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Chandler Sports Hall of Fame The Chandler Museum is home to the Chandler Sports Hall of Fame exhibit. The Chandler Sports Hall of Fame honors Chandler residents who have excelled in athletics at the high school, collegiate, amateur or professional levels. Members of the Chandler Sports Hall of Fame Committee elect new athletes each year for induction. Members of the 2006 induction class are Jill Hamilton, Jerry Lamb, Raul Navarrete, W.G. Austin, Larry Vanley, Eddie Wilson, Bobby Noel, Mario Ray, Ramon Aldecoa, and the 1957 State Champion Chandler High School Baseball Team. |
| The Morrison Grocery Store The Morrison Grocery Store was opened by Ernest Morrison in 1912 and was the first store in Chandler. Later that year Ernest’s brother, Leroy, joined the business and the brothers moved their store into one of the town’s first permanent buildings on San Marcos Place. The Morrison Brothers’ Grocery, as it became known, also housed the town’s first post office and the office of Dr. Kramer Gilbert, the town’s first physician. |
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The San Marcos Hotel The San Marcos Hotel, completed in1913, was built to bring tourist dollars to the agricultural community of Chandler. Designed by Arthur Burnett Benton in the Spanish Mission Revival style, the resort was intended as a winter playground for the rich and famous. Critics thought Dr. Chandler was crazy to build a grand hotel in the midst of cotton and alfalfa fields. But on November 22, 1913, the San Marcos opened with such dignitaries as Arizona Governor W.P. Hunt, United States Representative Carl Hayden, and Vice President Thomas Marshall in attendance. Over the years such celebrities as Christian Dior, Errol Flynn and Fred Astaire have spent time at the hotel. |
Cotton & Classrooms: Chandler's Goodyear School |
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Dr. Alexander J. Chandler Dr. Alexander J. Chandler first came to Arizona in 1887 as the first territorial veterinary surgeon. He quickly became interested in ranching and land development and accumulated 18,000 acres of land south of the town of Mesa. He became an expert in irrigation techniques, and played a large role in getting the Roosevelt Dam funded and constructed. With the completion of the dam, farmers in the Salt River Valley had a dependable source of water. With that in mind, Dr. Chandler planned a town on his ranch, and on May 17, 1912, started selling parcels of land and the town of Chandler was born. |
| The Chandler Fire Department In 1917, the town of Chandler, with help from the Chamber of Commerce, initiated fire protection for the fledgling town. It was not until 1937 that an official fire department was established. The Chandler Fire Department was an all volunteer unit until 1953, when a chief and two captains were hired. Since then, the CFD has continued to grow along with the city it serves. The CFD exhibit at the Chandler Museum features the first fire hose cart purchased by the town in 1917, as well as documents tracing the history of CFD and historic fire fighting equipment. |
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The Hohokam The Hohokam were the first people to inhabit the Sonoran Desert and the Salt River Valley. They arrived around 300 B.C. and disappeared mysteriously around 1450 A.D. In fact, the name Hohokam is a Pima word meaning “those who have vanished.” The Hohokam were master farmers, harnessing water from the Salt River and diverting it into their massive canal system. Their canal system was such a feat of engineering that pioneers thousands of years later used the same canal ditches to water their crops. They were also master artists. They made pots in the red on buff style, using a buff colored paste to coat the pots, then decorated them with a hematite based red pigment. The Hohokam also created beautiful shell jewelry with shells from the Gulf of California. Today burial mounds, irrigation ditches, big houses, along with artifacts like pot sherds and tools can be found scattered throughout the Sonoran Desert as lasting reminders of the Hohokam people. |
| The early days of Chandler In the early days of Chandler, many people could not afford to have wood shipped down from the mountains to build their houses. They simply found what wood they could to construct a frame and put canvas over the top and sides, creating a tenthouse. These temporary structures were also functional. The canvas sides could be rolled up during the day to let a breeze through and closed at night to keep the heat inside. The one room structures served as bedroom, living room, wash room, and kitchen, all in one. Bed rolls were kept in chests during the day, and rolled out on the dirt floor at night for sleeping. |
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Temporary Exhibit Schedule 2008 January 1, 2008 - January 25, 2008 - Chandler in the 1950s |
