The Phoenix Historic Homesteads illustrate a critical case study in land use planning and the development of specialized community organizations and social structures as envisioned by New Deal programs of the As an example of efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in the face of economic hardship, it hints at today s urban agriculture movement. The landscape was developed in two phases, both of which are tied to the legislation from the New Deal Era. The landscape embodies the goals of these programs as well as implemented by administrators and residents. The National Industrial Recovery Act the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act passed during the presidency of Franklin D.
Roosevelt, impacted the Homesteads When Roosevelt signed the executive order that created the Resettlement Administration this also had a direct impact on the development of the project. A number of significant individuals played important roles in the project. Project administrators included Paul V. Fuller, John A. Waldron, Payson Gregory, Dr. Rexford G. Tugwell, and Dr. Will Alexander. Two notable designers were involved in the project. One was Robert T. Evans, a local architect who did not PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO. AZ-13 PAGE 2 do any other public housing projects but was hailed for his work on the Rural Homes in Arizona, designed phase 1. The owner of the Evans Construction company, he was also known for his work on the Jokake Inn and the Eisendrath House.
The second was Vernon DeMars who was responsible for the design of the second phase of the Phoenix Homesteads the Arizona Part-Time Farms. He took over when the project was transferred to the Resettlement Administration, whose nearest branch was in San Francisco. The organization created to manage the homesteads, the Phoenix Homesteads Association, is credited with being Arizona s oldest homeowners association. It was incorporated in August and served as the organization tasked with administrating the projects (both phases of the Phoenix Homesteads). It essentially went dormant in due to lack of interest from the residents, but was revived in and continues to operate today.
Description: Landscape Sections The historic district is split into two discontiguous sections, as a result of the evolution of the program. The first phase, called Rural Homes of Arizona, is located in the southern end of the district, while the second phase, the Arizona Part-Time Farms, occupies the northern portion. The distance between these sections ranges from 600 to 900 . They are bounded by Street on the eastern edge and joined by Street in the center. Visual discontinuity is not an issue because the phases were planned as two distinct groupings of residential lots. The space between the sections was once cooperative farm land and pasturage 1but currently contains post-historic residential properties that face Earll Drive.
(Figure 1) The district is visually distinct from the neighborhoods that surround it; significant features include the landscaping along the streets, the mature landscaping within the lots, the continuity of architectural styles between residences, and the configuration of the historic subdivision plan itself.2 (Figures The community center is also a significant feature, but it is currently owned by the Creighton School District and therefore does not appear quite the same as it did during its period of historical significance. First Phase Phase One of the Phoenix Homestead project was called Rural Homes in Arizona.
The most noticeable feature of this southern section of the Homesteads is its street right-of-way landscaping, with its row of alternating Aleppo Pines and Washington Palms (Figures There were also Ash Trees, at one point, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 7, page 1 1 Please see Figure 1 for a map of the site boundaries. 2 PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO. AZ-13 PAGE 3 but many of these have disappeared or are in poor condition. These were planned by Robert T. Evans to line both sides of Pinchot Avenue between and Streets. They have grown to over 60 tall in the course of time, and create a lush, shady canopy above the street that gives pedestrians the impression of passing through a tunnel.
Dense, tall Oleander bushes form blooming privacy fences around the edges of certain properties, particularly those that face streets on two sides (Figure 8). Evans also designed the houses and the layouts of the lots, and the overall tract was laid out as a simple four-block arrangement with ten farm lots per block .3 The lots were 120 by 300 and designed to accommodate the subsistence needs of a family of five, which included the addition of a garage and at least one shed per lot. The theory was that this size would allow the family to produce a large portion of their food without the surplus that could lead to commercial farming or an over-large amount of land whose care would reduce the time available for a job in town.
The use of local materials and standardized floor plans was intended to keep the cost of each unit at but Mr. Evans decided to inject a bit more character into the units.
He varied the massing and paint colors between houses, added slabstone roofs, and provided windows with multiple light casements .4 However, he seems to have retained the specific layout of the buildings and yard: each had a small orchard along the sides, a chicken run, a hen house, a cow shed, and space for a small fruit and vegetable garden in back of the main house .5 There were several types of fruit-bearing trees, including orange, lemon, grapefruit, olive, date, pecan, two types each of plums, pears, figs, and apricots, as well as four types of peaches.6 We measured one property as a representative of the homesteads in this phase. It is located at Pinchot Avenue and is listed in the Nomination Form as N. Street. It was originally owned by Lloyd R.
Cady, who was the first vice- president of the Phoenix Homestead Association. There is a small, unconnected sidewalk on the corner of Street and Pinchot Avenue that is approximately 5 6 wide and 12 long; it seems that its only purpose is to provide a location for the sign pole and the storm drain entrance (Figure 7). The front yard is lined with Palms and Pines next to the curb (there is no sidewalk), roughly 15 apart; the trees are 30 apart from members of their species, but are offset so that the Pines are roughly 12 from the curb and the Palms are 2 from the curb. The taller Pines are approximately 40 to 50 in diameter at breast height, while the younger Pine on the corner is 17 at breast height. The Palms measure approximately 17 to 19 in diameter at the same height (Figure 9).
The lawn is primarily grass, though small Palm trees have sprouted and would likely take over the yard if permitted to do so. The roof is original to the house7 and is the last remaining example of this style of roofing in the neighborhood. It is of the 3 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 7, page 2 4 Mary Hardin, The Phoenix Homesteads Project: Overlooked But Not Forgotten, pg 3 5 Mary Hardin, The Phoenix Homesteads Project: Overlooked But Not Forgotten, pg 3 Mary Hardin, The Phoenix Homesteads Project: Overlooked But Not Forgotten, pg 3 6 7 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO.
AZ-13 PAGE 4 slabstone style, which entails laying non-overlapping slabs of stone atop the roof (Figure There is a slump wall that is not original to the design (and therefore not of historical value to the project) that runs parallel to the house; the space between the wall and the house contains a walkway and a delightful variety of flowering plants (Figures 12 and There are two outbuildings in the backyard, the first of which is larger and lined with a narrow cement sidewalk that is likely original because of its compact size (Figures 14 and The shed measures 14 4 x 22 and is painted a reddish brown that appears to be the same color as the second shed.
The roof of the first out building is hard to discern, while the roof of the second building is covered with corrugated metal with a very shallow slope (Figure The smaller shed measures 7 4 x 24 and is accessed through a central door on its broad side, which faces the house (Figure The back porch, which is attached to the house, rests on a slab of concrete painted or possibly stained a rather vibrant teal (Figures 18 and The wooden roof of the porch has a very modest slope and is supported by four posts set approximately 8 apart and roughly 17 5 from the back of the house.
There is a row of six potentially original Orange trees directly behind the porch that are trimmed so that the canopy (which is roughly 5 from the ground) provides the porch a natural screen from some of the southern sun (Figure The trees are multi-trunked and between 5 and 8 in diameter at breast height. There is a pool, which is not original to the house, located on the other side of the back porch, opposite the larger shed.
The pool is rectangular and has a roughly square spa on its northwest corner (Figures The spa also has a view of the small, grassy space that is adjacent to the house and included in the pool enclosure; it connects the gate in the front yard with the backyard (Figure It is surrounded with what appears to be a wrought iron fence approximately 4 tall, beyond which lies a small patch of grass with a Pecan tree and a Palm tree that is not original to the house (Figure Second Phase Phase two of the project, named the Arizona Part-Time Farms, was built on the northern portion of the site. It placed a stronger emphasis on community, which is borne out in the form of the unusual T shaped intersection that connects Street with north and south Flower Street.
The unique shape allows the houses to face a central community space that once had a community building, an outdoor theater, and a sunken garden. The garden was sunken because the structures were built with adobe bricks made from the soil on the spot; roughly bricks were made there every day during the period of construction. Today the space holds a small grassy park lined by pine trees which well may be original, although they are not as tall as those on Pinchot Avenue. There is also a Mulberry tree, an Orchid tree, and a few Chilean Mesquite trees interspersed around the park s edges. It is doubtful that any of these trees were part of the original plan (Figures 32, 35, and The grassy area is approximately 157 8 PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO.
AZ-13 PAGE 5 x 119 2 inches; the landscaped border around the park is between 7 and 11 thick (the benches are recessed into it) (Figures 39 and There is also an Ash tree that was planted on October as a celebration of the ten year Student Ambassador program between the Creighton School District and the town of Kasakake, Japan (Figures There are twelve concrete benches along the edges of the park; their simple design and narrow seat suggests that they are original to the space (Figures 37 and One of the benches sits beside a geocache, and another bears a plaque informing visitors that a time capsule was planted somewhere nearby and will be opened in (Figure There are two buildings adjacent to the park, sandwiched between north and south Flower Street; it is likely that only the building closest to the park is original to the design of this portion of the neighborhood.
The eastern edge of the park ends rather abruptly with a curb that separates the grass from the asphalt that serves as a road surface and parking space for the eastern portion of the Creighton School District building (Figure Remnants of the original irrigation ditches can be seen in some of the front yards developed in this phase. The most clearly articulated and continuous ditch was located in the front yard of E.
Flower Street (Figure 2) and measured at 22 to 25 long and 2 wide (Figure The banks were lined with concrete and large river rocks, presumably to prevent or slow the effects of erosion (Figure but the bottom appears to be soil, lined with roots from nearby vegetation that threaten to reclaim the space (Figure The eastern end of the canal features a crumbling pipe (Figure while the western end features a sturdy metal gate that can be closed (Figure A drain inlet on the southern bank of the canal allowed individuals to control the flow of water into their yard (Figures This feature would have been important for watering the orchards, as some yards may have had different combinations of trees with varying water needs.
A house measured to represent this section of the neighborhood is NOT listed in the National Register, but it shares design features with similar houses in the district that were constructed during Phase Two of the Phoenix Homesteads project. The address is N. Street, and the house is located just outside the historic designation boundary (Figure 2). The front yard contains a Palm tree and at one point contained a Cottonwood tree8 (apparently most houses had a Cottonwood tree near the driveway, but most have died out (Figure The front lawn is mostly grass, but has been modified to accommodate a second covered parking space.
This is attached to the front of the house and takes the form of a covered corridor made of reddish brick with arched cutouts to reduce the visual volume (Figure The original garage (attached to the side of the house) appears to be in use, as the grass is dead in parallel lines that match the width of tire tracks (Figure The backyard can technically be accessed from 8 Seime, Christine. Interview with Lynne and Gregg Storms, Historic Homesteads Residents. April 19 th, PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO. AZ-13 PAGE 6 either side of the house, but the gate on the northern side is considerably larger and appears to be used more frequently.
There are two circular concrete stepping stones (one inside the gate and one outside of it) that provide a stable surface for standing on when opening the gate (Figure The southernmost gate appears to be less than 3 wide (Figures 46 and The longest stretch of the backyard, which runs from the aforementioned gate to the east wall, measures 129 (Figure The widest part of the yard measures approximately 69 9 , but the bulk of the yard, from the northern edge of the house to the southern wall, measures 57 6 .
This portion of the yard is 75 long, and it contains the shed (which may be original) and a boot-shaped pool suggesting by its shape that it was built in the and thus is certainly not original (Figure The size of the vegetation is not an entirely reliable indicator of age, but the mature vegetation on the lot suggests it might be original (Figures 44 and Yet it is worth mentioning that the Palm tree in the front yard is not nearly as tall as the palms found on Pinchot Avenue.
Nonetheless, the grassy yard, narrow gates, drainage inlet, and the shed all suggest that the house was built in the same era if not the same year or decade as the houses located within the Phase Two boundary (Figures History: As the economy declined in the Great Depression, the federal government and citizens across the nation searched for ways to reconcile the costs of living with their incomes. The Roosevelt administration s solution was the New Deal, which created multiple laws and agencies to stimulate the economy by employing people to improve the built environment. One of the strategies aimed at patching it was the movement back to farming.
There were two underlying ideas that shaped this movement; the national economy would benefit from a better agricultural economy, and a sound national economy needed a rational land policy. 9 One of the early laws dedicated toward strengthening the agricultural economy was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of which included a domestic allotment plan aimed at supporting agricultural prices 10. So far the problem had been the huge costs of farming and the rather small income of the average farmer, and this Act attempted to solve this by increasing prices so that the costs would take up a smaller amount of the farmers incomes.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act paid farmers to leave some of their fields fallow with the hope that if fewer farmers used their fields to produce a certain crop, the decrease in surplus would drive the price up and stabilize the market. The Act also tried to mitigate other problems that reduced the efficiency of the market, such as soil erosion, misuse of certain types of land, and return migration to sub-marginal farmlands 11. Return migration described the basic tendency of the unemployed urban population to look to the land in times of depression which was particularly problematic when the land they tried to farm was not suited to the purpose.
9 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8 page 2 10 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8 page 2 11 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8 page 2 PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO. AZ-13 PAGE 7 The difficulty with this concept was, of course, that if all of the citizens returned to farming and producing food for themselves ( return migration ), there would be very little time for other jobs within other sectors of society such as industrial production or retail - and the economy had already suffered from the loss of workers. The farmers who relied on their crops for income would also suffer if their products were no longer needed by the rest of the population.
For this reason, the government incorporated land settlement, reduction of sub-marginal land, and the resettlement of farmers upon suitable land, 12 into the new policy, with the knowledge that non-farming jobs were required to offset the expansion of farm production 13. Despite the potential impact on established commercial farmers, the populace could hardly be stopped from relocating to the countryside. A compromise came in the form of the National Industrial Recovery Act of which led to the creation of the Division of Subsistence Homesteads.
The organization s goal was to help low-income families reduce their costs by relocating them to subdivisions with lots large enough to provide land for growing their own food without producing a surplus that might become competition for commercial farming. Thus, those who were selected to live on the homesteads as part of the program were chosen for not only their character and ability, past record, interest, and fitness for agricultural pursuits, but also their current employment status and the prospects for non-farm employment in nearby industrial centers 14. A study confirmed that farming one acre of land would allow adequate time for the homesteaders jobs in the town; it was a requirement that the household income include a non-farm job in the nearby town - in this case - Phoenix.
The Division of Subsistence Homesteads attempted to adapt their model to all areas of the nation, so they categorized their project into 5 types, each designed to fit a type of local condition: workers garden homesteads near small industrial centers; garden homesteads near large industrial centers; rehabilitation and relocation of stranded industrial groups such as the coal field workers of West Virginia; reorganization of rural communities on sub-marginal land (particularly in the Appalachians and southern states); and the relocation of farm populations from sub-marginal, dry-farming lands to unoccupied farms on existing federal reclamation projects in the west .15 Arizona s project fell into the last category.
A fair amount of controversy surrounded the undertaking, no doubt linked to the fact that part time subsistence farming as an element planned into a rural subdivision was an experimental idea. Opponents called it communistic and 12 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8 page 2 13 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 2 14 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 3 15 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, pages 3-4 PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO.
AZ-13 PAGE 8 equated the idea to antiquated Jeffersonianism, while supporters saw it as an opportunity to ease the rural condition .16 Apparently the rural condition was the lack of technological improvements such as electricity, refrigeration, natural gas for cooking, and power machinery, which the improvement of communication and transportation helped to rectify.17 It is possible that this initiated the modern trend toward suburban living, although it should be noted that this was before sprawling suburbs were common or problematic. Nonetheless, the project moved forward, and in December of the Division of Subsistence Homesteads chose Paul V. Fuller as the statewide administrator to coordinate the program in Arizona.
He was a strong choice because he was a farmer in the Salt River Valley and he was quite active in local affairs; he was also the treasurer of the Salt River Valley Water Users Association. Fuller announced in March that the first of the subsistence homestead project sites in Arizona would be in the Salt River Valley18, as it had both a nearby source of non-farming jobs and the land to support the subsistence homesteads. The federal government then purchased the eighty-acre Baxter Tract to use for both the first and second phases of the Phoenix Homesteads project. The first phase was named the Rural Homes in Arizona, and was started in March by the Division of Subsistence Homesteads and completed in October of the same year.
The project was administered by a corporation created for the purpose, called Rural Homes in Arizona, Inc. that also handled the financing with loans from the federal Subsistence Homestead Corporation. Robert Evans, of the Evans Construction Company, was the local architect hired for the job. He designed the houses using local materials and an artful interpretation of the Pueblo Revival style; he also chose to line the streets with Aleppo pines and Washington palms. One month after construction began, President Roosevelt issued the executive order that created the Resettlement Administration, whose purpose was to merge several agencies to create a streamlined, well-coordinated agency to manage the resettlement projects. The Undersecretary of Agriculture, Dr. Rexford G.
Tugwell, was appointed as the Resettlement Administrator by the president.19 Tugwell created three programs within the agency: the Land Use Program, the Rural Rehabilitation Program, and the Resettlement Program. The Land Use Program helped retire sub-marginal farm land and put it to more appropriate uses; the Rural Rehabilitation Program helped needy farmers by providing loans, grants, and the establishment of farm cooperatives.
The Resettlement Program, which dealt with relocation of families whose sub-marginal land would be purchased, those who had been tenants, share-croppers, or dispossessed owners, 16 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 4 Robert Carriker, A New Deal Program: The Phoenix Homesteads, pgs 17 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 4 18 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 5 19 PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO.
AZ-13 PAGE 9 and newly married young couples of agricultural background who were without resources .20 The Resettlement Program was then sorted into three phases, the first of which entailed finishing some of the rural projects started by the Division of Subsistence Homesteads or the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The second phase involved initiating new rural projects, and the third phase included the construction of suburban resettlement projects. The creation of the Resettlement Administration altered the managerial structure of the programs already in place. In Arizona, Fuller was replaced by John A.
Waldron, a statewide community manager who was in charge of managing local project community managers and Payson Gregory was placed in charge of the Arizona Part-Time Farms projects.21 The change in administration led to a change in the goals of the program. The first phase of the program had focused solely on subsistence farming, but an improving economy pushed the second phase toward the creation of an intentional community centered on part-time farming. The lot sizes were much smaller (60 by 150 ), and the houses were set around an unusual T-shaped intersection that featured a community building and space for poultry and dairy operations. The goods produced from these homesteads, as well as from the communal resources, could be sold commercially.
The engineer in charge was Richard Whitehead, and the architect was Vernon De Mars. Both were employed by the Resettlement Administration, rather than being drawn from the pool of local talent. De Mars was known for his expertise on public housing and was a career public servant .22 This shift away from local designers was reflected in the final product: the houses were more standardized and regional character was applied more subtly than in the first phase. Nonetheless, the homes included details that set them apart from other houses designed for cheap construction.
The concrete floors were pigmented and scored at two-foot intervals to resemble tile [ ], the structural beams were exposed within the houses, [ ] and the adobe walls were plastered smooth and a sill-high skirt was painted in contrasting earth tones. 23 The Resettlement Administration s emphasis on cooperation also led to the creation of farm associations which owned the land and gave residents the ability to sell their spare time labor to the association for the prevailing farm wage.24 This helped families offset the costs of living on the project, and the money was divided between the residents.
According to the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for the Phoenix Historic Homesteads, each occupant of the original 25 subsistence homesteads was required to join , but it is unclear if this meant that each person who resided in the homestead would join or only the head of the household. Membership for children (of any age) was National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 6 20 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 6 21 Mary Hardin, The Phoenix Homesteads Project: Overlooked But Not Forgotten, pg 3 22 Mary Hardin, The Phoenix Homesteads Project: Overlooked But Not Forgotten, pg 3 23 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Item 8, page 9 24 PHOENIX HISTORIC HOMESTEADS HALS NO.
AZ-13 PAGE 10 also left unmentioned. The association, which was the first of its kind in Arizona, replaced the Rural Homes of Arizona corporation as the administrator of the Baxter Tract. It was incorporated in August and by March the Arizona Part-Time Farms were incorporated into the association as well. The first president was Glenn A. Jones, and the first vice-president was Lloyd R. Cady (who resided in Pinchot Avenue). The secretary and resettlement representative was Helen Baxter, and the treasurer was Goldsmith.25 The economy continued to improve over time, and the residents of the Phoenix Homesteads were, for the most part, employed full time outside the homesteads. Frequently, people from outside the community were being hired to do the farm work.
The federal government recognized that the homesteads were no longer functioning as part-time farms for the residents, and transferred the projects to the Federal Public Housing Authority in February Congress passed an act in that allowed farm associations to prepay the purchase price of housing sold by the Resettlement Administration or the FSA and in the Phoenix Homestead Association paid the indebtedness in full to the United States, which released all interest it had in the property .26 The Phoenix Homesteads Association continued to function until when a decline in interest led to a period of dormancy that ended in Today, residents participate and support their neighborhood historic district.
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