The Warehouse Issue

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Go To: A Stretch of Pavement • Ages of Warehouses

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Ages of Warehouses

by Dave Devine

mesa bristling with mesquite, a race course for the swift-footed lizard,” was an apt description from 1880 of the vacant land where Tucson’s warehouse district is now located. Prior to the railroad’s arrival that year, it was untouched desert, distant a hot and dusty one-half mile walk from town.

But the “toot-toot” of steam engines soon brought change. Not only was a depot built to accommodate passengers and freight, but New York-based L. Zeckendorf & Co. quickly constructed a large building next door to warehouse railroad-delivered merchandise for the firm’s downtown department and furniture stores.

The area around the train station slowly began to develop as Tucson increased in population. By the first year of the twentieth century several businesses, including a fruit and produce warehouse, a cold storage company, a commercial grocer, and the imposing building of the Eagle Milling Company were located along Toole Avenue west of the station. On the north side of the tracks, J. Knox Corbett’s lumber yard was doing a booming trade, and in 1907 Albert Steinfeld would open an imposing warehouse on West 6th Street.

By about that same time, Tucson Transfer Company was hauling and storing both business freight and personal belongings from its location on East 6th Street. Nearby, some people had also begun to build homes, and in 1916 the 4th Avenue underpass was completed, allowing these residents to more easily get to the retail establishments on Congress Street.

In 1922 there were more than one hundred houses, described as “cheap adobe hovels,” north of the depot. Occupied primarily by blue collar Mexican-American working families such as the Ybarra’s, Romero’s, and Gutierrez’s, this small neighborhood west of 4th Avenue had its own array of Chinese groceries and other retail services.

They also had a bakery nearby which sold cream bread for 15 cents a loaf. George Stonecypher had opened a small operation near the northeast corner of 6th Avenue and 6th Street and over time it would expand tremendously, in 1938; 45 employees who turned out 15,000 loaves of bread daily. Two years later, the business was sold to Rainbo Baking Company, which then added a decorative tower to the structure’s facade.

Across the street, J.K. Van Harlingen ran an auto garage, and he would also finance a new building to accommodate a mattress manufacturer. It opened just as the stock market crashed in 1929, and the two-story brick structure had many tenants before becoming Reproduction’s Inc. over fifty years ago.

Despite the Depression, the need for warehouse expansion and new commercial establishments around the depot eventually spelled the end of the residential neighborhood north of the tracks. By the early 1930s, most of the homes had been demolished to make room for new businesses such as Unit Steam Laundry at the corner of 5th Avenue and 7th Street. On 6th Avenue, another subway beneath the tracks had been finished, and car dealers, including O’Rielly and Rollings Motor Companies, were selling new and used automobiles to an ever-increasing number of interested buyers.

Concurrently, Citizen Transfer and Storage Company began occupying a solid concrete building across 6th Street from the Steinfeld warehouse. Filiberto Baffert, along with his brother and A.S. Leon, had also built a commercial grocery warehouse on Stone Avenue at the railroad tracks. By 1935, another underpass would open next to this business, and quickly earn the dubious distinction of rapidly flooding during summer rainstorms.

The warehouse district continued to prosper through World War II even as local soldiers were being seen off by their loved ones at the train station. But by the 1950s, Tucson’s exploding growth and sprawling character resulted in some of the buildings becoming obsolete. Numerous businesses deserted the area, and eventually several of the warehouses were abandoned, increasing the chance for vandalism and arson.

During the 1970s the City of Tucson prepared a plan calling for the demolition of many of the old buildings, and in 1982 the State of Arizona proposed running the Aviation Parkway through the heart of the district, requiring mass destruction. Before that happened, though, the State began purchasing the warehouses and renting them out to artists on short term, inexpensive leases.

By the end of the decade, after a loud public outcry, planning for the parkway’s last mile was turned over to the City, which changed the concept for the roadway. A consultant also recommended the warehouses be saved to serve as permanent artist live/work space.

A few years later, under the leadership of Sarah Clements and Mary Ellen Wooten of the Tucson Arts District Partnership, focus was placed on improving the warehouse district. A successful nomination to list it on the National Register of Historic Places was prepared, and a small business loan program organized to encourage building rehabilitation. As a result, today over one hundred artist studios and several galleries call the area home, and because of renewed interest by the City of Tucson in assisting them, artists are looking forward to a bright future in downtown’s historic warehouse district.