Abandoned City

cities

After we roam around the state looking for abandoned places in the desert, we will be in search of abandoned places in various cities.  Look for future posts of our antics in Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, and Flagstaff.  It should be fun.....

The Sugar Beet Factory

cities

In the 1900, sugar beets were a profitable product in many states around the country. One person who took note of this was businessman W. J. Murphy, who was the founder of the Arizona Improvement Company for water and land development. Glendale was one of the many growing agricultural communities connected to a canal and irrigation system, which makes it a great location for a sugar beet factory.

Since the early 1880’s, sugar beet factories were built in many states with the desire of changing sugar beets into granulated sugar. Murphy pushed for a large factory to be built in Glendale after successful experiments proved that sugar beets can be manufactured in the Salt River Valley.

In the summer of 1903, construction began on the Sugar Beet Factory just on mile east of Glendale’s business district. But by December, construction had to be temporarily stopped because of financial woes leaving only the steel frame standing. By 1906 with construction resuming, the huge factory was completed by the end of July. The main building was five stories high in one area and three stories in the rest. It was surrounded by a boiler house, a lime kiln house, a repair shop, and a 165 foot smoke stack with a 30 by 30 foot base. Also on the land were a sugar warehouse, beet sheds, and an office building. With all the machinery in place, and all the beets in the sheds, the factory was ready to go. On August 11, 1906, with many residences watching with excitement, the switch was thrown, and operations had begun. The first bags of sugar that came off the line were rich in color and very high grade.

Throughout the years the sugar beet factory went through many changes. It had few different owners, was referred to by different names, sustained weather damages, and lost its smokestack after being hit by lightning in 1951. In 1985 the factory closed its doors for good. Today the building is just a shell of what it once was.  It is abandoned with the spirits of the workers still roaming its deteriorating walls.

Casa Grande’s Lost Places

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This weekend Sharon, I, and a guest are hitting the road for more abandoned places. This time we are concentrating on the area around Casa Grande. According to Sharon there are lots of desserted places in that area. The Domes are close by, but this area also has a vast amount of buildings, factories, motels, and restaurants that have folded under because of the economy. We are out to get photos and readings of the history of these places. We are looking for the stories of what was and photos of what they are now. Here is a brief history of Casa Grande:

During Arizona’s mining surge in 1879, the town of Casa Grande was founded and named after the Hohokam ruins. It wasn’t until 1915 that Casa Grande became incorporated. Many of the places around town were named after one of the founding fathers, Thompson Rodney Peart, (Peart Road, Park and Center). A major railroad terminated in town and earned the name, “Terminus”. Casa Grande was mostly a farm town, but can boast the first exhibition baseball game in 1961. Willie Mays hit a 375 foot home run on that field. All that remains today of the past ballgames is the pool in the shape of a baseball bat and ball.

Florence: A Ghost Town

cities

I'm not sure if it was because we were in Florence on a Sunday at four in the afternoon, or this crappy economy, but this town was virtually empty and looked like a ghost town.  We saw two cars and two humans on the sidewalk pass us by on this lonely downtown street.  Many of the buildings were empty but there was only one that Sharon pick up some sort of reading.  We drove around and took videos and photos of the many abandoned and old buildings.  It was very quiet and eerie standing in the middle of a street and not seeing a soul anywhere.  After cruising around we headed off to Adamsville (next post).

Dale in the Trunk

cities

As we left the souvenir store and headed south to Vinnie’s, the noises from the trunk didn’t go unnoticed. Dale has been bitching and complaining that we haven’t taken him to any of our daytrips to the abandoned sites. I tried to get it through is tiny plastic head that he would be stuck in the hot car or trunk. Sharon, or his human as he likes to call her, decided it would be fun to scare her new cyber buddy by having Dale in the trunk. As he retrieved her bag from the trunk, surprise, there was Dale lying on it. He quickly pushed Dale aside and grabbed the bag. I am sure Dale is pissed about being shoved aside as well as being left in the hot car.

Dale’s complaining about not being able to come in the house with us, or invited to lunch, was loud and annoying. By the time we got done with Florence and headed home, he was quiet. I think the heat finally got to him and he fell asleep. Now the little beast is plotting revenge for the “indignity of being locked in a hot trunk” as he calls it. Sharon is aware of his threats and knows he is up to something but doesn’t know what. Be looking for another Dale video on her blog, Ghost Hunting Theories.

These pictures are of the view from the Foothill’s, which is north of Tucson, and the restaurant we went to for lunch. I had yummy tacos there.

Florence: Home to Arizona's WWII Camp & State Prison

cities

The next place Sharon and I are taking a road trip to would be Florence, Arizona. There are many abandoned sites, a cool cemetery, a haunted prison, and is close to the town of Adamsville which was washed away by a flood. (http://above-the-norm.blogspot.com/2010/04/adamsville-wiped-out-by-flood.html) We should have more fun pictures for you and hopefully a story or two about the adventure. In the mean time, here is some information about Florence:

In the middle of the Desert of Pinal County, Arizona, sits a city of roughly 23,000 residences. In the middle of town is the largest Arizona State Prison complex, and an unspoiled Main Street where the movie “Murphy’s Romance” was filmed. It is one of the oldest municipalities in the county and has over 100 structures listed on the National Historic Registry.

Just north of Florence was located a huge prisoner of war camp for German and Italian detainees seized during the North Africa movement and called, “Camp Florence”. This World War II site was built in 1942-43 and is the biggest prisoner of war complex ever built on American land. Thousands of POW’s were held in this 5 acre compound which had a barracks, a hospital, a bakery, a swimming pool, athletic fields, and a few theaters. The men even earned money by performing different tasks within the camp.

Camp Florence had around 13,000 prisoners by December of 1945. In 1946 it was deemed a “surplus” and in 1948 it became a state hospital and incarceration center for first time criminals. They moved most of the POW quarters to Queen Creek, AZ and used them for elementary schoolrooms. Today it stands as a location for the Florence Public Health Service Clinic, serving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Also located in Florence is the Arizona State Prison Complex also known as Florence State Prison, and is one of 13 prisons in Arizona. Built in 1908, the Florence State Prison was to be a substitute for the territorial prison in Yuma. During its construction, the prisoners resided in tents until the facility was completed. One of the more distinctive parts of this place was a chamber that was located above the death row cells known as the “death chamber”. A prisoner was marched up there, had a noose put around his neck, stood on the trap door, and fell to the room below. Some died instantly but others were not as lucky and suffered for several minutes until their last breath. Because of a mishap while hanging an inmate, in 1933 they replaced hanging with the gas chamber. Many of the highways and bridges around the state were built by the Florence prisoners who were considered a discounted labor resource.

There are stories about the prison being haunted by those men that died either by hanging, gas, or in the hands of other inmates. In 1973, two officers, Buckley and Morey, were murdered by inmates in ASP Cellblock 3 during a riot. The men were punched and stabbed many times until they died. Some of the strange occurrences in that have been reported in this section of the prison are of all the cellblock doors being found opened by the guards after the inmate counts and shutting all the doors. Doors have been heard by many constantly opening and closing along with unexplained cold spots. Misty figures have been seen at the end of the corridors of the cellblock. There is one note of interest; this cellblock is located in the same prison as the death house, which is known to be very haunted. The claims in the death house are seeing ghostly figures, loud screams, and other disembodied sounds. Some of the guards don’t like to find themselves in the death house, especially alone at night.

The Mysteries of Gila Bend

cities

There is one little town set in the middle of the desert that wouldn’t appear to be a hotspot of UFO and even Bigfoot activity, but Gila Bend can brag that it is. Founded in 1872 and located in Maricopa County, Arizona, Gila Bend gets its name from the 90 degree bend found in the Gila River at the point where the town is established. With a population of about 2,055 people living in this town, it is the roadside attractions, Spaced Age Lodge and unusual theme of the place that seems to keep the tourist and enthusiasts coming along with the UFO hunters. Gila Bend is a popular place for many UFO sightings. There have been numerous reports of strange objects and lights in the sky which have been hard to explain.

Here is some history of Gila Bend from Wikipedia: “The town of Gila Bend is situated near an ancient Hohokam village. When Father Eusebio Francisco Kino visited in 1699, the older site along fertile banks of the Gila River had been abandoned by another early tribe called the Opas, who instead used the river to irrigate their crops at a nearby rancheria. This same rancheria was visited by Juan Bautista de Anza, commander of the Presidio at Tubac and founder of the city of San Francisco, and by Father Francisco Tomas Garces in 1774. The nickname the "Crossroads of the Southwest" stems from the area having been part of an important transportation route in the settling, development and growth of the Great Southwest. Gila Bend was the "center of a wheel", with spokes leading in many directions throughout the region. A more recent event in the area was the October 1995 sabotage of the Amtrak Sunset Limited train.”

Among the quirky roadside attractions and the space age café are many mysterious graves. No one is sure who is buried in most of them, but they seem to be all over the town. Another reported sighting that you would never equate with a desert town is that of the elusive Bigfoot. On some of the rocks in the middle of the desert, picture graphs have been found with drawings indicating a large hairy creature was seen in that area. Others have their own eerie stories of encounters with the beast.




Sharon (Autumnforest, Ghost Hunting Theories ) and I are taking another one of our daytrips, this time to Gila Bend. On our way are the abandoned trailer park and the burnt down house we found. By the way Max Evel, we are giving you a days notice to clean up the park for your visitors. I am confident that you can get it done. Anyhow, I will be taking lots of photos of the trip while Sharon will be documenting the trip on her flip camera. Look for both of us to do one or more posts on the trip depending on how much information we collect.

Mobile: Arizona's Little Desert Town

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Sitting about 35 miles southwest of Phoenix, Arizona, is the minuscule town of Mobile. With fewer than 100 residences living there, it is also home to several solid-waste landfills and UFO sightings. Just north of Mobile is a private airport where many student pilots receive their training. This desolate town was where the first black community was located in Arizona.

Founded in the 1930’s, Mobile was once rumored to have been named for some of its early African-Americans settlers that lived there and came from Mobile, Alabama. That story was put to rest when records proved the town was named by the railroad companies in the 1920’s. In the 1930’s two railroad cars were used as schools and segregated by color. One was for the white children and the other was for the black children. Many of the African-American pioneers living in Mobile had established a place they called, “Negro Flats” tanks to do all their baptisms. This tank was basically a cattle watering hole in the desert where the other cowboys would stand around and poke fun at their beliefs during the many baptisms.

The town experienced its highest population count around 400 souls in the 1950’s. Mobile was deficient in places of employment, running water and learning accommodations that only offered up till 8th grade education. Many of the residence departed from Mobile leaving it a virtual abandoned town. Now days, this tiny desert town has less than 100 people calling it home. In 2007, it was annexed as part of Goodyear, Arizona with a huge development planned. But with the troubled economy, that plan was put on hold.

Now when you drive out there you see scattered houses, an abandoned trailer park, and the mounds of landfills throughout the place. Sharon (Autumnforest) and I drove to the small town cemetery. You notice the scattering of headstones standing amongst the dirt of the desert. The sign on the post was made by our very own Autumnforest. Nearby the cemetery is a burnt-out house that perhaps a family used to occupy. Off in the distance is the Estrella Mountains were many UFO sightings have been reported. (Check out my post of the UFO Sightings at Estrella Mountains. )

Mobile may not be much to look at these days, but like all the other small Arizona towns, it is rich in history.