Congress Street, west of Fox Theatre, facing east. Courtesy of Donovan Durband’s Tucson postcard collection.
Around no other era is there such a mystique. The 1950s weaved an exuberant, optimistic story about Tucson.
From the birth of direct dial telephones in Tucson to the rise of tourism, television and refrigeration enhancements – invention in the ‘50s was making desert living well known and bearable. In 1950 Tucson was less than 100,000 people and bounded by outposts of ranches, donkeys and desert. By 1960, that population had more than doubled and the surrounding area had exploded with sprawl.
All the excitement that characterized Tucson during this decade seems to neatly package itself into five groupings that gave substance to the era.
Roadways/Transportation
In 1950, transcontinental travel was a highlight for citizens eager to get away from the rationings of World War II. Tucson, with its proximity to historic trade routes, became an important way-point for those interested in the “western experience” during transcontinental journeys. Visitors cruised into our auto courts and motor hotels, which congregated downtown along 6th and Stone Avenues and Oracle Road. Highway 80 became The Broadway of America and thrived at the cross point with 89. Miracle Mile’s neon wonderland became an architectural hallmark of the decade. By the mid-1950s there were over 100 motels and new businesses thriving along our corridor. But the roadways that brought blessings swiftly shifted gears at decade’s end. Interstate 10, promoted as a military necessity, opened in 1958. The road boasting a nod to progress encouraged travelers to bypass our city core and ultimately contributed to Downtown’s collapse.
Defense
In this era we entered the Space race, a cold war and weapons testing – ironically to Tucson’s benefit. The California manufacturing arm of entrepreneur Howard Hughes was exploding at the seams, and he was on the hunt for a new manufacturing location for his expanding Hughes Aircraft. Tucson’s miles of land and visibility with the Davis-Monthan airbase made us a worthy candidate. When Hughes announced in 1951 his decision to locate his manufacturing plant to build radar-guided defense missiles in Tucson, he signaled the largest industrial development in our history.
Some of the era’s positive technology and defense progress unfortunately was overshadowed by the fear-mongering so persistently cultivated during the 1950s. By 1959, there were 20 sirens across the city in an escalated cold war. In spring 1960, the Air Force announced that Titan missile sites would ring our city. These ultimately were activated in 1963.
Wonders of our Natural Environment
The desert’s wilderness was a natural wonder waiting to be explored this decade. William H. Carr, a self-made/educated naturalist, had just moved to Tucson from the East due to health reasons. He saw opportunities to celebrate nature here in Tucson and backed by local businessman and conservationist Arthur Pack, Carr created a series of interpretive trails, the foundation of the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, which opened Labor Day 1952. This museum immediately brought Tucson tourism to greater heights.
Also in this decade, rock hounds Dan and Betty Caudle decided Tucson needed a rock show of its own. With the help of the tiny Tucson gem and mineral society, in 1955 the Caudles held a two-day event in a Downtown school cafeteria. Their idea grew into the stock exchange of the international mineral world.
Movies/Art Media
Television came to Tucson in 1952, when the FCC granted a permit to country singer Gene Autry for Channel 13. Autry had become a Tucson supporter a few years earlier, having filmed “The Last Round-Up” at Old Tucson studios in 1947. When cowboy mania hit the big screens full force in the 1950s, Tucson took off as a choice setting for westerns, with such classics such as “Winchester ‘73” with James Stewart, “The Last Outpost” with Ronald Reagan and “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” filmed here. More than movie stars made their way to Tucson in this decade. Elvis rocked the rodeo grounds in 1956, and Buddy Holly performed at the Catalina High School auditorium in 1957.
The arts were enriched, too, as artwork focused on the desert and our native peoples came of age. Ted DeGrazia’s “Los Niños” 1957 oil painting was reproduced into a best-selling UNICEF card in 1960, making our pueblo art popular and putting Tucson front and center in the commercial art world. Our area’s first full symphonic youth orchestra was founded in 1953. The Tucson Fine Arts Association, housed on Franklin Street, officially was renamed the Tucson Art Center in 1954 to focus on its exhibition and education mission.
The Birth of Sunbelt Sprawl
With an economy flourishing, Downtown Tucson experienced its most fashionable and successful decade. Jacome’s and J. C. Penney built new adjoining stores. More construction was underway nearby for a nine-story Arizona Land Title building (to be the tallest downtown structure). The elegant Steinfeld reached its 100th anniversary in 1954 and celebrated by installing on the store rooftop a huge neon of oxen pulling a prairie schooner. When Kress reopened its remodeled store on East Congress Street in 1955, Tucson landed its first escalator.
But in a relentless movement of progress, the focus of Tucson began to shift. Jack Kerouac said it best in “On The Road” (1957): “…The city was one big construction job; the people transient, wild, ambitious, gay…”
In the giddiness, many downtown flagship stores answered the call and ventured out to the newer outlying malls. El Con, the first, took Levy’s department store from Downtown when it opened on the east side in 1960. Driving our little city to evolve, sprawl and its trendy malls of progress gave Downtown a knock-out punch. The completion of Interstate 10 through Tucson in 1961, bypassing the historic smaller routes through the city, sealed the deal.
The good economic times of the ‘50s brought improvement, a triumph of so much optimism. A sleepy town had awakened to opportunity and bounded ahead.
