r/AZhistory

On this day in sports history, June 29, 2004, Randy Johnson joined one of baseball’s most exclusive clubs, becoming just the fourth pitcher in MLB history to reach 4,000 career strikeouts when he struck out Jeff Cirillo of the Padres.

Johnson reached the milestone in just 3,237 1/3 innings, needing significantly fewer innings than Nolan Ryan (3,844 2/3), Roger Clemens (4,151), and Steve Carlton (4,991 1/3) to record strikeout No. 4,000.

Data via Baseball Reference / Stathead

1. Plans shared in The Arizona Republican on May 31, 1925. 2) Photo shared in The Arizona Republic on June 24, 1973. 3-20) 2016 listing photos

This house stands at 54 N Country Club Drive in Phoenix, Arizona, just outside of the Phoenix Country Club. The country club had moved to its current location in 1921 and the land around it was subdivided in 1924 into 54 lots that make up Country Club Place for large homes to be built on. A few homes had already been built by 1923, with several being planned and built not long after. One of the first homes to be built was the winter home of Warren McArthur Sr that used to stand at 27 N Country Club Dr. I couldn’t find much info about his home other than he died in it in December 1924, and it was demolished in 1934 to make way for the house that still stands there. Around the time of his death, the last of his three sons, Albert Chase McArthur, would move from Chicago to Phoenix to join his brothers.

Albert’s brothers, Warren Jr and Charles were very active in the Phoenix socialite and civic worlds, and in 1924 they were starting to get plans ready for a new winter resort. They had started working with the Bowman-Biltmore chain to manage the resort, calling on their brother to draw up the design. While early work was going on behind the scenes for what is now known as the Arizona Biltmore, the earliest drawings of the resort by Albert are from July 1927. Up till that point he was taking on several jobs to design homes in affluent areas of the town. He had been an architect back in Chicago, studying at Harvard and briefly working for Frank Lloyd Wright at his Oak Park studio, so he easily found clients. One of his first was the Dwight B Heard Investment Company, who hired him to draw up the designs for a home to be built at 54 N Country Club Drive. These plans were shown in The Arizona Republican on May 31, 1925. The article described it as a Spanish-Colonial style home with six rooms, two of them being bedrooms that had large closets, two baths, a large living room, and a comfortable dining room attached to the living room, all under a layer of 6-inch sawdust insulation in the roof. It would also have two porches, the rear one being a screened in sleeping porch. Before air conditioning was common, most houses and hotels had these screened in porches to make summer nights a bit more bearable, although it wasn’t quite as hot then as it is today. Next to the sleeping porch there would be the maid’s quarters and bath. There would be a detached two car garage at the end of a long driveway, with there being storerooms and additional servant’s quarters in the garage. Construction on all of this was supposed to start right away at what used to be lot 48, but is now lot 47, of Country Club Place by the contractor W. H. Wills. It’s not clear if work actually started right away though as the property records say it was built in 1931, but I’ve seen them get build dates wrong pretty often. The earliest mention of the home after the plans were announced was in a March 7, 1934 article about Charles’ daughter getting into a car accident, listing this address as their home. It isn’t mentioned as being their address in the city directory until the 1936 edition, which would have data gathered from 1935. The 1935 edition listed 911 N 2nd St as their address. It seems that at some point in 1934, the Tweed family moved into this home, later purchasing it on May 1, 1935 for a stated $2700 (~$65,600 today). They purchased it from Michel H. Cady and Pauline M. Cady. No directories list this home as their address, and they aren’t mentioned at all in the papers. The only mention of them that I can find other than the papers from when they sold to the Tweeds, was when they purchased the lot from the Phoenix Country Club. There isn’t any mention of whether a house was on it or not.

It seems that either the Cadys or the Tweeds were the first people to call this place home. There isn’t much about the Cadys other than their names, but Charles Henry Tweed Jr is a well known man in the world of orthodontics. He was an early advocate for, and expert in orthodontics who developed many practices that were widely adopted by others. He was born in Phoenix on June 24, 1895 (Happy 131st birthday, Charles!), eventually leaving to study at the University of California School of Dentistry, graduating in 1919. He would move back to Arizona to practice dentistry, eventually coming back to Phoenix in the late 1920s to start up a practice. Originally he had an office in the Luhrs Building, but relocated to the 13th floor of the newly finished Luhrs Tower in December 1929 (both buildings are still standing and in use). He would keep this office into at least 1936 as he started to move his attention to working down in Tucson. Despite buying the home in 1935, he was renting it out to Mr and Mrs. Don S. Carpenter by 1936. On January 1 that year, the papers announced that the daughter of Mr and Mrs. Don S Carpenter was betrothed, and this was listed as their address. The next month they would host the wedding at the home. It’s not clear exactly how long they lived here, but by 1938, the Moore family was living here.

Albert Lee Moore had come to Tempe in 1905 at the age of 6 with his family, then moving to Phoenix in 1906. His father, Albert Lincoln Moore, started a mortuary that same year. Lee was a part of the first graduating class at Monroe in 1914, going on to graduate from Phoenix Union High School in 1918. He had tried to join the Army Air Corp that year, but the war ended not too long after he had applied. After graduating he went on to attend Stanford for two years, coming back to Phoenix to join his father’s mortuary in June 1920. That was the year that his father bought out his parter that he had started their long time location with in 1920, changing the name of the business to A. L. Moore and Sons. The previous year, his father had purchased the first motorized hearse in Arizona. In those early days they also had Phoenix’s first motorized ambulance. Lee described it as a panel truck body placed on a passenger car chassis. He kept up this streak of innovation in emergency services by offering one of the earliest air ambulances. In 1928/29 he learned how to fly, eventually partnering with the Arizona Air Service to establish the first air ambulance in Arizona. The announcement of the service was made on November 3, 1930, being offered immediately with their 215 horsepower Stinson cabin monoplane. Jack Thornburg, a pilot with more than 2,300 hours at that time and manager of the Arizona Air Service, would be the primary pilot for these flights.

Lee was heavily involved with developing the aviation infrastructure around Phoenix, helping clear the first runway at what is now Sky Harbor International Airport, and helped select the locations for both Williams Army Airfield (now Mesa Gateway) and Luke Army Airfield (now Luke Air Force Base). He spent the early years of the war flying submarine hunting missions, returning to Phoenix to be an instructor at Falcon Field for British pilots sent there for training during the later years of the war. After the war his interest in aviation didn’t wane one bit, but he took his mortuary work seriously. He was in charge after his father died in 1939 and his brother left in 1944. Even with him being the only Moore left at Moore and Sons for a while, Lee did well, continuing their air ambulance service and expanding the location they established at 329 W Adams St. In 1952, he brought his son, Albert Lee “Al” Moore Jr, into the business. Together they ran a nationally acclaimed business for over two decades. In the 1950s they upgraded their air ambulance to a twin engine Beechcraft. This service continued into at least May of 1973, but it likely didn’t last long past that. Lee would pass away on September 13, 1974 at the age of 74. He had been a for 54 years and racked up between 7000 and 9000 flight hours throughout his life. He had been very active in civic life in Phoenix, being a member of the Phoenix Rotary Club, El Zaribah Shrine, Moose Lodge, Woodmen of the World, Better Business Bureau, Masonic Lodge, Last Man’s Club, and Quiet Birdmen. Between 1937 and 1939, he was a member of the National Selected Morticians board of control. He left behind a lasting legacy with the care he showed in his work, leaving lasting memories for the families he helped through the loss of their loved one. His son eventually sold in either the 80s or 90s. Their 1909 office was closed in 1996 to make way for the Phoenix Municipal Court building, but they’re still open at a different location, wearing the name A. L. Moore.

The family kept the business a lot longer than they kept this home, having it on the market in less than a month. It was advertised as retaining all its original charm and being designed by the architect behind the Biltmore, priced in the mid 80k range. The previous year it had also appeared in the papers as an example of Albert C McArthur’s work when the Biltmore caught fire. Its famous architect certainly didn’t hurt its chances on the market, and ended up pretty quickly. The advertisements ended in late October, and an executors deed for November 14, 1974 shows the Al sold the home to James G Shackelford Jr and his wife, Helen M Shackelford for the declared amount of $41,250. (~$280,000 today). James was in the dentistry supply business, being part of a family that had been in the medical business in Phoenix for decades. As a child, he grew up in the historic Ellis-Shackelford House, with his father and grandfather being the namesakes of the home. Both men were doctors, with Shackelford’s father practicing dentistry out of an office on the property that later became the Phoenix Trolley Museum for a period. The city still owns that home. This home is still private though, remaining James Shackelford’s home until he passed on August 21, 2015 at the age of 89. Helen had passed a few years prior, so the house would go up for sale about a year after his passing. It was listed on May 16, 2016 for $698,000 (~$970,000 today). The listing photos revealed that the house retained a lot of the original fixtures, with most of the upgrades appearing to be from the 50s and 60s. About 4 months after listing, the home was sold for $675,000 to the person who still owns the home. They aren’t a public figure, so I won’t share any info about them.

Hopefully the home has retained its 1920s charm with the current owners. Its hard to check this property out as it is in a gated community, but thankfully the listing photos are still available from 2016, giving us a great look at one of these old Phoenix mansions that survived relatively untouched for around 90 years. It isn’t on any historic registry, and it hasn’t ever really seen much recognition outside of the mentions of the architect when it was listed in 74’ and 2016. Hopefully this home can stick around for decades to come, even if it remains a private home locked behind the country club gates.