Chandler: The New Pasadena

Dr. Chandler split his time between Arizona and Southern California, particularly Pasadena, in the late 1880s and the 1890s.  In fact, Chandler is listed as living at a Los Angeles address in the 1900 census records.  At this time, the Los Angeles area was growing and Dr. Chandler was especially inspired by the Pasadena development model.  Built on a mainline railroad, Pasadena sprung up as a resort community surrounded by industrial agriculture near a large thriving city, Los Angeles.  It had a reputation as a luxurious destination, where wealthy easterners spent their winters.  Dr. Chandler envisioned a similar development in the Salt River Valley close to the booming city of Phoenix.  He brought irrigation engineers, contractors, architects, investors and boosters to Arizona from Southern California to plan a community and bring attention to the new town of Chandler.  A national advertising campaign proclaimed Chandler to be the Pasadena of the Salt River Valley, and promoted the fertile soil and year round growing season for industrial agriculture interests.  Boosters also touted the San Marcos Hotel as a posh retreat for the discerning vacationer.  While not immediately as successful as Pasadena, California, the “Pasadena of the Salt River Valley” laid the foundations for the community of today.

The Advertising Campaign

Throughout 1912, Dr. Chandler’s national advertising campaign was trumpeting Chandler as the new Pasadena.  On October 11, 1912, the local Chandler Arizonan newspaper quoted Dr. Chandler: “Chandler is now looked at as the second Southern California.  We are going right ahead with our plans to make Chandler another Pasadena, the city beautiful of Arizona.  A natatorium will be built as planned, spraying systems are being placed throughout the parks of Chandler right now.  That is a system installed in no other park in Arizona.  It is as beautiful as it is useful.  Plans have been completed already for a modern domestic water system second to none in efficiency and quality in the entire southwest…in time Chandler will have a thousand homes and every house will be beautiful.”

 

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Layout Out the Town

With the successful completion of Roosevelt Dam, Dr. Chandler began to parcel out his property.  Buyers could purchase ten to forty acre farms or smaller residential and commercial lots in town.  The photo at the right shows Dr. Chandler welcoming buyers to the Townsite Office at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and San Marcos Place.

Even before land sales day on May 16, 1912, the Mesa Improvement Company (later known as the Chandler Improvement Company) outlined the new community’s streets by installing concrete curbs.  Paving would come later.  The photographs below depict the Improvement Company’s commitment to having a beautiful city with curved streets surrounding “The Beauty Spot,” a lushly landscaped island in the middle of the Commonwealth Canal.  Some of Chandler’s earliest buildings appear in the background along the cottonwood tree lined Commonwealth Canal. The water tower at right bears the Chandler Improvement Company name.

Land Sale Day: May 16, 1912

The Chandler Arizonan described land sales day as follows:  “Without any flourish of trumpets, with an utter absence of anything bordering on the cheap methods used by hawkers of boomsites, Chandler, destined to be the Pasadena of the Salt River Valley, a city of a thousand beautiful homes, of palatial hotels, the finest pleasure resorts in the southwest, the cleanest home life, a city of churches and of the finest schools in Arizona, had its initial sale of lots on May 16^th.”  Dr. Chandler,  provided buyers with a delicious lunch of sandwiches, eggs, fresh fruit, coffee and lemonade.  According to the newspaper, Dr. Chandler and his associates made no direct effort to sell land, letting the appeal of the land speak for itself.  At the end of the day, over $50,000 worth of lots were sold.

The Early Townsite

While the local newspapers proclaimed Chandler’s beautiful homes and clean living, in reality the early townsite was quite modest.  In this picture from 1912, the Land Sale office and the grocery store are visible.  The white-roofed buildings are tent houses, which served as temporary housing for people living and working around Chandler.  This photo was taken from approximately the intersection of Chicago and California Streets, looking northeast.  Railroad cars are visible on the far right side of the photo, transporting goods on the railroad tracks that are still located in downtown Chandler near Delaware Street.

One of the first permanent buildings constructed in Chandler was located on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and San Marcos Place.  Its first occupant was the Bank of Chandler, which opened in February of 1913.  Originally capitalized at $100,000, the Bank received $8,000 of deposits the first day it was open for business.

A couple of months later, the same corner had grown substantially.  A new two story building first housed the Chamber of Commerce.  Because fire had ravaged other communities during this time, it was an important selling point that each of these buildings was fire-proof.  The Chandler Improvement Company assured that the downtown business corridor would be completely fire-proof.

While the sales of downtown properties were brisk during Chandler’s earliest days, building remained slow.  In this picture from 1913, the San Marcos and a few businesses appear surrounded by farm fields.  This photo was taken west of the intersection of Chicago and California Streets.   The Chandler Arizonan reported on September 12, 1912 that Chandler’s development was to mirror Pasadena, California.  “The whole plan is in line with the company’s intention to make Chandler the Pasadena of the Salt River Valley.  Pasadena is the most modern and beautiful of the American home cities.”

The Commonwealth Canal

The Commonwealth Canal was concreted in June of 1912. A Chandler Arizonan article raved about how the canal was contributing to the beautification of the city.  The concreting was completed by June 21, 1912.  

Read the article from June 6, 1912 here and the article about the completion on June 21, 1912 here. The text is available below.

Before the number of the [Chandler] Arizonan is off the press, a force of workmen under the Assistance City Engineer Joe Cashman, will have completed the concrete work on the Commonwealth Avenue canal. For the past month a force of twelve men under the direction of City Engineer Binkley and Assistant Cashman, have been pushing for this feature of the beautification of the townsite of Chandler to make it the most beautiful city in Arizona, or as Dr. A.J. Chandler, owner of Chandler Ranch puts it, the Pasadena of Arizona.
The concrete work extends from a point one block east of the city park, or one hundred feet east of the termination of the beautiful rows of trees lining Comonwealth avenue canal, through the townsite to the west, three blocks beyond the San Marcos hotel. Two hundred feet from the easterly terminus of the concrete work the canal makes a small circle around a small island, desinated to be the beauty spot of the concrete canal section. The concrete covers the bottom of the canal which has a clear width of six feet. The sides are concreted thirty inches.
The canal throughout the new city is to be plotted with blue grass along the concrete section and with another grass imported from the east and especially adapted to holding the earth where the canal is not concreted. The concrete section has been laid along strictly engineering lines so as to absolutely prevent washing. The grasses will beautify the canal from the curbing on either side to the water's edge completely covering the sloping embankment between the curb and the canal.
The canal is already lined with two rows of magnificent cottonwood trees from the city park east beyond the railroad station. Trees are on the ground and orders have been given for their planting along the westerly section of the .... townsite. In fact, trees have already been placed for a block west of the termination of the cottonwoods.
Enough has already been done in the way of improvement to make the designs of Commonwealth Avenue clear, and assure that when the work is completed it will be the most beautiful throughfare in Arizona, bar none. The avenue is 120 feet wide. The canal and concrete sidewalks on either side of the canal in the center occupy 20 feet, allowing a fifty-feet roadway on either side, including sidewalks on the outside, ten feet in width. This gives a forty-foot roadway on either side of the canal between the curbs.
The concrete sidewalk is already laid between the railroad on the east to a point where the concrete work on the canal begins. The road bed is to be macadamized from the end to end and parked with trees on either side as it is along the canal now.
The Commonwealth Avenue improvement has gone far beyond the planning stage. The curbing is in place with the wide gutterways, for most of the distance. The whole scheme is rapidly approaching a full fledged reality, illustrating forcibly the real purposes of the founders of the Pasadena of Arizona.¹

The concreting of the Grand Canal along Commonwealth Avenue in Chandler is entirely complete. During the past week, Commonwealth Avenue has been planted with trees on both sides. The gravel is in place along the north side of the canal to be used in laying the concrete sidewalk thereon.
The beautification of Commonwealth Avenue has progressed to a point which gives a good idea of what the founders of Chandler have in mind--making Commonwealth the most beautiful street in Arizona. The avenue is 120 feet wide from curb to curb. The canal, ten feet wide, runs down the center of the avenue. Five foot concrete sidewalks line the banks of the canal from the railroad station to the city park. On the extreme north and south sides of the avenue between the curbs and the lot frontages, ten foot concrete sidewalks are to be laid. The roadways on either side of the canal are to be macadamized²

¹Chandler Arizonan, June 6, 1912, p. 3.
²Chandler Arizonan, June 21, 1912, p. 4.

The Park in the Center of Town

Dr. Chandler’s plan based on Pasadena featured a monumental park in the center of town.  Tree-lined streets and canals were prominent traits of Pasadena, so one of the first improvements to the townsite included planting hundreds of trees along the Commonwealth Canal. On May 28, 1912, the Chandler Arizonan reported 1,500 trees of various varieties arriving in Chandler to be planted throughout the community.  In this photo, you can see those trees had matured. This image also shows the fledgling trees in what ultimately becomes Dr. A.J. Chandler Park.

The Business District

The business district continued to grow, and by 1920 had expanded from San Marcos Place to Boston Street.  The building on the far right housed the offices of Dr. Gilbert, Chandler’s first physician, and Dr. Barackman, the first dentist.  From right to left, the buildings were occupied by a dry goods store called the Leader, the First National Bank, Reliable Hardware, and the Arrow Pharmacy on the corner.

The First National Bank opened in 1920 on Boston Street.  This was the second bank built in town.  The interior of the bank featured marble counters and tiled floors, and the exterior boasted faux marble columns.  While the bank was capitalized at $50,000, business could not support two separate banks.  The Bank of Chandler took over the First National Bank in 1925.  Ultimately, this bank closed during the Great Depression.

In the 1930s after the bank closed, the Chandler Improvement Company moved its headquarters into the Bank of Chandler building.  The company entered receivership in 1936 after Dr. Chandler had mortgaged it in an attempt to finance other projects during the Great Depression.  Dr. Chandler retired to a bungalow on the grounds of the San Marcos and could only watch as the company was liquidated in the early 1940s.

A Railroad Station

When the Southern Pacific Railroad was coming to the east valley, they planned for a small station in Chandler.  Dr. Chandler saw the plans and refused to grant right-of-way into Chandler until they built a station Dr. Chandler thought worthy of the town.  Chandler’s railroad depot was eventually designed by prominent Phoenix architects Royal Lescher and John Kibbey.  Built in the mission revival style, it welcomed many wealthy winter visitors coming to Chandler to stay at the San Marcos Hotel.

Paving the Streets

Downtown streets were paved in 1921, nine years after the town was opened for settlement.  Maricopa County completed the paving, since Chandler was not yet an incorporated town.  Town leaders waited until after the work was completed to incorporate, ensuring that the County would pay for the paving.  The photo looks north on San Marcos Place.  Visible on the left is the Bank of Chandler, and the San Marcos Hotel is in the background beyond the bank. 

Beautiful Garden Homes

Dr. Chandler and the Chandler Arizonan boasted that Chandler was “a city of a thousand beautiful homes.”  In reality, home building went slowly.  Many homes were mail order kit homes. The homes built in the northeast section of town were mandated to cost at least $3,000 to build, a restriction which led the neighborhood to be known as the Silk Stocking neighborhood.

George T. Peabody

Dr. Chandler’s associate, George T. Peabody, was the founder and first secretary of the Chandler Chamber of Commerce.  He had come to Chandler from Southern California, like many of Chandler’s investors.  Peabody worked tirelessly to market Chandler, promoting the town in newspapers and at meetings around the country.

John D. Van Eaton: The Voice of a Community

John D. Van Eaton, another Southern Californian, was the first editor of the local newspaper, the Chandler Arizonan.  The paper began publication four days after land sales day, and it helped promote the fledgling town.  The Arizonan was delivered by train to cities across the nation as an advertisement for the town.  Van Eaton is pictured here in front of his tent house, which he let readers know, was always open.

A Plan Realized

Taken in 1923, this photo looks north towards Mesa.  It shows Dr. Chandler’s plan to echo the development of Pasadena coming to fruition.  At the center of this photo is Chandler’s first park, a lush area full of tall trees.  Canals and streets were also lined with trees, creating cool canopies over sidewalks and attractive vistas.  The bustling business district had begun to surround the park.  The San Marcos is visible on the left, identifiable from the other buildings by its landscaped grounds.  Bashas’ first Chandler store, a dry goods business, is the black roofed building located on the lower right corner of the photo.   State Route 83 (what is now Arizona Avenue/State Route 87) encircled the outside of the park.