Valley of the Phoenicians Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hohokam

Pronounced HO-HO-com (like Santa's Ho Ho Ho), the Hohokam had settled along the banks of the fertile Salt River Valley and built around 130 miles of canals to help support their community and water their crops. Their canal beds were so well planned that modern canal projects such as the Arizona Canal, Central Arizona Project and Hayden-Rhodes Aqueduct follow some of the same routes.

The Hohokam disappeared around 1450 C.E.; the exact reason for their disappearance has been a subject of debate for many years, with both drought or extensive flooding being suggested as the possible reason that they left the area, and they may have assimilated into the Akimel O'odham (formerly known as the Pima) or the Tohono O'odham (formerly known as the Papago) tribes. Remnants of the Hohokam culture can be found at sites in Phoenix such as the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve (Rock Art Center), where you can see extensive rock carvings, and at the Pueblo Grande museum, an archaeological site where a Hohokam village believed to have been established around 450 C.E. has been uncovered.

Answer: Jack Swilling

John W. "Jack" Swilling was born in South Carolina in 1830 and headed west as an adult. In Tucson, he enlisted in the Confederate Army during the Civil War but later deserted and served as a scout for the Union Army. While living in the town of Wickenburg, he worked a variety of jobs as a prospector, a mill owner, a rancher and a farmer, but it was a trip to the Salt River Valley that would eventually make him famous in Arizona history. He reportedly passed through the area while working another odd job as an express rider carrying the mail between Prescott and Tucson, and he stopped for a break on top of the White Tank Mountains which are on the west side of the Salt River Valley. At a height of 4,000 feet (1,200 meters), the White Tanks offer a great view of the valley, although buildings now obscure the view that Swilling had back in 1867. While others before him had noticed the canals carved along the banks of the Salt River, it was Swilling who realized their potential. With a group of stockholders, he set up the Swilling Irrigation and Canal Company later that year, and by March of 1868, water was once again flowing in the old Hohokam canals. Swilling went on to serve as the first postmaster in Phoenix in 1868, but drinking and drug addiction to pain killers (from an earlier bullet wound) got him into trouble over the years, and in 1878, he was sent to Yuma prison for his involvement in a stagecoach robbery. He claimed he was falsely accused, but he died before the trial and was buried in Yuma at a grave site that has since been lost to history. The men who had been arrested with Swilling were released after the Marshall who arrested them recanted his allegations against the group.

Incidentally, the other answers are also connected to the early years of Phoenix. John T. Alsap was the first mayor of the City of Phoenix in 1881, John C. Fremont was the governor of the Arizona Territory in 1881 and signed the bill that incorporated the City of Phoenix, and Jean Darroche was credited as the first school teacher in Phoenix in 1871.

Answer: Pumpkinville

Although the Spanish were the first Europeans to settle in Arizona, they didn't establish settlements much farther north than Tucson, so the first non-Native Americans to settle in the Phoenix area were probably U.S. citizens. The name of Pumpkinville was given to the area by Mormon settlers following the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War (or the U.S.

Invasion of Mexico, as it is known south of the border). The area where Jack Swilling established his irrigation company became known as Swilling's Mill and also Mill City, but when it came time to officially name the town, Swilling wanted to call the town Stonewall in honor of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. Pumpkinville and Salina (for the Salt River) were suggested by other settlers, but it was another colorful character from Phoenix's early years, "Lord" Darrell Duppa, who came up with the winning suggestion of "Phoenix". Darrell Duppa was born in France in 1832 and was raised in Kent, England before moving to Prescott, Arizona in 1863.

At least one source described his journey from England to Arizona as occurring by way of Spain, Chile (where he was the sole survivor of a shipwreck), New Zealand, Australia, then finally California and Arizona. He became friends with Swilling and was one of the men who arrived at the future site of Phoenix with Swilling in 1867. The title "Lord" was just an honorary title bestowed on the hospitable and polite Englishman (apparently, Americans were suckers for an English accent even back then). Cambridge-educated, Duppa was familiar with Greek mythology, and he suggested the name of Phoenix, because like the bird being reborn from the ashes, the town was being reborn from the remnants of the earlier Hohokam civilization. He also named the suburb town of Tempe, claiming that the wide Salt River with green fields on its banks and the buttes in the area reminded him of the Vale of Tempe at the foot of Mount Olympus. Duppa also founded the town of New River located north of Phoenix. Duppa died in 1892 and his grave can be found at the Pioneer & Military Memorial Park in central Phoenix.

Answer: Maricopa

Following the creation of the Territory of Arizona in 1862, four counties were established in 1864: Mohave, Yavapai, Pima and Yuma. Yavapai was the largest in area, encompassing most of the future counties of Apache, Coconino, Gila, Navajo and Maricopa, and its county seat was in Prescott. Maricopa became the fifth county (see footnote below) in the territory when it was established in 1871; it was mainly carved out of Yavapai County but also received some land from Pima County. The town of Phoenix was declared to be the county seat of Maricopa. By the 1880 census, Maricopa had surpassed Yavapai County in population, 5,689 to 5,013 (no, those numbers aren't truncated - not a lot of people were living in the Arizona Territory back then).

The name "Maricopa" doesn't come from "mariposa", the Spanish word for butterfly, but rather it comes from the Maricopa Tribe who had been living in the Salt River area since at least 1775. As with many Native American tribe names, the name "Maricopa" was the Spanish version of a name given to the tribe by another tribe, in this case the Akimel O'odham (Pima) who called the tribe "Kokmalik'op" which meant "enemies in the big mountains". The Spanish converted "Kokmalik'op" to "Maricopa". The Maricopa actually call themselves "Piipaash" or "Piipaa", which means "The People".

Footnote: Maricopa is listed by some sources as the sixth county because in 1865, a small section of northwest Mohave County was established as Pah-Ute County. In 1866, the majority of the land encompassing Pah-Ute was given to the state of Nevada, and since the remaining Arizona land was too small to justify a separate county, it was reincorporated back into Mohave County in early 1871. Some of the area of the former Pah-Ute County is now underwater as part of Lake Mead, the Colorado River reservoir on the Arizona/Nevada border.

Answer: Railroad

Ah, yes, the railroad. It had the power to make or break a western town back in the 1800s; prior to the arrival of the railroad, imports and exports from Phoenix had to travel slowly via wagon. The Southern Pacific Railroad traveled across the southwest U.S., having completed its New Orleans to California route in 1883. It stopped in Tucson and extended its line north from Tucson to the Town of Maricopa, about thirty miles south of Phoenix. But as the company had no intention of extending further north, the Territorial Legislature decided in 1885 to create its own line, the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad, and the first tracks were laid the following year. There were a few glitches along the way: Part of the line ran through the Pima Indian Reservation, and the Secretary of the Interior suspended work on the line until negotiations could be made with the tribe, and then the residents of the Town of Tempe raised a fuss because the proposed track was bypassing Tempe, and they wanted a station too. The Tempeans won out, and on June 19, 1887, the first train from Maricopa arrived at the Tempe station. On July 3rd, the final rails were laid into Phoenix, and the Fourth of July festivities the next day doubled as a celebration of the new train service.

The Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad operated for forty years and even had a train robbery in 1910 when the Woodson Brothers robbed passengers of $300 before riding off on horseback into the desert on their way to Mexico. Sheriff Carl Hayden and his posse decided to chase the pair in a car, and he caught up with them near Casa Grande. It was reportedly the first time a sheriff's posse had used a car to track down suspects in the west. Hayden later went on to be the State of Arizona's first representative in Congress before serving seven terms in the U.S. Senate. The Maricopa and Pacific Railroad ended service in 1926 when the Southern Pacific Railroad decided to extend their service into Phoenix. Although freight trains still pass through Phoenix, passenger train service ended in 1996; the former town, now City of Maricopa, is once again the nearest train station for passenger travel for Phoenicians. Phoenix does have a "light rail" service, but it only operates within the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.

Answer: Capital of the Arizona Territory

When the area now known as Arizona joined the United States following the Mexican-American War and the Gadsden Purchase, the land was included as part of the New Mexico Territory which had been established in 1850. The residents in Arizona did not like this and lobbied to have a separate territory established to no avail. But then came the Civil War. When the residents in southern Arizona officially joined the Confederacy in 1862, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln established the Arizona Territory in 1863 in an attempt to appease the Arizonans (it didn't completely work; the southern part of the territory remained in the Confederacy until 1865). The new territory needed a capital, and it was temporarily set up at Fort Whipple in central Arizona before moving to Prescott several months later. Tucson was the largest town in Arizona at the time, but it was part of the Confederacy, so "No capital for you!" When the Civil War ended, Tucson tried to get the capital moved, but Civil War bitterness ran deep, so it stayed in Prescott until 1867 when it was finally moved to Tucson for ten years before being returned to Prescott. While the two municipalities battled over where the capital should reside, Phoenix decided to make a play for the capital. Since Phoenix was located approximately midway between Prescott and Tucson, it was touted as a convenient central location for the legislators, and the city offered to pay for a permanent capitol building and apparently other things - there were reports of bribery involved in the negotiations, and when the capital was officially moved to Phoenix, there was even an $1800 welcome banquet for the legislators.

Phoenix remained the capital of the Territory of Arizona until Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912. Tucson was the larger city on the day of statehood (Phoenix didn't surpass Tucson in population until the 1920s), but Phoenix was named the state capital. Oh, and the February 14, 1912 statehood date? Yeah, another example of Civil War bitterness - that was fifty years to the day after the Confederate Territory of Arizona had been established.

Answer: Theodore Roosevelt

The 1891 flood was the largest in recorded history in Phoenix. The Salt River rose to over eighteen feet above its normal level and wiped out large sections of Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa. The flood also destroyed the railroad bridge between Phoenix and Tempe, leaving Phoenix without rail service for three months. The National Reclamation Act was intended to manage water in the western states, not only to control flooding, but also to provide water in times of drought. As a bonus, many of the reclamation projects also generated hydro-energy, providing electricity to the western states. The Theodore Roosevelt Dam and reservoir (known as Roosevelt Lake) were built northeast of Phoenix at a location that early settlers called "The Crossing" because the narrow gorge allowed for a short and somewhat safe crossing of the Salt River. Construction on the dam, which originally had the creative name of "Salt River Dam #1", began in 1906, and when it was completed, it was the largest masonry dam in the world with Roosevelt Lake being the largest reservoir (both titles have since passed to other dams and reservoirs). It was also the first multi-purpose dam created under the National Reclamation Act as it supplied both water and electricity. Although some sources state that the dam and reservoir weren't officially named after Roosevelt until the 1950s, Theodore Roosevelt himself attended the opening of the dam, and in his speech, he stated, "If there could be any monument which would appeal to any man, surely this is it. You could not have done anything which would have pleased and touched me more than to name this great dam, this reservoir site, after me, and I thank you from my heart for having done so", so it appears Roosevelt believed the dam and reservoir were named after him in 1911. The dam became a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

Additional dams were added in future years, not only on the Salt River but also on other waterways that enter the valley, but even with the dams, flooding can still be a problem for Phoenicians. Roosevelt Dam was nearly breached in 1980 due to excessive rainfall which caused the Salt River to flood and knock out bridges, and rainfall forced releases from the dam in 1993 which filled the Salt River to capacity, taking out a bridge in Tempe.

Answer: Prisoner-of-war camps

Although Phoenix had reached a population of 65,000 by 1940, there was a still a lot of available land in the valley, and the U.S. military took advantage of the open spaces by setting up training sites and prisoner-of-war (POW) camps. The training sites included Thunderbird Field, an airfield in northwest Phoenix which was used to train pilots including actor Jimmy Stewart and which, after the war, became the Thunderbird School of Global Management, one of the world's top business schools. Luke Field, named for Arizona WWI ace Frank Luke, was created west of Phoenix and was used for advanced flight training.

A POW camp was established in Papago Park in east Phoenix. It initially housed over 3,000 German and Italian prisoners-of-war, although the Italians were moved to other sites, and it ended up mainly housing Germans.

Although there was a larger POW camp near Florence, Camp Papago Park was more famous because it was the site of what was reportedly the largest POW escape from a U.S. facility.

In December, 1944, twenty-five German POWs escaped from the camp via a 180-foot tunnel. Three German sailors had built a boat with the intent to sail down the Gila River to the Colorado and then into the Sea of Cortez, but unfortunately for them, the Gila River was not a continuously flowing river, and it was dry when they arrived on the banks. All of the men were recaptured within a few days, and the event came to be known as "The Not-So-Great Escape". But apparently life wasn't too tough at Camp Papago Park. There was a theater and a camp choir and even a camp newspaper written by the POWs. Several POWs returned to live in Phoenix after the war, and others returned in 1985 for a reunion.

Answer: Desert Botanical Garden

The Desert Botanical Garden was opened in Papago Park in 1939 to showcase and preserve desert flora. It now consists of 140 acres of cacti and other arid-land plants from around the world. Chris-Town Mall, the first air-conditioned indoor mall in Phoenix, opened in 1961 at 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, what was then considered north Phoenix.

Not much of the original mall still exists as it was converted into a strip mall in the early 2000s. The Phoenix Zoo opened in 1962, just down the road from the Desert Botanical Garden in Papago Park.

The largest privately-owned, non-profit zoo in the U.S., the zoo was instrumental in saving the Arabian Oryx from extinction and eventually helping to reintroduce the animals back into the wild in Middle East.

The Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum opened in 1965, just in time for the arrival of the Phoenix Suns basketball team which joined the NBA in 1968. Some other Phoenix attractions that opened in the 1960s included Legend City amusement park (1963) and Phoenix Municipal Stadium (1964). Legend City was demolished in the 1980s, and after years of hosting the Phoenix Giants minor league baseball team and Oakland A's spring training, Phoenix Municipal Stadium became part of Arizona State University.

As for other popular Phoenix attractions, the Heard Museum opened in 1929, the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra started in 1947 (although Symphony Hall wasn't built until 1972), and the Phoenix Art Museum opened in 1959.

Answer: Philadelphia

Phoenix first broke into the "Top Ten" in 1980 when it became the ninth largest city in the U.S. It remained at number nine in 1990 but by 2000, it had moved up to number six and had Philadelphia in its sights. As Phoenix's population increased, there had been friendly rivalries with other cities along the way, but the battle with Philadelphia was memorable because of the trash-talking that emerged around the turn of the 21st century. As one Philadelphia media outlet put it, the only thing the two cities had in common was (former NBA star) Charles Barkley. The Philadelphia media touted their city's history and culture while the Phoenix media was quick to point out that Phoenicians didn't need to hibernate during winter. When the 2007 population estimates were released (in between the normal Census years), Phoenix had surpassed Philadelphia, and Phoenix officials wasted no time in changing every document and website to reflect that Phoenix was the fifth-largest city in the U.S. behind NYC, LA, Chicago and Houston. But the official 2010 Census results showed that Philadelphia was still the fifth largest city in the U.S. with a population of 1.5 million compared to Phoenix's 1.4 million which generated the following response from the "Philly.com" website: "We're No. 5 ... and Phoenix can pound sand." The website further pointed out that "YOU COULD say that Philadelphia still trails Phoenix - in endless strip shopping malls, cactuses, tea-party rallies, Olive Gardens, drought alerts, golf courses and assault rifles. But not when it comes to peeps." Mmmm, OK, the "Philly.com" website did post a fairly accurate description of Phoenix, but as Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon joked, he would demand a recount when "the mercury drops to 30 degrees in Philly and it's a sunny 85 degrees in Phoenix". Gordon did concede that, "We'll now have to stop making fun of Philly and restart picking on Detroit". Rob Wonderling from the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce commented, "We have no axe to grind with you folks out there at all, even though we have four seasons and you have a week of a season you call winter."

Incidentally, these population numbers are for the proper city boundaries, not for the metropolitan areas. The Phoenix metropolitan area includes Mesa, Tempe, Glendale, Peoria, Scottsdale and several other cities/towns and had a population of 3.25 million in 2000 versus 7,000 in 1900.