Views from Arizona's past
Despite the fact that some forecasts project Phoenix to become the nation’s fourth largest metropolitan area by 2020, the city did not experience significant population growth until the proliferation of air conditioning in the 1950s. Now, a collection of high quality photographs showing the years precipitating Phoenix’s rapid expansion has been digitized and released for public use by Arizona State University Libraries.
The collection’s more than 4,500 images were taken between 1884 and 1947 by Scottish immigrants James Morrison McCulloch and William Patrick McCulloch, who operated the McCulloch Brothers commercial photography studio located at the present-day intersection of E. Adams Street and N. Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix.
According to Digital Projects Librarian Matthew Harp, the collection offers a look into Phoenix and parts of Arizona during a “time of transition from Cowtown to emerging metropolis.” Its photographs include hotels, hospitals, high schools, churches and businesses; landmarks like the Orpheum Theatre and Theodore Roosevelt Dam; landscapes of the Grand Canyon and natural bridges; and shots of the state’s copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate industries.
Because ASU owns the copyrights for the collection, the images — which can be found within the ASU Digital Repository and through search engines — can be downloaded for free and used openly in research.
“The opening of this collection in the ASU Digital Repository exemplifies the ASU Libraries commitment to open access,” said archivist Rob Spindler, who curates ASU Libraries’ Arizona Collection. “With our new Publication and Creative Services, we actively facilitate creative uses of our historical materials in all kinds of historical, cultural and artistic projects.”
The McCulloch’s business was eventually sold to Herb and Dot McLaughlin, who continued producing and selling images of Arizona’s and surrounding state’s agriculture, government, infrastructure, parks, transportation and residents into the 1990s — including many for Arizona Highways magazine. Some 100,000 of those photographs are part of ASU’s archives, and can be found using the libraries’ Special Material Index.
Like the City of Phoenix, the libraries’ digital collection continues to grow. Below is a preview of photographs from ASU’s McCulloch Brothers, Inc. Photographs Collection, though many more are available from ASU Libraries virtual shelves.
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A 1937 photo by the McCulloch Brothers shows the Jaycee Rodeo parade moving north on Central Avenue at Monroe Street in downtown Phoenix.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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"Children on Tractor on Ryder Ranch," by the McCulloch Brothers. Year unknown.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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The original Mill Avenue Bridge was built in 1931, 68 years before the river bed was dammed to create an artificial lake that would become the Tempe Town Lake area.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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A 1930s image shows guests playing shuffleboard at Paradise Valley’s Camelback Inn.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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One of the McCulloch brothers’ most famous photographs shows the first water to spill over the Roosevelt Dam, in 1915. According to Digital Projects Librarian Matthew Harp, roads leading to the dam were closed so a motorcyclist could quickly transport the photographic plate to Phoenix for processing and distribution.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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Some guests from Camelback Inn riding horses on the desert terrain.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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A view of the soon to be Glencoe Highlands Subdivision.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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A nurse and pharmacist at Phoenix’s Good Samaritan Hospital in 1944.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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Men working on the Frog Tanks Diversion Dam Reservoir, which is now known as the Waddell Dam.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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Beatrice and Margaret McCulloch pose on a porch with an unidentified man, who is holding a camera. Roosevelt Dam appears in the background.McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection
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The Fiesta Parade heading south on Central Avenue near Filmore Street.
McCulloch Bros./ASU Libraries Arizona Collection