(upbeat music) - For over the past 60 years, Arizona PBS has told incredible stories of Arizona's distinctive people, beautiful landscapes and treasured history.

Now relive those memories we've pulled from The Vault.

Hello, I'm Alberto Rios.

Go back with us to a time when Phoenix was a small town, theaters were palaces and kids swam in tree-lined canals, reflecting an era in Arizona's history.

From The Vault presents Arizona Memories.

(gentle piano music) - [Pat] In the first half of this century, as we grew up, so did a city in central Arizona.

It's hard to believe Phoenix was once a small town of 40,000 people.

Everything you needed was right downtown.

Nearly everywhere else was farmland or desert.

We didn't have air conditioning, but we learned to stay cool and every day was an opportunity for fun, dancing to the big bands on Saturday night, holding hands in a theater that seemed like a palace, believing in heroes, and sharing dreams of becoming a star.

These are the good times we love to remember.

And no matter where you grew up, chances are you remember them too.

Yes, a lot has changed over the years, but not our Arizona Memories.

(gentle piano music) - [Announcer] From the internationally famous Riverside Park Ballroom in Phoenix, Arizona, we present one of the nation's great Western swing dance bands, Bob Fite and the Western Playboys.

(upbeat swing dance music) - [Pat] Saturday night at Riverside Ballroom was always packed.

- They had a marvelous dance floor, they had a great band all the time playing and we were a dancing era.

That was a big part of our life, was dancing.

(upbeat jazz music) - [Pat] There was always a band playing at Phoenix's fanciest restaurants and finest hotels, but Phoenix's all-time favorite dance hall had to have been Riverside Ballroom.

Local favorites also played at Riverside.

The Western Playboys became regulars in 1940 when Bob Fite and his brother bought the place.

- We'd get through that number and the people would then, they would clear the dance floor and go to the tables and sit down and then we'd start another tune up and they'd all come back again.

That goes on and on and on and on.

(upbeat piano music) - [Pat] To get to the ballroom, you went south on central avenue, out past the edge of town, almost to the Salt River.

Riverside's open-air dance pavilion was built around 1914.

After a flood washed it away, a round wooden ballroom was built in its place.

There wasn't any air conditioning back then, but if the dance floor got a little too steamy, the sides of the place could open to keep the place cool.

- It had the flaps on the side that you could let up and down, up and out down, and you would go outside and sit on the grass and laugh and talk, or they had this big pool in the middle of Riverside.

That's where you meet your boyfriend.

I said, baby, look for me right here, I'll be standing right here by this big pool.

- [Pat] There was something for everyone at Riverside Ballroom.

Thursday nights were devoted to Phoenix's Black community and some of the nation's finest entertainers like Fats Domino, Count Basie and Duke Ellington performed there.

(upbeat jazz music) On Fridays, it was collegiate night.

The bar served soft drinks and the place was overrun with kids from high schools and junior college.

But Saturday at Riverside was a slightly different story.

- Saturday night was kind of a night that you stayed away.

That was kind of a, well, I remember the Russians from Glendale used to come there on a Saturday night and they would fight with the local boys and it used to be Saturday night was fight night, Friday night was collegiate night.

(laughs) - [Pat] More often than not, fights at Riverside were over a girl, but they always came to a speedy conclusion when police took the would-be boxers to a makeshift ring behind the ballroom.

- They'd take these old boys.

They says, okay, strip your pockets and the cops would do this themselves and they'd take 'em in there and strip the pocket.

If they had a pocket knife or anything, they'd take it away from 'em, see, put 'em in there, said now, now, see which one's the best man.

They went, now they hit three, four licks, you know, one of them maybe bloody the other one's nose, you know.

He jump up, he says, man, he said, you're a better man than I am, said, let's go have a beer.

(laughs) (upbeat Latin music) - [Pat] On Sundays, the place came alive with a distinctive sound of Latin music.

- The Mexican people, the Hispanics, it was their night.

They had a place to go and they went there every Sunday.

It was like a big family, like everybody knew everybody else and it was just mucho gusto to be there.

- [Pat] Local promoter, Carlos Morales, brought some of the world's most famous Latin bands to Riverside, but the usual favorite on Sunday nights was Pete Bugarin and his orchestra.

(upbeat Latin music) - Going to play there, it was a delight because there's so many people coming in, it would be packed, you know.

You know, it would take 2,000 people or more.

That's a lot of people that went in there and danced and you could just see them, you know, dancing, laughing, you know, and the girls and the young people and the older people, everybody having a good time.

- [Pat] The festive atmosphere led to many lasting romances.

(gentle romantic music) - [Pete] A lot of people have come to me and said, I proposed to my wife at the Riverside and we played on the average of two, three, four weddings every week and these were the people that went to the Riverside.

So I don't know why, you know, but they went there, they met and they got married.

- [Pat] The honeymoon ended early one morning in 1957 when Bob Fite got a disturbing call.

- Man, the phone rang and the Sheriff's office called me.

He said, Riverside's on fire.

And that was it.

Time I got there, I guess there was a couple of thousand people out there and it was some sight.

(somber music) - [Pat] The ballroom was a total loss, but within a year, the Fites opened a smaller, more modern dance hall on the same site.

And while Riverside lived on well into the 80s, presenting every kind of music, we remember the big band sound and a full dance floor on a hot Saturday night.

(upbeat jazz music) (water splashing) In addition to the ballroom, Riverside Park had the city's largest fresh water pool.

It was a desert oasis where families escaped the blistering heat and teenagers worked on their tans.

It was extremely popular for a variety of reasons.

It had the coldest water you could ever imagine, it was breathtaking, and it was a huge swimming pool, beautiful picnic area all around it.

- [Pat] Of course, there were other ways to beat the heat on a scorching summer day in Phoenix.

Before the 1950s, air conditioning was a rare luxury and hardly anyone had a backyard pool.

So kids turned to ice cream cones, the garden hose, or a dip in the local canal.

Oh, well, that was our own, we thought it was our own private pool.

- We'd have no fear of the canals.

That's where we had our recreation.

We had to be very careful because there was always dead cows and stuff floating down it but we'd use any kind of water to swim in.

(gentle piano music) (upbeat piano music) - [Pat] In the 1930s and 40s, movie theaters were magical places with memorable names.

Phoenix had The Rialto, the Studio, the Fox and The Strand.

They were all wonderful theaters, but only a few could be called movie palaces, places so large and ornate, they were almost bigger than the entertainment itself.

The Orpheum is one of those places.

Built in 1929, at Second Avenue and Adams, it's owned by the city now and to the delight of many is being restored to its original glory.

(upbeat music) - Orpheum Theater, you bet.

You bet I remember the Orpheum Theater.

That was probably the best looking theater.

It was like an opera house.

(upbeat music) - [Pat] In the theater's heyday, street cars ran through Downtown Phoenix and it only cost a nickel to ride.

Drive-in restaurants were all the rage and people came to The Orpheum for more than just a show.

- It was cool.

That had a lot to do with people, when they wanted to be entertained, if you could be entertained and get cooled off at the same time, that was something pretty good.

- [Pat] Every movie palace had a feature that made it memorable.

At The Orpheum, it was the ceiling.

Prior to each show, it came alive with the illusion of moving clouds against a clear blue sky.

- You could sit there looking at the ceiling for a while and think you were sitting outside somewhere.

- [Pat] All the famous names from stage and screen appeared at The Orpheum Theater, but for three nights each year, the biggest stars were children.

(upbeat jazz music) In the 30s and 40s, hundreds of Phoenix school children took dance lessons from local instructor, Gene Bumph.

Then each spring, they showcased their talents on The Orpheum stage.

- My first recollection of The Orpheum Theater was the night that my parents took me to see a Gene Bumph review, and I remember my father saying to me, would you like to do that, Marie?

And I was, you know, oh yes.

- [Pat] Four-year-old Marie Getty began taking lessons right away and within a year, appeared in her first big review.

(upbeat music) - [Marie] Gene Bumph's dance reviews were equivalent to the kind of show you see in Las Vegas now on the stage.

In Las Vegas, you don't see little children, four and five, six years old on the stage in these reviews, but with Gene Bumph, it was the same professional quality.

- [Pat] Phoenix looked forward to these annual reviews and the 1,700 seat theater was always packed.

It was a proud moment for parents, and for the children, it was their opportunity to shine.

- [Marie] I imagined myself in the movies, I imagined myself star of stage and screen, you know, like Shirley Temple was.

- [Pat] Thousands of children had similar dreams that were shared at least for a moment by a community that nurtured its children at a movie palace called The Orpheum.

(gentle piano music) (people chattering in background) (crowd cheering) (upbeat jazz music) In the 1940s, amateur women's softball was nearly as popular as the Phoenix Suns are today.

- It was good clean fun, and it was one, it was the biggest sporting event in Phoenix at that time.

So, gosh, what else do you do but go to see a good softball game?

If we had a choice between seeing a good girl's softball game and a men's game, we'd always go to the girls' game.

Sure, it was more action.

It was a fast game, real fast.

(upbeat music) - [Pat] Phoenix had several good women's teams, but the Queens and Ramblers were the best.

Their games often took place at the Phoenix Softball Park, which was located at 17th Avenue in Roosevelt.

It was a terrific place to see an exciting style of play at a very reasonable price.

- I think it only cost them a quarter.

So, a whole family could go for a dollar.

- It was a place that people brought their families, mother and dad and the kids, and everybody came.

- [Pat] A game between the Ramblers and Queens was always quite a battle, and the fans loved it.

- You either were a Rambler fan or you were a Queen fan and there was no in between.

I mean, they sat on their side and ours sat on our side, but it was as intense with the fans as it was with the players.

- We chose sides, it's just like the Brooklyn Dodgers.

If you're a Brooklyn Dodger fan, you're a Brooklyn Dodger fan and we were just as loyal to the A-1 Queens as the Brooklyn Dodgers are to their team.

(upbeat music) - [Pat] The fans all had their favorite players.

One of them was a young woman named Rose who would later become Arizona's governor.

- I came down here in '39 and played for the Arizona Cantaloupe Queens and the reason we were called that, we were sponsored by the cantaloupe growers and at that time, Phoenix was big into cantaloupe.

- [Pat] Mofford was with the team for a year and had her own ideas about what made the women so popular.

(crowd cheering) - To see these girls perform, not maybe to an equal, but almost an equal to a man that can hurl a ball as fast, and also, they're colorful on the field, there's some awfully pretty ball players.

- [Pat] The Queens and Ramblers had some of the best athletes in the world.

They ran fast, they threw hard and they always played to win.

- The Queens and Ramblers probably had the biggest rivalry of any two teams in the world that I know of.

- You came to play.

I mean, they gave you everything you wanted.

I mean, it was dog eat dog, especially Dotty.

- Their coach used to tell everybody, don't slide into Wilkinson, just come in and knock her down because she's not gonna let you have the plate, which I didn't.

- Well, he said, don't go around.

- And to go over, that's what he told you.

(laughs) Go over me.

So anyway, there's six people had come in and knocked me down that night, and Flossie was the seventh.

She came in and knocked me down and I got up and knocked her down.

You remember that?

- Yes, I remember that.

(Dotty laughs) (gentle inspirational music) - [Pat] In 1940, that kind of aggressiveness paid off big.

The Ramblers won their first National Championship.

- [Dotty] That was the first national title of any kind that Phoenix ever had, in 1940.

So naturally, we got a lot of publicity from, you know, the governor and everything.

We had parades downtown and you know, like they do for Barclay and the basketball now, well, they did that for us.

- [Pat] The Ramblers became local celebrities, but the Queens weren't far behind.

Together, they put Phoenix on the sporting map, winning a combined total of eight national titles.

And this town's passion for sports can arguably be traced to these women's softball players who loved the game and their fans who loved it right along with them.

(gentle inspirational music) (upbeat music) In the spring of 1995, Valley High School students paid tribute to a Phoenix tradition called the Masque of the Yellow Moon.

For all of the young performers, it was an exciting new experience.

But for most of the people who bought tickets, this was a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

(gentle guitar music) ♪ Oh, the Masque of the Yellow Moon ♪ ♪ Now it's passed ♪ It was gone too soon - [Billie] Oh, I remember it was very, very exciting.

It was just exciting.

You know, it was the highlight of the school years, you might say.

Might have even been the highlight of, one of the highlights of early Phoenix.

- [Pat] Every spring for nearly 30 years, the big event in Phoenix was the Masque of the Yellow Moon.

You might say it was the Super Bowl Halftime Show of its day.

People from all over the state would pour into Phoenix Union High School's Montgomery Stadium to witness what may best be described as an outdoor extravaganza.

- It was just the thing that the community always went to see, but of course, we didn't have much other entertainment.

We had whatever entertainment we had, we made ourselves in those days.

We didn't have television.

(upbeat classical music) - [Pat] The Masque of the Yellow Moon gets its unusual name from an Indian legend about the Yellow Moon of Springtime.

It first made headlines in 1926, when Phoenix had fewer than 50,000 people.

By the mid 1930s, critics were calling it one of the most outstanding theatrical events in America, comparing it to New Orleans's Mardi Gras and Pasadena's Tournament of Roses.

(upbeat classical music) (crowd cheering) - I believe that it was capacity crowd every year.

It was something that Phoenix looked forward to.

I think they've even touted it as being the pride of Phoenix which received national acclaim in Reader's Digest and the Life magazine.

And you know, it was something that everybody truly looked forward to and I would say it was an event that brought Phoenix together.

- [Pat] The Masque was an unbelievably popular community event, but what's more amazing is that it was produced almost entirely by students from Phoenix Union High School.

- [Student] Start off on the carpet.

- [Student] As soon as the museum stops, you go.

- [Sam] The speech department, the drama department, the girl's athletic department, the military, ROTC at that time, all had their own definite spots in the show and they would rehearse, oh, for many, many weeks.

- [Pat] Eventually five Phoenix high schools and Phoenix College would participate.

Carver High, the old Black high school, was finally invited to join the show in 1949.

- Miss Betty Fairfax, our PE teacher, man, I mean, she would practice us.

In the morning, in the evening, I mean, when we left the field out there, we were tired, but we had to get it, we had to, and we did and we felt so proud of ourself.

The Masque of the Yellow Moon, yes.

- [Carolyn] The home economics classes cut out the costumes, according to our measurements and gave them to us in cut out pieces with instructions how to put them together.

- [Pat] Every year, the Masque of the Yellow Moon showcased hundreds of costumes in dozens of styles.

- Beautiful costumes for, well, for 3,000 students.

You didn't just throw those together.

Took a long time, and a lot of preparation to put this beautiful pageant on.

(upbeat music) - [Pat] Cordelia Perkins is the person who made the Masque of the Yellow Moon an unbelievably spectacular event.

As its director for 21 years, she designed both the costumes and the enormous sets that stretched across the stage.

She also decided what the theme of the Masque would be.

It was different each year, but usually related to the history and heritage of the Southwest.

The highlight of every Masque came halfway through the performance when the Queen was escorted to her throne.

- [Katherine] I remember the crowning well.

- [Pat] Katherine Cronin Kunze was Queen of the Masque in 1927.

- I felt it was a great honor and I don't think I ever really got used to the fact that I was there and it was I who was being crowned and it was wonderful.

- Well, you know, it was almost that you just could hardly believe it was happening.

It was just like, you were Queen for a day and you just thought how fortunate and how lucky I am to be doing this.

- [Pat] For three decades, the Masque of the Yellow Moon had been a Phoenix tradition, interrupted only briefly during the war, but in 1955, the curtain came down for the very last time.

Its demise is partially due to the retirement of Cordelia Perkins and a growing student population that made it too expensive and time-consuming to produce.

Besides, Phoenix was well on its way from small town to big city, and like many of its traditions, the Masque of the Yellow Moon was simply lost amid the change.

But what's gone isn't necessarily forgotten.

Like the Masque of the Yellow Moon, we'll always remember The Orpheum Theater and those special moments when a child could be a star.

The crack of the bat or the cheer of the crowd will always remind us of the women who became our heroes and we'll never forget how it felt when we danced cheek to cheek on that big dance floor or swam in the icy waters at Riverside Park.

Those feelings will stay in our hearts forever.

They're the feelings we get from our Arizona Memories.

(gentle piano music) (upbeat jazz music)