Interview with Grady Gammage - Central Arizona Project

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A. He was told he had tuberculosis and he grew up in Arkansas. He was graduating from high school in Prescott, Arkansas. He was a very good student and was not well off, relatively modest circumstances, had been raised by an older sister because his parents had died and was told he had tuberculosis and had to get to a drier climate. So this would have been something like 1913, I came late in his life. He wrote to Governor George W. P. Hunt, who’s buried in the little tomb, the pyramid, inquiring as to whether or not there was a university in Arizona that he could come out and attend. Governor Hunt personally wrote him back and said that yes there was. It was in Tucson and if he was admitted he should come on out. So he borrowed money from the richest man in Prescott, Arkansas. Rode the train to Tucson. Enrolled at the U of A. Graduated from the U of A and was chosen to be the first Rhodes Scholar from Arizona. Turned it down to go back to Arkansas and marry his high school English teacher—a woman named Dixie Deese—and brought her back to Arizona and made his life in Arizona after that. He became a, he took a job as a spokesman for the temperance movement in Arizona, because he was a debater. Then he worked in Winslow as a school teacher, became principal of the high school, became superintendent of the high school. Moved to Flagstaff and took over what was then Arizona Teachers College at Flagstaff and was president there and actually ran that institution and Tempe both for a year. Then he moved to Tempe and took over Tempe. My mother was his second wife who had been a Dean in Flagstaff after my father was there. She came out from Ohio in the late 1940’s. Interview with Grady Gammage Page 2 of 91
Q. Your father married his high school English teacher We’re hearing more and more about those sorts of relationships today. A. Well, yeah. I don’t know anything more about it than that. Q. Was she older than him obviously A. She was older than him, not by a whole lot, I don’t believe. I honestly never knew she existed until I came home one day from school. I went to school on the Arizona State University Campus and lived there. When my father was alive we lived in the middle of campus. I came home one day after my father’s death and said to my mom, “Why is there this building named Dixie Gammage Hall Who’s that” And she said, “Oh, I guess I should tell you that story.” So she told me that story. Q. So how old was your father when you were born A. Fifty-nine. Q. So you didn’t get to know him too much A. No, he was, when he died I was only eight years old. So, it hard for me to separate out what I’ve been told from what I actually remember. I wrote an introduction to a biography that’s been written of him about sort of my memories as a little kid, of being around him. Interview with Grady Gammage Page 3 of 91
Page 1: Interview with Grady Gammage CAP Or
Page 5 and 6: A. Yes, I liked it. It worked reall
Page 7 and 8: frustrated her that I didn’t real
Page 9 and 10: Q. Did you go to downtown Phoenix m
Page 11 and 12: when you have a State agency that d
Page 13 and 14: would clear off, you’d sort of co
Page 15 and 16: to work and so I thought I probably
Page 17 and 18: Q. Prior to that they couldn’t se
Page 19 and 20: like the substance. I liked explain
Page 21 and 22: the CAP Board by the City of Phoeni
Page 23 and 24: Q. It’s kind of interesting that
Page 25 and 26: this bizarre…and the other thing
Page 27 and 28: wanted to get. Until the cities gre
Page 29 and 30: you could grow cotton. You could ma
Page 31 and 32: You are the presiding officer of th
Page 33 and 34: A. Well, you know the immediate thi
Page 35 and 36: that has driven civilization to exi
Page 37 and 38: dealt with it are afraid to reopen
Page 39 and 40: seepage. But we have all this extra
Page 41 and 42: it’s a bank. You don’t know whe
Page 43 and 44: this water has been banked, not thr
Page 46 and 47: the notice of completion. The notic
Page 48 and 49: to be our big customers couldn’t
Page 50 and 51: that. That we needed to get some le
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the most important constituent grou
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Q. It’s ironic that Bruce Babbitt
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thing but it was different because
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Q. We do have water in the Phoenix
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complex commodities for our legal s
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AMA which was designed to be deplet
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end. Well, that worked great for a
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ationing water in Phoenix. I said,
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water that could be used for agricu
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Q. It’s not a current position A.
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A. Yeah. I think it was as much as
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our side. In the war of western wat
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A. It’s interesting. I was in Las
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Q. Talking about Nevada again, ther
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A. Yeah. Then there’s the Columbi
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not sure that’s right. I think it
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There’s really two. There’s “
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enough to it to hear about things.
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Q. Well people might be ready for H
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Q. Do you think the new members of
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Interview with Grady Gammage - Central Arizona Project

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