1900s - 1910s
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The soothing dry air and open
desert of Arizona became a
mecca for health seekers. In her
memoirs, Marguerite Colley
referred to Arizona as the
"Promised Land." Pictured here
are the mountains and slopes of
North Phoenix as they appeared
in the early part of the 1900s.
Young girls from the tent cities of
Sunnyslope.
1900-1910s - In the early 1900s, Arizona was a new frontier, a booming land of promise, not only for the healthy but for the sick. Arizona's sunshine and dry desert air drew many people suffering from tuberculosis, rheumatism, asthma and various other diseases. Some were very wealthy and recuperated in exclusive resorts. Others used their last savings just to make the journey to Arizona, arriving penniless. They pitched tents and built tiny cabins in the desert.
1901 - First Nobel Prizes awarded.
1902 - President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the National Reclamation Act of 1902 authorizing western irrigation projects paid for by the sale of land in 16 semiarid states. Under this law, Roosevelt initiated the construction of western dams including the Roosevelt Dam. As a result, vast sections of central Arizona that had once been arid desert would soon be turned into productive fields of cotton, pecans, oranges and grapefruit.
1903 - The Wright brothers flew the first powered, controlled airplane at Kitty Hawk, N.C.
1903 - The City of Phoenix passed an ordinance prohibiting tent housing, driving the health seekers north to an area now known as Sunnyslope.
1904 - Albert Einstein formulated the theory of relativity.
1905 - Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated into his second term as President of the United States.
1907 - Retired architect W.R. Norton and his wife, a concert pianist, arrived in Arizona and filed for homestead land near Phoenix. They built their home in a clearing surrounded by greasewood near the present-day address of 8713 N. Central Ave.
1911 - W. R. Norton planned a subdivision called Sunny Slope after his daughter's remark upon seeing the morning sun on North Mountain, "What a pretty sunny slope!" This was the first subdivision built in the Phoenix area.
1912 - Arizona became a state.
1912 - Roosevelt Dam, the first irrigation project of the National Reclamation Act of 1902, was completed.
1913 - Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as President of the United States.
1913 - W. H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg constructed the first X-ray spectroscope.
1914 - World War I began.
1917 - Second inaugural address of President Woodrow Wilson; U.S. entered World War I.
1917 - World War I ended.
1919 - Marguerite Colley moved to Arizona because of her son's asthma. A practical nurse and social worker, she visited the homes of the sick, indigent and lonely in North Phoenix.
1919 - The 18th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting alcoholic beverages.
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