|
Developers and Speculators
While
initial settlement of Phoenix originated along the bank of the
Salt River in the 1870s, the residential expansion and rapid
growth of the city is a story of investment and land
development in the twentieth century.
In 1903
prominent leaders and investors began negotiation with the
federal government to control the flow of the Salt River in
order to resolve concerns of seasonal flooding and to provide
a source of water for the city. Prominent businessmen,
including Benjamin A. Fowler, Patrick Hurley, E.J. Bennett and
Dwight B. Heard, induced the federal government to begin
development of the Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River.
The prospect of a consistent supply of water assured the
prosperity of Phoenix and the Valley. A real estate
speculation boom ensued which led to the development of
several residential areas around the Phoenix townsite over the
next few decades.
On March 9, 1908, Dwight B. Heard,
President of the Suburban Realty Company, petitioned for the
subdivision of a quarter section of property bounded by 7th
Street, McDowell Road, 12th Street and the canal that, at the
time, ran down Oak Street. This was the first subdivision of
property in what would become known as the Coronado
Neighborhood. Between the years 1906 and 1908, thirty
subdivision plats were filed with the Maricopa County
Recorder's office, three of those being in the Coronado
district: Homewood Tract, Syndicate Place, and Rancheros
Bonitos. These three new subdivisions on the northern edge of
Phoenix would, by 1935, comprise part of the largest
residential section of the city.
The initial intent of
the speculators was to build a prestigious "streetcar suburb"
such as the Encanto-Palm croft and Roosevelt Neighborhoods
which were established during the same period. However, land
values at the time were determined by a home site's proximity
to Central Avenue. Coronado's comparative distance to the east
of Central Avenue and downtown resulted in more modest
building restrictions than in other neighborhoods of the city.
At that time, restrictions that regulated the minimum cost of
houses built on a particular lot were the common means of
determining the range of house size in a development. As a
result, the Coronado area evolved into a more modest
working-class neighborhood than the original investors had
envisioned. |
