Road to Ruin

Currently In:  Phoenix


There is a Pioneer Living History Museum within walking distance of our RV park here in the northern part of Phoenix.  Last week Johnny and I took a look at it.

This museum is financed primarily through donations and has moved structures and other items of historical value from all over Arizona to the property.  Naturally, we started by taking a look at the saloon, known as the Road to Ruin.  The building was not original, but the bar and associated items were actually used in the saloon near Phoenix.

We saw another Wild West gun fight.

There are over 40 structures at the museum, but only 12 or so are originals - the balance are, of course, replicas.  I really just like the original buildings so we spent most of our time there.  The doors to the buildings were gated so we could just look in, but not walk around the houses and such.
This is the Merrit Farm and chicken coop from Glendale and built around 1890.

This 1890 house below was among the earliest totally wooden framed homes in Phoenix due to the railroad connection that came in 1887.  Prior to that, most homes were built from adobe bricks.  The home was on the 80 acre homestead owned by John Marion Sears and family.

We also saw a teacherage originally located in Pleasant Valley from about the same era.  Although small, it provided the teacher, some as young as 15, with privacy as many teachers boarded with families.

The Northern home was moved here from just outside of Flagstaff.  It was built about 1885 and belonged to Jeff Newman.  We met both Eileen (left on top photo) and Ruth, docents who volunteer once per week and showed us spinning and looming.

We took a look two other original cabins at the museum.  The first is the Flying V cabin from Young, AZ and built in 1880.  It has notched gun ports in the siding to protect against Indian attacks, particularly an Apache attack during the Battle of Big Dry Wash.  It was owned by John Tewksbury among others who were involved in the Pleasant Valley Wars.
I never really figured out how it got the "Flying V" name.

The second is the 1878 boyhood home of Henry Fountain Ashurst, the first Senator from Arizona.  The cabin was moved piece by piece in 1968 from a box canyon near Prescott.

In addition to the Pioneer Living section of the property, there is also a Telephone Museum we toured.  We learned about the history of technical communication from the telegraph to cell phones.  Johnny stepped inside a phone booth rom 1930.

Although we had learned about much of this throughout our year travel, it was still fun to see first hand and experience the settling of Arizona.