How do you remember Phoenix? Stories from long time residents... (Mesa: tobacco, basketball)

[trillcatz]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

Attachment 83301

Vonday Kay VanDyke? Wasn't she Miss AZ or Miss America or something? The neighbor boy dated her and out of her crown she looked like any other college girl lol...we did know she was "special".

[trillcatz]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

Unusual picture of Terminal 1, look at the parking.

Attachment 83334

I flew into Terminal 1 in 60 I think...my introduction to AZ...I wondered where all the cowboys and indians were...lol keep in mind that I was 6.

[desertskies]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

Unusual picture of Terminal 1, look at the parking.

Attachment 83334

Gotta be prior to 1957.
There's no hotel (Marriott Airport Inn?) in the upper left, next to inbound road.

[desertratz]

Originally Posted by desertskies

Gotta be prior to 1957.
There's no hotel (Marriott Airport Inn?) in the upper left, next to inbound road.

Wasn't that the Sky Riders Inn/Hotel or something like that?

[Magnum Mike]

Originally Posted by roosevelt

Unusual picture of Terminal 1, look at the parking.

Attachment 83334

Good picture, and now that entire site, where terminal 1 used to be, is a parking lot.

[desertratz]

Originally Posted by Magnum Mike

Good picture, and now that entire site, where terminal 1 used to be, is a parking lot.

Here's some more. Terminal 1 is in the middle of the runways in the 2nd pic.

[Magnum Mike]

Originally Posted by SluggoF16

Are you talking about the lack of car parking compared to now, or the aircraft parking? It looks a bit tight on the ramp. More notable to a pilot/mechanic: Look at all the soot and oil where the Connie (farthest right aircraft) is parked, as well as the taxi route out of that spot. The trouble with many of the radial engines was their complexity and oil consumption. It's said that when a pilot would land, it was "Fill the oil and check the fuel."

It's a nice picture that shows the Lockheed Constellation, and the other Douglas aircraft, possibly DC-6, I wonder if they had a way to wash all that soot and oil on the tarmac.

I've only taken a flight out of terminal 1 just one time, back in 1984, when SouthWest Airlines operated out of that terminal, and I remember walking to the Boeing 737-200 on the tarmac and going up the stairs to get into the cabin, there were no jetways.

Terminal 2 opened in the early 1960s to handle the anticipated increased traffic, with the then new Boeing 707, and the Douglas DC-8.

[Magnum Mike]

Originally Posted by desertratz

Here's some more. Terminal 1 is in the middle of the runways in the 2nd pic.

Thanks for posting those pictures, I see a couple of Douglas DC-3s in there, (the 2 twin-engine aircraft) and the one with the 4 engines might be a DC-4. Those pictures must have been taken in the late 1940s, or early 1950s.

[desertskies]

Originally Posted by desertratz

Wasn't that the Sky Riders Inn/Hotel or something like that?

Probably.
I've always known it as a Marriott property.

[roosevelt]

Originally Posted by desertratz

Wasn't that the Sky Riders Inn/Hotel or something like that?

Right you are. I have have some 2,000 postcards of Phoenix but the only one that is a drawing. It says the only airport hotel in the United States. Sound proofed, TV, heated pool, AC; call BRidge 5-3635 or VHF 2-way radio 122.5 MC. That is one strange looking Camelback Mtn. in background. A later postcard said it was a Sheraton hotel. There was also a "fly-in" First National Bank across the street.