Papago Park

Parks & Recreation, Jan, 2001 by Kathryn Reichert

Surrounded by three major municipality's sits one of the jewels of the Valley of the Sun: Papago Park. Operating under the Phoenix Parks, Recreation, and Library Department, Papago was the home of a National Day of Service Event during the 2000 NRPA Congress and an off-site tour of the park was available for those willing to take a look, enjoy the warm weather, and stroll the grounds of our state treasure. The history of the park is as interesting as its features, telling a story of state and national events within the desert terrain.

In 1914, Papago was originally designated as the Papago Sahuaro National Monument by the Federal government and covered over 2,000 acres. Only lasting until 1930, it was abolished as a National Monument and turned over to the state of Arizona. In the 1930's the CCC had several camps at Papago and provided willing workers an opportunity to build a boathouse, docks, canals, roads, trails, shelters, picnic amenities, and fishing ponds. One of their highlights is the 3,500-seat amphitheater, which was used heavily for Easter services and other public gatherings.

An interesting feature located on a hill in the middle of Papago Park is Hunt's Tomb, built in 1932. It is a white pyramid that houses the bodies of the first Governor of Arizona and several of his family members. In 1932 the Arizona Game and Fish Department requested a hatchery and a year later it was constructed for the purpose of propagating fish to be used for restocking lakes and streams. By 1936 it released 175,000 bass and an equal amount of annual perch.

In the 1940's the park was used as a prisoner of war camp during World War II, housing over 4,000 German prisoners. The prisoners decided to build a faustball (volleyball court), which soon became the hiding place for dirt that was being excavated from an escape tunnel. Some of the prisoners got a hold of a map that showed many of the rivers in the state which led them to believe they could build a boat and use these rivers as an escape route. However, the fact that most of the rivers were dry and only flowed after heavy rains was a major problem for the POW's. Although 18 prisoners actually escaped the confines of the camp, they were all returned within one month. The 364th Infantry that was stationed at Papago Park rioted in 1942 due to poor living conditions and racial problems, which caused two deaths and 12 injuries. In 1946 the POW camp was turned into a veterans hospital. In 1959 the City of Phoenix bought the property for $3.00 per acre and decided to turn it into a City Park. It has remained a City Park to this day.

Papago is a very unique park. There are approximately 1100 acres with quite a variety of amenities. Included in the park is an 18-hole golf course, which is one of the top 100 municipal courses in the country. The Desert Botanical Garden leases approximately 124 acres for one of the top visitor attractions in the valley. The Phoenix Zoo leases about 120 acres and receives over one million visitors per year. It is also one of the few privately owned non-profit zoos in the country. The Phoenix Municipal Stadium is also on Papago land and is the home of the Oakland A's for Spring Training. There is also a four field softball complex on the park. Our neighbors include the City of Scottsdale, City of Tempe, and the Arizona National Guard.

Maintenance

Staff at the park includes a park manager, a Parks Foreman I, three groundskeepers, one Park Ranger III, and eight Park Rangers II. This is the total of staff that maintains and takes care of the day to day operations at Papago Park.

The facilities that are actually part of the park and are maintained by staff include an orienteering course, archery range, three fishing lagoons, amphitheater, bike paths, trails, picnic shelters, and lookout features.

Some of the general daily maintenance includes cleaning picnic ramadas, restrooms, Zoo parking lot, picnic tables, trash cans, graffiti, vandalism, trimming trees and shrubs, minor irrigation repairs, and clearing park roadways and paths.

Bike Path & Roadways

Maintenance on the bike path is conducted on a daily and weekly basis and includes sweeping, trimming back trees, and checking for obstacles. weekly checklists are filled out to make sure there are no major problems with the bike path. The City of Phoenix has just settled a lawsuit with a bike rider who was injured when a low hanging branch knocked him off of his bike. There are some issues with the bike path because it has an area where water collects when it rains, as we always have a need to close this area and put up a barricade. It will take some major construction to re-align the path, but it is evident that we need to do so in order to make it more accessible for all types of riders during all types of weather conditions.

Three very high traffic roadways border the park and a chief responsibility is trimming along these major roadways. Since there is a lot of vegetation in the park and on its boundaries, we find ourselves continually trimming vegetation. Due to the traffic on these roads, we have to work with the Streets Department to close a lane of traffic to make room for our staff and our equipment. This process sometimes takes a week to complete and usually happens two or three times a year. Along with the trimming comes the day to day trash pick as well.