But when a site is nurtured, like Cliftons, or commemorated, like the Threatt Filling Station, it can be an important connection to the past. Birding and Wildlife in Duncan and Greenlee County, Arizona Sundown Towns are all-white communities, neighborhoods, or counties that exclude Blacks and other minorities through the use of discriminatory laws, harassment, and threats or use of violence. Duncan is a small farming town 5 miles west of the New Mexico border on Hwy 70 (Old West Highway). His Green Book featured barbershops, beauty salons, tailors, department stores, taverns, gas stations, garages, and even real-estate offices that were willing to serve black people. Long-held jealousies over black prosperity and Greenwoods wealth ignited a riot. The spot where Michel Brown bled out in the street for four hours in Ferguson, Missouri, is just a couple of miles from the original Route 66. As stated earlier, a sundown town (also known as a gray town) is an area in the U.S. where Black people are essentially forced out of the public once the sun goes down. James W. Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (New York: The New Press, 2005); Candacy Taylor, The Roots of Route 66, The Atlantic, November 3, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/the-roots-of-route-66/506255/; Sundown Towns, Encyclopedia of Arkansas, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/sundown-towns-3658/. The Duncan area along the Gila River is renowned for Native American artifacts such as arrow heads, pottery, burial sites, cave paintings and other remnants of the Anasazi and other pre-historic cultures, as well as artifacts from garrison camps of the expedition of Francisco Vzquez de Coronado. Its now possibly the largest and most unusual cafeteria in the worldwith five floors of history and taxidermy and a giant fake redwood tree rising up through the center. Soon Duncan was shipping far beyond the Southwest, to markets north and east. At that time, the town was located on the north bank of the Gila. Required fields are marked *. Almost every level acre is under cultivation, thickets of cottonwood trees shelter old farmhouses and ranches, and cattle and horses seem to outnumber people. Its all still true. Sundown towns in Illinois: Where they were, what they are For black Americans who hit the road with a copy of the Green Book, a guide expressly created to keep them safe in a wildly perilous landscape, they surely already understood that the hopeful Mark Twain quote gracing almost every Green Book coverTravel is fatal to prejudicewas purely aspirational. Background: The Gila River Relocation Center was located about 50 miles south of Phoenix and 9 miles west of Sacaton in Pinal County, Arizona. After 16 hours, at least 300 people had died, 35 blocks of the Greenwood District had burned to the ground, and more than 10,000 black residents had been left homeless. That said, there are places like Vidor Texas that still are, if unofficially. Those of Duncans 800 residents out today could not be any friendlier. Principal Economic Activities Out of the eight states that ran through Route 66 (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California), six had official segregation laws as far west as Arizonaand all had unofficial rules about race. Reynolds Farley is a research scientist at the Population Studies Center, the Dudley Duncan . Peoples of the Upper Gila River from Pre-History to the Present. The Simpson Hotel has a wooden toy pony in a first-floor window. Although it is difficult to make an accurate count, historians estimate there were up to 10,000 sundown towns in the United States between 1890 and 1960, mostly in the Mid-West and West. What makes Route 66 different is that the open-road branding associated with it celebrated a time when black Americans had to navigate racial violence and the Jim Crow policies that shut them out of businesses and recreational sites. Half is a store with peachy-rose walls and wood floors full of integrity. Americas favorite highway usually evokes kitschy nostalgia. A full list of Sundown Towns in the United States - Reddit The railway line was called the Arizona and New Mexico Railroad, and it passed through Purdy. Route 66 epitomized Americanafor white people. Is it colder to sleep in a car or a tent? Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. The most snowfall ever in Duncan was 15.0 inches or 0.38 metres during the record Western cold wave of January 1949. In Safford, the summers are sweltering and partly cloudy and the winters are cold, dry, and mostly clear. During a typical year 131.6 nights will fall below 32F (0C), but only 7.8 days fail to top 50F (10C), and there are only seven occurrences of nights falling to 0F (17.8C) or lower, notably on December 24, 1953, and January 11, 1962, when the record low of 2F (18.9C) was set. As we head back up the street on the other side, a thick berm of trees with cropland stretching away evokes the idea that children in T-shirts will play actual outside games when school ends for the day. If you were black and didnt have this information, how would you know where to go? Black veterans were once blocked from taking advantage of the GI Bill, missing out on valuable educational resources. Duncan was officially founded in 1883 and became a shipping point for markets in the middle west and east. Acreage is also planted to kenaf, an alternative fiber for making paper, and vernonia, an oilseed. Down the street is the Ranch House Restaurant I remember, although the only particleboard walls Ive ever seen have now been painted a rust color. Duncan Opera House - built in 1920 and located in 218 Hill Street. Flagstaff, Route 66 and the Green Book - Discover Flagstaff Black motorists of course also had to avoid sundown towns such as Edmond, Oklahoma. The society's vision statement is the following: "PRIDE is committed to work with our town government, community leaders and all area residents to preserve and enhance our town's overall image and historic value". Lying five miles from the New Mexico border, in the deep southeastern corner of Greenlee County, Duncan seems a world away from the wild mountains surrounding it. In 1913, Duncan was described by a map book as a place where almost every level acre is under cultivation, thickets of cottonwood trees shelter old farmhouses and ranches, and cattle and horses seem to outnumber people. Its all still true. Many families live in Safford and residents tend to lean conservative. Now, the city has an $8.2 million plan to convert the property into a condo-hotel hybrid with shops and restaurants. Segregation was in full force throughout the country. Sadly, today theres no physical evidence that Murrays Dude Ranch ever existed. (There were Green Book businesses in other parts of Chicagobut not on the Road of Dreams.) Some faced actual instances of violence or were arrested by local police, according to Farley. Of course, the Civil Rights Act did not fix racism, and discrimination persisted. The Gila River, near Duncan, which is east of Safford along the Arizona-New Mexico border, reached a major flood stage Monday morning. Businesses that served Black customers or hired Black employees would be boycotted by the white townspeople, ensuring that Blacks had few, if any, job opportunities in those communities. California cities grapple with racist history of sundown towns Duncan belongs to the Gila, the storied river of the west, the ageless natural highway whose passage through the mountain and desert southwest has served humankind since prehistoric times. Arizona Flooding Sparks 'Mass Evacuation' of Duncan - Newsweek [14] Also pictured is the antique town clock located in Spezia Square Park and the 1950 Chevrolet 6400 2-ton fire truck once used in Duncan. A quick history for those of you who may not knowhere in Minden, Nevada, this was known as a 'sundowner' town. Sundown towns once drove out people of color or prohibited them from living within city limits. Sundown Towns. "A travel advisory has been issued to warn that any Black people in or traveling to San Antonio use increased caution when visiting the city due to the city's policing policies that put . Ed Gordon discusses the historical significance of so-called "sundown towns," some of which are now promoting inclusiveness. There Are Still 137 Sundown Towns Across 21 States - Democratic Underground Duncan is a town in Greenlee County, Arizona, United States. Someone from Petticoat Junction could walk in at any moment. One Green Book business that did survive over the decades is Cliftons, a quirky Depression-era cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles at the corner of 7th Street and South Broadwaythe original terminus of Route 66. Today, politicians and television anchors speak of terrorism as though it is a new phenomenon to the United States. The Day family ran the ranch for many years until selling it; it continues to be run as a ranch. Eventually the Apaches, who were hunters, gatherers, and raiders, would become the dominant native-American force.