Tucson Citizen, AZ
Aug 24 2007
Smith: My God! Eloy really poised to grow
JEFF SMITH
Eighty years ago, the late Larry Cheek (perhaps a better word would
be "tardy") wrote a piece in the Tucson Citizen about Eloy in which
he answered a question that had bugged many of us but which our sloth
had dissuaded anyone from researching:
What does Eloy mean?
Cheek said it came from the Armenian explorers who first stumbled
onto the place. Their reaction, as they surveyed the half-vast
expanse of expansiveness, was a muttered, "Eloy," which Cheek said
meant, in their tongue, "My God."
The queen of Eloy, along with the rest of the literate citizens of
the place, wrote a letter to the editor to convey the consensus that,
"We are not amused."
They should have been; it was probably Cheek’s best line, and it was
meant in jest. Whatever.
I took a drive through Eloy a couple of days ago, south to north and
back again, and look who’s got the last laugh now: To the
sophisticated eye of the professional (who’s been reading the clips),
Eloy has the look of a town about to boom.
Indeed, all of Pinal County is fast-tracking its way to fulfilling
the prediction that all the way from Cave Creek to Nogales would be
one megalopolis by 1960-something. Yuk yuk.
A few days and countless millions of dollars short, but better than
never to the greedy eye of the developer, Phoenix is the
fifth-largest city in the country and growing its way toward Tucson,
which in turn is growing its way toward Marana. I never drive through
Marana without misting up thinking of my Dad, who made his living in
Marana and places like it.
Places such as Marana, when Dad was alive – pre-1978 – were like Eloy
when the Armenians happened upon it. Desert. Interrupted by cotton
fields.
Marana was a cotton gin, a welding shop, a couple of lunch counters
and Dale Gladden’s farmhouse. No town hall, no Gracie Mansion
equivalency.
Marana was a place like the Avra Valley was a place. A place to do
the business of agriculture. After Gladden there were the Wongs, the
Kais, the Anways and that was enough to form a quorum for any kind of
argument you could promote.
Now Marana is a big city, if you think square mileagely. Like Casa
Grande: Wait two weeks between your trips up I-10 to Phoenix, and you
will find yourself uttering an involuntary, "Holy cow!"
Dad would pass out cold.
Dillard’s, right next to the highway in Casa Grande? And that means
even tonier stores have the quieter locations in this humongous
shopping mall.
Well, Dad, the prediction is finally right. The thing about it that
knocks me out is how, if you build it – even if you build it in the
sphincter of planet Earth – they actually will come.
I never thought they would come to Eloy. Dad never thought they would
come to Eloy. But then, Dad didn’t live to see Rancho Mirage.
Rancho Mirage, east of Palm Springs, Calif., recently held title as
the richest city in America. And it borders Indio, one of the
ugliest, nastiest places, which did not grow to cover the land where
Rancho Mirage now sits because at the time Indio thought that land
wasn’t up to Indio standards.
It has Santa Ana winds that make the native shrubs grow sideways. The
winds are too strong for anything native to grow to tree height. It
has electric high-voltage towers and wires running everywhere. It has
those electricity-generating propellers. It runs 125 in the shade
every summer.
But it also has subdivisions with identical $10 million tract houses,
so the rich folks from the rust belt flock there like lemmings to the
sea.
See?
Eloy is not the next, but it’s the next after the next after
eventually the Next Big Thing.
My God.
Columnist Jeff Smith would be willing to go halvesies with somebody
on a 40-acre piece of ground just 79 miles from the heart of downtown
Eloy. He may be reached at (520) 455-5667 or [email protected].
http://www.tucsoncitizen.c om/daily/opinion/61004.php