According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Phoenix has been named the most miserable city in the US.
This new “misery index” looks at unemployment, gas prices and a change in home prices. What do you think? Are we worse off than those residing in Boston, Cleveland, New York and Detroit… which are apparently the least miserable?
Q: My grandpa and grandma live in Tucson, and when we visit them, I always wonder why are Phoenix and Tucson so different?
A: This is an excellent question. The answer would fill a volume or two, but the short explanation is: History, dear child, it’s all about history.
In the great scheme of things, Phoenix is a fairly young city.
Granted, the Hohokam and other Native Americans lived around here for centuries, but a permanent European presence was not established until the Army opened Fort McDowell in 1865. The hay camp that supplied the fort eventually became Phoenix.
By contrast, Tucson’s European roots go back to 1694, when the tireless missionary Father Kino founded a small mission roughly near the Miracle Mile overpass at Interstate 10. Not far away was another village Kino called San Cosme de Tucson. It was more or less the northern most point of the Spanish settlement in what is now Arizona.
Q: I recently moved to the area of 40th Street and Camelback Road and my new neighbors tell me it’s the Cudia neighborhood, but I can’t seem to find out the origin of the name. Can you help?
A: Here at the gleaming research laboratories of Valley 101, teams of white-coated technicians pored over your question night and day for weeks before reaching the conclusion that maybe we should just ask somebody else.
So we asked the estimable Gus Walker, a Republic artist and student of Valley history, who soon produced a tattered copy of The Golden Days of Theaters in Phoenix by one Jerry Reynolds in which we found the answer to your question.
With New Year’s Eve on the horizon, many Arizonans are stocking their liquor cabinets and planning their bar hopping destinations. Yet how often are we likely to party year round?
ASU and UA alum shouldn’t be super surprised to discover that Phoenix and Tucson made the list of America’s Top 40 Drunkest Cities, according to The Daily Beast. However, we didn’t come in as high as you may have thought.
Somewhere out in these rugged mountains, just maybe, lies the greatest lost mine of ‘em all, The Lost Adams.
According to legend a sheer canyon wall with a huge boulder at the base hides a narrow opening into a Z-shaped canyon, called by the Apaches, Sno-ta-hay. This hidden canyon opens up into a small valley with a stream running through. Beneath the floor of a burned out cabin lies several buckskin poke sacks containing millions of dollars in gold dust (at today’s prices). Treasure seekers have searched in vain for over a century trying to locate the entrance to that mysterious canyon.
The story began along the Gila Trail in the mid- 1860s. A freighter named Adams was camped near Gila Bend when a band of Apaches drove off his team of horses. Adams grabbed his rifle and ran off in pursuit. He eventually caught up with the animals but upon returning to camp saw that his wagon had been ransacked and burned.
