The Post opens up in downtown Mesa

 

Yes - There's a lot of history in that place! 

Citizens voiced support for a downtown heritage museum leading up to the 2012 parks-bond election and again at the polls that year.

Some elected officials, though, have worried the museum’s new model might not be viable.

TAKE A LOOK 

26 January 2020

Homesteading in What Is Now Downtown Mesa

Did you Know? There is a marker
It's cast in bronze mounted on stone on N Robson Street.
Homesteading by a black man in the early 20th Century, but nothing remains to be seen of the house today where The Old Post used to be housed in The Federal Building.
There were plans - see an insert farther down - to adapt the building into a Downtown Mesa History Museum. Instead, the Mesa History Museum got re-located to an area named Lehi, a Mormon prophet, that got incorporated into the City of Mesa in the 1980's. Mesa was a segregated city - and in some respects still is, now in high-priced gated enclaves.
It's a subject people still don't want to talk about these days. Many wish it could just be forgotten.

"No one likes to admit his or her city supported segregation.

But from when they were first settled through the first half of the 20th century, virtually every Valley community supported the practice of segregation.

Native Americans and Mexicans who were the first here, along with Chinese and Blacks were all subjects of discrimination. While their labor was necessary to build the Valley and work in residents' homes, they were nonetheless regulated to living in enclaves set apart from the Anglos. . . Mesa was no different. . ."

--- taken from When Mesa was a Segregated City/Jay Mark 11 june 2015

 

Former Buffalo Solider Alexander McPherson, his wife, Clara, and four children are considered Mesa's first Black family. They moved here about 1905.Generations of their descendants are buried in The City of Mesa Cemetery
Names and records of persons buried in Mesa Cemetery: http://www.interment.net/data

MCPHERSON, Alexander, Age: 63 Yrs., Date: 7-19-1916, Location: 0118-2-5, Mortuary: Burton, No marker

MCPHERSON, Clarence, Age: 83 Yrs., Date: 5-2-1979, Location: 0733-4-2, Mortuary: Gibbons

MCPHERSON, Clarence E., Date: 5-12-1972, Location: 0856-4-1, Mortuary: Melcher

MCPHERSON, Fannie L., Date: 2-12-1955, Location: 0509-3-2, Mortuary: A.L. Moore & Son

MCPHERSON, Gordon William, Age: 88 Yrs., Date: 9-26-2001, Location: 1273-3-3, Mortuary: Arizona Aftercare, No marker

MCPHERSON, Isaac Samuel, Date: 9-17-1949, Location: 0509-3-1, Mortuary: A.L. Moore

MCPHERSON, June, Date: 11-20-1927, Location: 0304-2-2, Mortuary: Burton, No marker

MCPHERSON, Myrtle R., Age: 83 Yrs., Date: 8-18-1993, Location: 0856-4-2, Mortuary: Melcher Chapel of Roses

MCPHERSON, Reland V., Age: 67 Yrs., Date: 4-23-1977, Location: 0925-2-4, Mortuary: Meldrum, No marker

________________________________________________________________________

HERE'S A POST FROM 3 YEARS AGO:

07 January 2017

Questions Remain About $5Million Investment from 2012 Taxpayer-Approved Parks Bond Debt Issue

Food-for-Thought for New Year 2017:

Are we really seeing any of the so-called "downtown revitalization" that's the rallying cry for the success of the administration of John Giles and his Director of Downtown Transformation Jeff McVay?
A massive top-down mega-million-dollar proposal to radically transform The New Urban Downtown Mesa into a satellite ASU campus that devoured downtown Tempe - featured as the key cornerstone of Giles' plan for NextMesa - blew up big time, rejected by taxpayers

It might be useful looking back in the rear-view mirror at what and how some monies from a 2012 taxpayer-approved Parks bond obligation debt issue got allocated, as well as seeing how one stalled project is getting along, or not, after getting a big focus back in March 2016.
Officials are saying one thing, while Arizona Republic reporter Maria Poletta covers a mixed-bag of interests.

Mesa Historical Museum Makeover:
Will $5M investment pay off?
Maria Polletta , The Republic
azcentral.com 11:13 a.m. MT March 28, 2016
"After nearly a decade of talks, plans to wholly reinvent the Mesa Historical Museum’s mission and image are finally taking off.
Demolition and other prep work is complete at what will be the museum’s new home — the former federal building at 26 N. Macdonald — and extensive renovations are expected to begin this summer. . . ."
Did that happen?
The article continues:
It’s the first step in a sweeping transformation officials say will leave the 50-year-old museum nearly unrecognizable. The institution’s focus, collections and even its name will likely have changed by the time it moves into the new facility, sometime in the next three years.
Although some City Council members have doubted whether the $5 million investment will pay off, given downward trends in museum attendance, voters’ support and museum officials’ persistence have convinced them to give the project a shot.

“As a Mesa native, it's of personal interest to me that a city of our size have a place where we preserve and present our history, both to those of us who have been here a long time and those who are new,” said Brian Allen, a member of the museum board.
“As we all drive by the federal building every day and think of what it could be, we are ready to deliver a world-class museum, a world-class facility … and create a new attraction.” 

For decades, the non-profit history museum operated out of Mesa’s 103-year-old Lehi School, on a historically significant but out-of-the-way corner. Its rarely rotating exhibits, peppered with old pictures and artifacts from the city’s pioneer families, gave first-time patrons little reason to return.

Much has changed since then, as Mesa’s population has become more diverse, regional-minded and tech-driven. The new museum wants to be all of those things, too.

“Our goal is to be a new and different organization, vibrant and vital to the life of the community we serve,” officials said in a conceptual plan submitted to the city.

The bond-funded move to the federal building will push the museum into the heart of a budding arts-and-cultural district downtown, within walking distance of the light rail, galleries and other museums.

“The overall objective of this project is accessibility for the community,” museum director Lisa Anderson said. “That's the endgame.” . . . Regional accessibility also is important, Anderson said. 

 

A viable plan?

Citizens voiced support for a downtown heritage museum leading up to the 2012 parks-bond election and again at the polls that year.

Some elected officials, though, have worried the museum’s new model might not be viable.

History museums aren’t meant to be money-makers. But given Mesa's burgeoning downtown renaissance, and the limited number of properties Mesa owns in the city’s core** [see footnote by blogger below], much is riding on the museum meeting attendance projections.

“I think we're all confident in our design and our ability to revitalize a really important part of downtown.” Mesa Historical Museum Director Lisa Anderson

 

01 May 2018

New Break-Through In The Rise of Mesa's Innovation District: They're Back!

Ever since the box-office big screen success of "Jurassic Park" that seems like eons of time ago, it turns out that those oversized predators who ruled The Planet ages ago are more than a short-lived phenomenon after extinction. Here in The Old Donut-Hole today re-inventing itself as an "Innovation District" there's  at least one gigantic creature busting through the walls of one local landmark that's morphed from the site of the original City Hall on Macdonald Street into the Arizona Museum of Natural History.
Some real bones and skeletons of these prehistoric creatures are on display inside the halls - but this man-made replica busting through the walls on Pepper Place will get unveiled today.
Distinguished guests include the mayor and city manager.
(Image was captured yesterday before the fabricated creature got a cover)