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My mother and I arrived in
Apache Junction for the first time in May of 1948.
We lived on the desert southeast of the “Junction”
in a small stone cabin. The stone insulated the
cabin quite well from the early morning and evening
heat from the desert. However, there was no
insulation from the old tin roof on the cabin. My
father constructed a very primitive cooler for us.
He made it out of two “powder” boxes used for
dynamite. He took a small rotating fan and made it
stationary, then anchored it in the bottom of one of
the powder boxes. Large rectangular holes were cut
in two sides and the bottom of the box by my dad. He
then carefully threaded copper tubing, that had
holes drilled in it every two inches, through some
burlap material and then hung it around the box
covering the cutout rectangular holes. This allowed
the fan to draw air through the moistened burlap. As
the air was pulled through the burlap it was cooled.
My father’s primitive cooler worked well enough for
us to survive a couple weeks until he returned to
further improve our primitive desert swamp cooler.
My father was working at the mines in Christmas,
Arizona at the time. It was a long drive in those
days over very primitive roads.
Our cooler worked quite well I thought, but my
mother always claimed it wasn’t cool enough. We had
a fifty gallon barrel beside the house we kept full
of water. The cooler constantly recycled the water
in the barrel. Eventually through evaporation we
would have to refill the barrel. Staying cool on the
Arizona desert in the late 1940s was no easy task.
Most people today living under refrigeration
couldn’t have survived the summer heat in those
days. If the conditions still existed today Arizona
would still be a ghost town. Air conditioning made
the desert habitable in the summer months.
My father was constantly making improvements on our
cooler. Within a month he built a large cooler out
of four powder boxes and some metal lathe to form a
stronger box. This cooler was twice the size of our
first one and twice as efficient. His work resulted
in a much cooler house. Even my mother noticed the
difference. Sometimes with summer temperatures
reaching 119 degrees these primitive desert swamp
coolers really made a difference in our lives.
During the hottest part of the day my mother and I
stayed indoors and she read to me or had me read.
 A
friend of my mother’s came by one day in the summer
heat and she was amazed how cool our little cabin
was. The following summer metal water coolers were
being produced. We bought our first metal cooler in
1952 in Phoenix. During the 1950s there were a lot
of recycled swamp coolers on the desert. Few people
spent the summer on the desert in Apache Junction
during the early 1950s. Even seasoned veterans like
Barney Barnard traveled to cooler climates once the
summer heat started.
We hauled all of our water in those days. I don’t
remember exactly when the well on Octotillo Street
was first in use, but I do know we picked up our
water there in 1948. The well was located just north
of Pappy Russell’s garage. Eventually they built a
volunteer fire station, the Pinal County Sheriff’s
Office and the justice court at the site. The desert
dwellers of the day also carried “desert water bags”
on the front of their cars. The old canvas water
bags had been around since the Model T Ford. The
bags were soaked in water then filled with water and
hung on the front of the car. You could always
depend on a cool drink of water from these simple
water bags. Mother also kept an old Olla on the
front porch wrapped in burlap soaked with water. The
Olla was a simple method to keep water cool enough
to drink. She always had a clean ladle available to
dip the water out of the Olla. The water container
was always covered with a lid to keep bees, wasps
and flies out of it. The water was always cool after
being outside in the heat.
Our life in the Apache Junction desert was bearable
and we survived quite well. During the forties and
early fifties we traveled in the early mornings or
late evenings to avoid the heat of the day. We always had food,
water and shelter. However our living conditions
were quite primitive compared to today’s modern
living with refrigeration. I would imagine Apache
Junction and much of the valley wouldn’t exist today
if it hadn’t been for the invention of
refrigeration.
One of the most interesting things I recall as a
child was a “window swamp cooler” for an automobile.
My Aunt Nelllie lived in Chloride, Arizona in the
1940s. My Uncle Harvey was the hoist operator at the
mine. Each summer Aunt Nellie and Uncle Harvey would
come to Christmas for a visit. Uncle Harvey had a
friend of his rig up a blower fan operated by
airflow in a tube with burlap around it. The burlap
was kept moist and the blower, while the car was
moving, would produce cool air. Of course it was
mounted on Aunt Nellie’s side of the car. You might
say Aunt Nellie in 1945, had one of the earliest
passenger cooling devices in Arizona. |
