Hayden Flour Mill
Published October 16th, 2007 in Obligations, Obsessions Tags: Arizona, History, Photos, Squalor.
Tempe was still a pretty sleepy town when I moved there in 1985. It hadn’t changed much in the ten years since I first started visiting its head shops and record stores in my mid-teens. A block east of my house, downtown Mill Avenue was still “home to little more than biker bars, tattoo parlors, and other unsavory businesses.” But I was a young punker, and I took to my ratty neighborhood like a fly to shit. I used to love to to walk along the cracked sidewalks upended by roots from the overgrown yards that hid both crummy stone hovels and ancient Victorian style farm houses. It was a quiet neighborhood — the streets were usually deserted as everyone hid from the scorching heat, often with nothing to aid us but giant swamp coolers propped up against the walls with rickety wooden frames.
But about the time the dump I lived in started getting really depressing, I got an eviction notice. Soon, the whole area was scraped clean to make way for a new shopping development and its necessary parking structures. That was two decades ago this month. I didn’t own a camera back then, and have no visual record from those days. I found some great images at the online collection of the Tempe Historical Society, as well as its Doors To The Past site. But they only go so far to jog my fading memory.
Cranes are everywhere in downtown Tempe nowadays. If you find an old building that hasn’t been condemned, chances are it’s in the process of being repurposed in service to the grand vision of a sparkling Mill Avenue destination mecca. But down at the northern end of the street, the soon-to-be-completed transit line threatens to cut off the riverfront area from all foot traffic. The powers that be have already fixed their gaze on some of Tempe’s oldest structures, La Casa Vieja (home of Monti’s steakhouse) and the Hayden Flour Mill. In their current state, these landmarks apparently contribute nothing but a “hayseed” ambiance that doesn’t have enough impact on the city’s bottom line. It’s only a matter of time before the mill that gave the street its name gets thrown from the train.
I’ve been around long enough to know that no matter how loudly you complain or how hard you demonstrate, if our masters want something bad enough, they’ll find a way to get it. But this time I’m ready. My photos may not win any contests, but at least they’ll help me to remember once it’s too late to undo the damage.
This may sound odd but there should be a diorama society for lost American neighborhoods. The photos are great but imagine scale models of all the lost blocks of buildings etc.. I remember Chicago’s south loop in the 1980’s as a neighborhood of old abandoned burlesque theaters, Jamaican head/record shops,and seedy sandwich shops, and now it’s all gone. Now it’s condos and Starbacks. Lot’s of photos exist but nothing like a nice diorama to show it all in scale!
Great idea! These neighborhood remodels not only removed buildings, but whole vistas, which I tend to miss more.
Odd coincidence… last night I was listening to Howe Gelb’s “Hisser”. I haven’t made it out to Tempe, but I kept thinking that “this is what southern AZ must be like.” Love the ambience of that CD, and that it was recorded at home. Also that it faces the death of a loved one pretty straight on. Anyways… love the sound of the CD. Great songs. Four Door Maverick, Purple Child, Lull. Sound like how an old building in Tempe might feel, if I were to step inside it.
The Giant Sand / Puppets show in April 93 at the Palomino is a great moment in time, wish I had a couple photos from that night!
Derrick, taking those photos sounds like an excellent idea. Take care!
Thanks for the photos of the old mill. Old buildings have so much character. It’s a shame they can’t all be preserved. But at least we can document ‘em with photos. –mark in NC
Gorgeous!
I know the mill is certainly not long for this world, but I do love it so. It’s just as iconographic of Mill (not to mention eponymous) as A Mountain. I just wish they could do something to it that would pay homage to it instead of razing it, just to have some faceless condominium rise from the rubble.
Historical, sentimental, beloved or not, useless property just doesn’t stand up to the wheels of progress. The best way to save something—after trying everything else—still remains the purchase of photo-history and these shots are right on spot.
My own camera still has some pictures I’ve snapped of the old mill as I was passing by: it’s a favorite of mine. Noon and midnight—the mill has always teased a smile from my weary expression upon returning home because it’s always been the first thing to greet me the moment my shoes hit the dusty street.
Even if they don’t raze it, they’re modify it. That’s almost as bad!
Of course, I’m no Jane Jacobs– I prefer buildings when they’re boarded up and derelict.
From Helen Seargeant’s _House By The Buckeye Road_ (p. 85):
“Then he gave a dig at my part of the world–”I rather think that Hell was moved to Phoenix and the Devil holds a kind of sub-agency here.” . . .
He always had it in for Phoenix, ever since he had, in the very early days, walked from the old grist mill on Tempe Road into Phoenix–on a summer day–and saw open meat markets, where flies swarmed unhindered by screens.”
Heed Helen’s warning, readers.
Don’t let the night fall on your shadow when you’re in my town.
You might not like what you find.
I lived in and around Tempe from September 1970 until about 1979 and during that time, I saw a lot of changes. Over by the flour mill there used to be a Peugeot car dealership and across the street was one of the greatest dives known to man — The Cave. This was a dark, strange bar where low-lifes of all kinds hung out drinking cheap beer and sometimes shooting up in the booths. It had these papier-mache “stalactites” hanging from the ceiling. What a dump!
Speaking of swamp coolers … a friend of mine lived in one of the oldest houses in Tempe not far from the river and it had an octogonal shaped evaporative cooler, probably one of the earliest made. It still worked, at least then.
Oh yeah, one more little piece of information … I am the guy who interviewed Vern and Craig for the New Times in 1976. I was a kind of shocked to see the story after all of these years.
Craig Coulombe
Fairfax, Virginia
Wow! Awesome! I guess you just never know what you’ll find when you Google yourself!
As it turns out, your article is the only documentation of the “Love Workshop” I ever saw back then. I’ve saved it for 30 years!
(I think I remember that Peugeot dealership…)
I honestly forgot all about that interview and it took me a while to bring it back to mind. The interview was actually a phone interview that I made while I was a stringer with the New Times. I was truly amazed to see it again. Thank you.
Craig
I also lived in Tempe in the mid-80s Craig describes and recall the Salt River flooding problem. Returned to the area in mid-1990s and surprised that the area was losing so much of its historic identity. Now live in Pacifica, Calif. If you’re the same Craig Coulombe, we worked together at the Arizona Business Gazette.
Wow! Hi Tom!!! I would really like to hear from you again. Send me an e-mail at coulombe@cox.net.
Why don’t they turn it into a rock-climbing place?! That would be great! My hubby’s idea, by the way. The height of the structure would be wonderful for that purpose. I’m sure a lot of people would love to climb in a controlled environment; it would be so much safer than climbing mountains, and people can learn to climb there, until they are ready for a mountain!
It could even be turned into a unique, cool-looking restaurant. So much that could be done with it.
Here’s my idea:
We should designate a hunk of ocean on the coast of Dubai. They could turn it into a big island in the shape of the United States. Then, they could commence a program of buying up all the endangered buldings over here and moving them to their new island. Then they could start the first foremost skyscraper museum.
DEAR SIR
WITH RESPECT YOU I WANT TO SAY THAT I WANT TO GET JOB IN YOUR COMPANY I HAVE DONE FLOUR MILLING COURSE IN INDIA (2006 TO 2007)
PLEASE GIVE ME POSITIVE RESPONSE FOR THE JOB
BEST REGARD
RAKESH KR SHARMA