Ask an Urban Historian: American West

Dr. Carl Abbott teaches urban studies and planning at Portland State University.  He is the author of several books on the history of American cities and the American West.  His most recent book is Frontiers Past and Future: Science Fiction and the American West, and his current project is How Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of Urban Change in Western North America.

Dear Urban Historian,

How did Phoenix and Las Vegas grow so rapidly, despite their spatial isolation?

– Tim Frey, Franconia, Pennsylvania

In 1940, you would have gotten great odds if you’d bet Phoenix and Las Vegas would be among the nation’s fastest growing cities in the 21st century. As late as 1940, Phoenix was a small city serving irrigated farming in the Salt River Valley. Las Vegas was a railroad stop with a brief boom as a honky-tonk town for Boulder Dam construction workers. What changed? Air conditioning was important, but there are three other factors. One was the federal government. Phoenix benefited from World War II defense contracts and Las Vegas from spending associated with atomic bomb tests during the ’50s. Phoenix continued to attract electronics and defense plants after the war, developing a critical mass as a high tech center. The second factor has been the aging of the American population, and the emergenceof retirement as a major life stage. When Sun City (see page 27) opened for business on Phoenix’s western edge in 1960, it was the nation’s largest all-senior community and a sign of things to come. The third factor is the immense growth of southern California. Both cities revolve in the SoCal orbit. They have gained new residents fleeing the congestion and racial complexity of Los Angeles, and new employers looking to serve SoCal markets. Las Vegas gambling is a national and global draw, but its largest customer base is Greater Los Angeles. It is interesting to contrast Reno, which was a Nevada gambling center before Vegas. Reno is closer to the Bay Area than Las Vegas is to Los Angeles, but there is a big difference: The LA-LV route is open year round, while the SF-Reno route can be treacherous in winter — it includes the same Sierra Nevada Pass where the Donner Party had to make some seriously tough dietary choices. In short, Las Vegas and Phoenix are much less isolated than they look on a map.

Dear Urban Historian,

Is Denver more culturally diverse than Salt Lake City?  How have the histories of these two cities affected their demographics?

--Michael Weyrauch, Ocean City, New Jersey

By national averages, Denver and Salt Lake City are both “white” cities when compared to Los Angeles, Honolulu, Atlanta or Washington, D.C. But directly compared, they are quite different in history and current demographics.

Many of Salt Lake’s first settlers in the 1840s and 1850s came from racially tense states like Missouri and Illinois. They were also members of the Mormon Church, whose doctrine excluded blacks. Although that doctrine has officially changed since then, it long deterred minorities. In addition, Salt Lake City’s isolated location — which attracted Brigham Young when he considered where Mormons should resettle after Joseph Smith’s murder — placed it far from major migration routes of East Asians, blacks and Mexicans.

Denver’s founders were not angels when it came to racial relations, but its history shows some important differences. The boundaries that Congress drew for Colorado Territory in 1861 (and confirmed with statehood in 1876) included many Spanish speakers who had farmed the upper Rio Grande Valley for generations. Early Colorado politics accepted Hispanic leaders, making Federico Peña’s 1981 mayoral election part of a long tradition. Denver is also closer to the large black populations of the Mississippi Valley. In the later 19th century, black “exodusters” from the South founded several all-black towns on the Great Plains; one was Dearfield, Colorado, north of Denver.

Dear Urban Historian,

Not only is Boise’s Basque community the largest in the United States, but downtown Boise features a vibrant section called the “Basque Block,” and even Boise’s mayor, David Bieter, is of Basque descent.  What is it about Boise, Idaho, that has drawn so many from this ancient European tribe?

--Bryan Gilbreath, Boise, Idaho

The answer is sheep. The earliest Basque immigrants to the United States came as 49ers to California gold mining, but they soon turned to ranching and sheep herding in California’s central valley. As sheep raising spread into Nevada, eastern Oregon and southern Idaho at the start of the 20th century, Basque workers followed. Although they also worked in mining and logging, they were most closely identified with the solitary occupation of sheep herding. Many small cities and towns in the area had Basque boarding houses that supported a bachelor society with some similarities to that of Chinese immigrant workers.