In 1887, Francis Quarles Story, a Boston wool merchant whose ill health had taken him to California a decade before, purchased the acreage that is today the F.Q. Story Historic District. He had settled in Los Angeles County, studied the cultivation of citrus, planted orange groves, and is credited with founding the national advertising campaign that made the Sunkist Orange famous. Active in many educational and conservation endeavors, F.Q. Story was a director and president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and a tireless booster of commercial and industrial enterprises in California and Arizona. Story and other prominent southern California landowners expanded into the Salt River Valley of Arizona in the late 1880s, investing in land and promoting both agricultural and townsite development. Although he never lived in Phoenix, Story was involved in numerous projects, such as the design and construction of the 100-footwide Grand Avenue thoroughfare in 1887 and the subsequent building of its streetcar line. In the early 1900s, Story was influential in the founding of the Grand Avenue and University Additions, but their development was disappointing. In spite of having announced in 1910 plans to subdivide the 200-acre parcel which would become the Story neighborhood, he sold the entire parcel to the Phoenix firm of Jordan, Grace and Phelps in 1919.

Promotion

1920, when development of what is now the F.Q. Story Historic District began, Phoenix had a population of 29,000, almost six times what it had been at the turn of-the-century. Grand Avenue had been built to link central Phoenix with the thriving agricultural communities of Glendale and Peoria.

Like the nearby Roosevelt neighborhood, Story was advertised as a streetcar suburb, being close to the Grand Avenue and Kenilworth carlines. As in other developments oriented to the streetcar, Story was laid out with narrow, deep lots. The initial houses were clustered by the streetcar line at the eastern edge of the neighborhood. By the middle of the decade, as the automobile became more common, houses located further west began to incorporate detached garages and side yard porte cocheres appeared. Their presence reflects the growing impact of the automobile on architecture and suburban American life by the mid-1920s.

When subdivision of the F.Q. Story Addition began, it was described in the advertisements in the Arizona [Gazette] in March of 1920 as "The Real Estate Event of the Season!" and "The Place, the Thing, and the Time you have been waiting for." Advertising boasted that the developers "expected to sell this entire tract within thirty days." In spite of the hype, only one house was built in all of 1921. This was due to the fact that the area lay directly in the floodway of Cave Creek, which in 1921, inundated the entire western end of the city and put two feet of muddy water on the first floor of the state capitol just a mile to the south. No lives were lost, but property damages were severe and estimated to have exceeded the million-dollar mark.

Residential Development

After Cave Creek Dam was completed in 1923, thirteen more homes were built, and in January of 1924, the original Story Addition was reopened by the Dwight B. Heard Investment Company. The newly formed partnership of Lane-Smith opened North Story, and by 1926, a total of 113 homes had been built on streets from Roosevelt and McDowell between 7th and 9th Avenues. Both sections had a requirement that buildings cost a minimum of $5000. The subdivision also had gas and electrical service. Kenilworth School had opened in 1920, and in 1926, Franklin School was built on McDowell at 17th Avenue.

Development Accelerates

The last development phase of the Story Addition began in 1927 when "New Story" opened, covering the eighty acres from 11th to 15th Avenues, between McDowell Road and Roosevelt Street. At $3000 to $4000, building restrictions were slightly lower here and duplexes were permitted in certain sections. In July 1927, the developers, Lane-Smith Investment Company, encouraged sales by having A.F. Wasielewsky Construction Company construct a "model home" at 1106 West Lynwood, a novel idea for the period. By September, forty more homes had been built. At the same time, the remaining westerly portion of F.Q. Story's land was opened as "West Story" by developers Cowly, Higgins and Delph Company. It was also known as Franklin Addition, named for the new primary school nearby. Building restrictions were more modest still, just $2500 and $2200, which allowed working families to build in the area. Development hit its peak in 1930 with the construction of 133 new houses, only to falter as the effects of the Depression hit Phoenix. Construction declined but by 1938, approximately seventy-five percent of the F.Q. Story Addition had been developed.

A Story Tale

Francis Quarles Story

Promotion

Residential Development

Development Accelerates

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