute film on the Hohokam, the exhibits of their pottery and other artifacts. There are also interactive projects for children and a small exhibit detailing the archeological dig that uncovered much of the mound (which, by the way, is a national landmark). A new exhibit detailing a day in the life of a Hohokam will open in June.
Located at 4619 E. Washington St., the museum is open 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 4:45 p.m. Sunday. Cost: $2 adults, $1.50 for seniors, $1 children (under 6 free). Information: 602-495-0900.
Papago Park: Ask folks in Phoenix what their favorite place is and chances are good they’ll mention Papago Park, which houses the Desert Botanical Garden and the Phoenix Zoo. The complex tops the Phoenix Points of Pride list of favorite attractions, which was compiled from residents’ votes.
No wonder. The park is an intriguing maze of desert trails and fanciful red rocks, including the Hole in the Rock mountain. You can clamber up and stand inside the hole (rather like being inside a doughnut).
But I found the highlight of the place to be the 145-acre botanical garden. Only 30 acres are cultivated, but 20,000 plants can be found here. The trails are wide and wheelchair-accessible, the plants are clearly marked and there are plenty of areas to sit and contemplate desert life in this serene setting. One area of the garden is set up as an example of desert landscaping, and there are handsome adobe structures where visitors can utilize some 10,000 botanical books (the books cannot, however, be checked out) and take their botanical questions to the herbarium that catalogs the plants. There are also plant and gift shops.
Nearby is the Phoenix Zoo, one of the largest privately run zoos in the country. It takes up 125 acres and features four trails–Arizona, Tropics, Children’s and Africa–that lead to 1,300 animals of 320 species.
While the animals seemed content enough–a white peacock and a turquoise peacock were happily strolling the grounds, oblivious to the crowds, when I visited–I found it to be somewhat run-down. Still, the atmosphere is upbeat and the enclosures for the animals are large and interesting.
Papago Park is on Galvin Parkway; Desert Botanical Garden is at 1201 N. Galvin Pkwy. Hours are 8 a.m. to dusk daily. Cost: $6 adults, $5 seniors, $1 children ages 5 to 12 (under 5 free). Information: 602-941-1217.
The zoo is at 455 N. Galvin Pkwy. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Cost: $7 adults ages 13 to 59, $6 seniors, $3.50 children ages 4 to 12. Information: 602-273-1341.
Heard Museum: You can’t get in the door of the Heard Museum without hearing praise for its fine and vast collection of American Indian artifacts.
“Oh, it’s the most beautiful collection of Native American art in the world, I think,” said a visitor who was leaving as I arrived.
It is indeed impressive, not the least because its nucleus is one couple’s private collection, augmented now by the collections of former Sen. Barry M. Goldwater and Fred Harvey of Harvey Girls fame.
With the aid of an audio tour (you’ll pay $3 extra for this, but it’s worth it), I nearly got lost in the world of the “Native Peoples of the Southwest” exhibit. It’s an extensive display of Apache beadwork and clothing, Navajo basketry and rugs, Zuni turquoise jewelry and an entire room of colorful kachina dolls said to represent the spirit essences of all living things.
There is an entire gallery dedicated to children’s hands-on projects; a film on the contributions of the American Indians; and a courtyard of fine sculpture. Harvey’s collection of American Indian rugs forms part of the display on the second floor, and there are mini biographies of some of the most famous of the rug weavers.
Altogether, it is a dazzling display of remnants from American Indian cultures. (And there is an outstanding gift shop, as well.)
Located at 22 E. Monte Vista Rd., the museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday (until 9 p.m. Wednesday) and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Cost: $5 adults, $4 seniors and students, $3 juniors ages 13 to 18, and $2 children 4 to 12 (under 4 free). Free admission from 5 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays. Information: 602-252-8848. Wheelchair accessible.
Arizona Hall of Fame Museum: This is one of Phoenix’s secrets. “Never heard of it,” said the man stocking the tourist brochures at my hotel, who at first thought I was asking about the Hall of Flame Museum dedicated to firefighters. “No one I know ever heard of it.”
Too bad. It’s a nifty museum in the handsome old Carnegie Library building and currently houses three exhibits: “Healers, Hucksters and Heroes,” which traces medicine and the people who practiced it in the Arizona Territory of the late 1800s; “100 Years of Arizona’s History,” a compilation of photographs of Arizona and her people, along with a giant book dedicated to the women who made Arizona what she is; and, the most delightful, “Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls in Arizona.”
The latter is a colorful collection of photos, diary excerpts, dishes and memorabilia that marked the years of the Harvey House restaurants and hotels along Arizona’s train stops from 1883 to the 1950s. The exhibit tells the stories of several of the young women–“18-30, of good character, attractive and intelligent”–who ventured to what was then the Wild West.
Located at 1101 W. Washington St., the museum is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; free. Information: 602-542-4675.
Heritage Square: At 6th and Monroe Streets in downtown Phoenix, there’s a complex of turn-of-the-century homes, the only remaining group of residential structures from the original town site. Some have been transformed into shops, a Victorian tea room (tasty treats here) or museums. The Arizona Doll & Toy Museum is here (worth a quick look for its intricate doll houses), as is the temporary Phoenix History Museum (a new building is under construction across the street and should be done in time for the Super Bowl).
But the queen of the square is the Rosson House, a stately Eastlake-style home built in six months in 1894 for $7,525. The city of Phoenix saved the place from demolition; it took more than six years and $750,000 to restore its intricate parquet floors, opulent furnishings, pressed-tin ceilings, ornate wallpaper and elaborate decoration.
Rosson House is open 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Cost: $3 adults, $2 seniors, $1 children 6 to 13. Information: 602-262-5029. The Arizona Toy and Doll museum is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Cost: $2 adults, 50 cents for children. Information: 602-253-9337. The Phoenix History Museum is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission to the temporary museum is by donation. Information: 602-253-1271.
Pioneer Arizona Living History Museum: The little boy listened intently as the guide explained the carpenter shop. “This shop is like it was in about 1880,” she said. “The carpenter would make chairs and tables and furniture.”
And that is exactly the purpose of this sprawling complex of old buildings and exhibits located a half-hour north of downtown Phoenix on Interstate 17: to give people of today a glimpse into yesteryear.
While some of the buildings are in need of refurbishment (the bakery, for example, burned and has not been restored), it’s an interesting place to explore. In addition to the carpenter shop, there are the opera house, a print shop, Victorian house, tin shop, blacksmith shop, miner’s cabin, tent houses–all the structures that would have been found in an early-day Arizona town.
Located at 3901 W. Pioneer Rd. off Interstate Highway 17, the complex is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday (closed July and August). Cost: $5.75 adults, $5.25 seniors and students with ID, $4 children ages 4 to 10 (under 4 free). Information: 602-993-0212.
For general information about Phoenix, call the Phoenix & Valley of the Sun Convention & Visitors Bureau at 602-254-6500.
