[7], The territory that includes present-day New Mexico and Arizona was designated as "New Mexico. Half is a store with peachy-rose walls and wood floors full of integrity. [12][8][9][13], The Duncan Pride Society was established on March 8, 2001. Arizona north of the Gila River was taken by the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the war. This 2,440-mile Road of Dreams speckled with romantic and unconventional attractions symbolized a pathway to easier times. Wildlife viewing is good year-round but birding is best during the spring and fall migrations or the summer nesting season. Black motorists of course also had to avoid sundown towns such as Edmond, Oklahoma. Called "Purdy" in the Post Office register of 1883, it was founded by Messrs. Purdy and Bachelor as a way station on an ore haulage line that linked the railhead in Clifton with Silver City, New Mexico. Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being. African Americans who lingered in sundown towns even during the daytime experienced harassment, threats, arrest, and beatings. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 696. History and Social Justice Website Copyright 2023, Using Lies My Teacher Told Me and Teaching What Really Happened, Resources for Teaching with Lies My Teacher Told Me, Teachers Corner: Teaching with Lies My Teacher Told Me, Contact Jim Loewen to Speak to Your Group, Causing Change With Lies My Teacher Told Me, Works Inspired or Influenced by Lies My Teacher Told Me, Useful Quotations about History and Social Justice, Native American Issues, Including the Explorers, Teaching Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, Civil Rights Movement to Modern Times: c. 1945 Now, Alphabetical Map of Sundown Towns by State, How to Research and Teach About Sundown Towns, Using Research Information to Help a Sundown Town Overcome Its Past, Loewens Work on Standardized Testing Used by Others, Embarrassing Questions about Standardized Tests. There are three different campgrounds for lakeside camping as well as fishing, bird watching and water activities. [15], An individual structure listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Benjamin F. Billingsley House listed on August 25, 1983, reference: #83002998. Duncan receded then into a quiet farming and ranching town for several decades, and its downtown slowly disintegrated. (Today, nothing remains of Grahams, except a tourist cabin that an area law firm uses as its storage shed.). One popular safety precaution? Call 911 for emergencies, Greenlee County Sheriff's Department At that time, the town was located on the north bank of the Gila. Not only were they shut out of pools and beaches, black Americans also couldnt eat, sleep, or even get gas at most white-owned businesses. It WAS a Sundown town based on the criteria listed. Later, Arizona Copper Co. money built a narrow-gauge railway from Clifton all the way to Lordsburg, New Mexico, and a grateful population moved from the northern bank of the river to the southern bank to accommodate the new railway. Birders report seeing common black-hawk, canyon wren, and ladderbacked woodpecker among others. They named their home Duncan, after Duncan Smith, the companys managing director. ullstein bild/Getty Images The Chicago suburb of Cicero was one of the most infamous sundown towns to ever exist in Illinois. No franchises. She had no answer, or maybe she just didnt know how to explain institutional racism to a 7-year-old. He remembers Martinsville, Indiana as an unfriendly place. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. During a typical year 131.6 nights will fall below 32F (0C), but only 7.8 days fail to top 50F (10C), and there are only seven occurrences of nights falling to 0F (17.8C) or lower, notably on December 24, 1953, and January 11, 1962, when the record low of 2F (18.9C) was set. I talk about racism and specifically about sundown towns - racism in Tempe/Scottsdale Arizona. Duncan is named for the managing director of the Arizona Copper Company, Duncan Smith. In the town, the population was spread out, with 35.2% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 22.2% from 25 to 44, 21.2% from 45 to 64, and 10.8% who were 65 years of age or older. In the early 20th century, Bisbee was a mining town . Out of the eight states that ran through Route 66 (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California), six had official segregation laws as far west as Arizonaand all had unofficial rules about race. Sundown towns are all white cities, towns or neighborhoods that still practice racial segregation by excluding non-white people, usually through extreme violence or intimidation. Some posted. Greenwood was an unusually vibrant community of successful black entrepreneurs, doctors, and lawyers. Duncan is in the Gila River valley, four miles (6 km) west of the Arizona-New Mexico border. Arizona is one of the top producers of citrus in the country. The public schools in Safford are above average. The US average is 38 inches of rain per year. A city at the center of several natural attractions, Safford is a haven for outdoor exploration and activities. Sundown towns kept Black people out by a combination of laws and informal policies, including racist housing covenants and police intimidation, said James Loewen, a sociologist and . Duncan, Arizona 85534, Hours: Freeport-McMoRan is the largest area employer. 928-381-1881. The original ownera white man, a Christian, and the son of missionariesClifford Clinton, had traveled with his parents to China, where he witnessed that countrys brutal and abject poverty firsthand. Duncan is a town in Greenlee County, Arizona, United States. From hot springs to sand dunes to rock fields, Safford brings together many features that make Arizona famous in one place, creating the perfect family vacation destination. . The term "sundown town" goes back to segregation-era signs that said "colored people" had to leave by sundown. Do you put hand warmers for camping inside a camping tent? So he never turned away any customerseven those who couldnt afford to pay. "We didn't have Jim Crow [laws] here in California, but we did have sundown town laws," said Peterson . During a grisly lynching on Easter weekend, a vigilante white mob dragged Horace Duncan and Fred Coker to the town square, hanged them, burned their bodies while thousands watched, and then distributed their body parts among the crowd as keepsakes. station on an ore haulage line that linked the railhead in Clifton with Silver City, New Mexico. Your email address will not be published. Sundown Town Resolutions have three key elements: a city must acknowledge . Click HERE to see some of the interesting places not far from Duncan. The earliest record of legal restrictions on the nighttime activities of Black people dates back to the 1714 . Please enable JavaScript on your browser to best view this site. What's the elevation of Duncan Arizona? Other black travelers guides existedHackley and Harrisons Hotel and Apartment Guide for Colored Travelers (1930-1931), Travel Guide (1947-1963), and Graysons Guide: The Go Guide to Pleasant Motoring (1953-1959)but the Green Book was published for the longest period of time and had the widest readership. DUNCAN, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - The flooding that inundated the town of Duncan was made worse by the failure of a levee that was meant to protect the town of . into the 1960s, when the new Interstate 10 to the south diverted commercial traffic, contributing to a rising trucking industry. When the sheriff asked about the other people in the car, Rons dad pretended they werent his family. The spot where Michel Brown bled out in the street for four hours in Ferguson, Missouri, is just a couple of miles from the original Route 66. The river water began spilling into Duncan early Monday . Conflicts between the Apaches and the advancing Anglo settlers resulted in a war known as the Apache Wars. Sundown towns once drove out people of color or prohibited them from living within city limits. As of the census[8] of 2000, there were 812 people, 294 households, and 206 families residing in the town. For much of the 20th century, thousands of all-white American towns forbade Black people from . News Arizona Flash Floods Flooding Weather. Lying five miles from the New Mexico border, in the deep southeastern corner of Greenlee County, Duncan seems a world away from the wild mountains surrounding it. Arizona Highways 2039 W Lewis Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85009 602.712.2200. In his book, Loewen profiles three Indiana towns; Elwood, Huntington and Martinsville. Alan Hjorth drops in to visit; he and his wife moved from Utah because her family is from here, and now, they love their town. The Spanish-Pueblo Revival style of the building features a conference room with seven 20-foot murals painted by a Zuni artist. 25.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. "Arizona is an ideal place for developing heat- and drought- tolerant varieties because of its high daily maximum temperature and low rainfall from late spring to early fall when rice can be planted.". [14] Also pictured is the antique town clock located in Spezia Square Park and the 1950 Chevrolet 6400 2-ton fire truck once used in Duncan. The existence of sundown towns has been recirculating on Black Twitter. Hosted by Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS, 39174 and facilitated by Pantheon. The visitors center not only extends the same welcome but also offers space for local entrepreneurs. United States President James K. Polk declared war against Mexico in what became known as the MexicanAmerican War. The name derives from the posted and verbal warnings issued to Blacks that although they might be allowed to work or travel in a community during the daytime, they must leave by sundown. He also published his findings in his book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. Sundown Towns are all-white communities, neighborhoods, or counties that exclude Blacks and other minorities through the use of discriminatory laws, harassment, and threats or use of violence. My friend Julie and I walk into Hildas Kitchen & Meat Market, where Hilda Goekings smile is as wide as a rainbow. Clinton followed what he called the Cafeteria Golden Rule. His menu read, Pay What You Wish and Dine Free Unless Delighted.. In 2018 the estimated population was 789. Esso Gas Stations (Standard Oil, which operates as Exxon today) sold the Green Book and hired two black marketing executives, James A. Jackson and Wendell P. Allston, to promote and distribute it. Either way, it was painfully obvious to me that there was a problem. Background: The Gila River Relocation Center was located about 50 miles south of Phoenix and 9 miles west of Sacaton in Pinal County, Arizona. Between 1890 and 1954, thousands of independent communities across the United . Cliff dwellers, conquistadors, Apache warriors, mountain men, westering immigrants each in their time has traveled its banks. The threat of lynching was of particular concern when black people traveled through the Ozarks on Route 66. The siren that sounds every day at noon and 5 p.m. in Minden, Nevada is associated with the town's discriminatory history excluding Native Americans. 2020 Sundown Town Resolution. Even Coca-Cola machines had White Customers Only printed on them. People called it the Bible of black travel and AAA for blacks, but it was so much more. Businesses that served Black customers or hired Black employees would be boycotted by the white townspeople, ensuring that Blacks had few, if any, job opportunities in those communities. That said, there are places like Vidor Texas that still are, if unofficially. Ed Gordon discusses the historical significance of so-called "sundown towns," some of which are now promoting inclusiveness. Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). But when a site is nurtured, like Cliftons, or commemorated, like the Threatt Filling Station, it can be an important connection to the past. Also, Pellets on Sale. I guess if you dont know whether or not you need them, youre not the target audience. Admission is free, but seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis. The town of Duncan has been destroyed twice by flood and once by fire. Duncan belongs to the Gila, the storied river of the west, the ageless natural highway whose passage through the mountain and desert southwest has served humankind since South of Phoenix, in Chandler, the Gila River Indian Community invites visitors to learn about the two tribesthe Akimel Ootham and the Pee Poshwho make up the community at the HuHugam Heritage Center, a museum filled with historical artifacts, rotating exhibitions and classes that educate the public about the . The American ideals associated with Route 66, then and now, have usurped the narrative, erasing the more harrowing aspects of the nations past. Dianne Vandell, who sells her arts and crafts, came through on a trip from Colorado to Safford, and seeing horses in fields and fairgrounds enticed her to move. In the 1940s, the Royce Caf, located right on Route 66, proudly announced on its postcards that Edmond was A Good Place to Live. 6,000 Live Citizens. Ive estimated that nearly 75 percent of Green Book sites have been demolished or radically modified, and the majority that remain have fallen into disrepair, so its crucial to preserve whatever sites are left. A quick history for those of you who may not knowhere in Minden, Nevada, this was known as a 'sundowner' town. "He just came out of the woods to . (Excluding Federal Holidays) With a crime rate of 36 per one thousand residents, Safford has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. Scottish investors financed the building of a narrow gauge railway from Clifton to Lordsburg, New Mexico. The site of contemporary Duncan had its origin sometime in the 1870s. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Havent tried the lasagna yet. 76 miles to Charlotte, NC. But only Duncan hurtles me into the 1960s, in the best way. It was used so heavily that a 200-mile stretch of asphalt was thickened so that it could better handle military convoys. Alot of small Arizona towns have qualities of bygone years: frontier days, Victorian homes. Guests include Jim Hunt, president of the National League of Cities . prehistoric times. I keep waiting for the present to swing a fist through the illusion. There were 294 households, out of which 42.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.3% were married couples living together, 17.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.6% were non-families. In 1930, 44 out of the 89 counties that lined Route 66 were all-white communities known as sundown townsplaces that banned black people from entering city limits after dark. [5][6][1][2][3][4] Fray Marcos de Niza, who was a notable Spanish missionary, also passed through the area with the intention of converting the natives to Catholicism. For black soldiers stationed at Fort Leonard Wood near Rolla, Missouri, for example, their best option for a little R&R was a full 80 miles away: Grahams Rib Station in Springfield, Missouri, an integrated local landmark that opened in 1932 and was owned by an African American couple, James and Zelma Graham. Down the street is the Ranch House Restaurant I remember, although the only particleboard walls Ive ever seen have now been painted a rust color. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 696. During the Red Summer of 1919, white mobs repeatedly targeted Black World War I veterans and servicemen. In April the average diurnal range is as high as 43.7F (24.3C) and it is only less than 36F (20C) in the often stormy months of July and August when over a third of the year's total rainfall can be expected. After leaving Chicago on Route 66, the next Green Book sites were more than 180 miles away in Springfield, Illinois.
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