(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, explore the last of the railroad lodges, the birth of suburban living, and the beauty of the stained glass in St. Mary's Basilica.

"From the Vault" presents another edition of "Arizona Stories."

(Latin guitar music) - [Narrator] 150 miles southeast of the Grand Canyon, on the grassy steps of northeastern Arizona lies the town of Winslow.

Here, the Santa Fe Railway opened one of the finest railroad lodges ever built, La Posada.

- La Posada was the last of the great Harvey Houses to be built, and it's the largest one to survive.

- For the traveler, it's an oasis.

It's really something unexpected to be driving down the highway and you come across this incredible, magnificent Spanish hacienda.

And for me, of course, it's my home.

(train horn blowing) - [Narrator] Winslow is a railroad town.

It has been since the 1880s, when the railway laid the track of its Southern Transcontinental Line through here.

The Fred Harvey Company operated hotels known as Harvey Houses all along the Santa Fe main line, from Kansas City to Los Angeles.

As the 20th century unfolded, rail passengers demanded more sophisticated accommodations.

And in January, 1929, Santa Fe announced that architect Mary Jane Colter would design and build a new lavish Winslow Harvey House.

To help her imagine the structure, Colter conjured up a story of a Spanish Don who builds a cattle ranch and home here in the early 1800s.

Over the generations, new wings are built onto the house until a grand hacienda is born.

La Posada opened on May 15th, 1930, and all who entered it were transported into Colter's dream world of old Mexico.

- It was also, from an engineering point of view, a very modern building.

It's a cast concrete building, which in the late 20s was coming into vogue.

That's very important when you're built right next to a railroad track, because you can sit and see the trains go by without hearing them.

The other thing that's very modern about it is just the layout of the space.

It's just broad arches, from the ballroom to the library, to the lobby, to the foyer.

So the space just flows.

- [Narrator] The Santa Fe Railway hailed La Posada as an artistic achievement.

It also chided Colter for going $1.5 million over budget.

The stock market had crashed just months before, and many were anxious about the country's economy.

But in the early 1930s adventuresome travelers did come west by train.

- So imagine what it was like arriving here in 1930.

You'd have gone for days across the desert and suddenly this huge mirage, this fabulous hacienda with acres of gardens.

- When the trains were in, it was a busy place.

It was just really a hurried place, because the customers on the train had 30 minutes to walk into the dining room, order their meals, eat their meals, and walk back to the train.

- [Narrator] La Posada guests would soon include the rich and famous.

Over the years everyone from Albert Einstein to Shirley Temple stayed here.

But as the country slipped into the Great Depression, many travelers were seeking jobs, not adventure, and more and more of them were driving their own cars, stopping where and when they wanted to.

The era of the railroad hotel was coming to an end.

Throughout the war years, troop trains stopped in Winslow, and hundreds of servicemen flooded La Posada for a quick meal.

Thousands of meals a day were served.

The soldiers then marched back to the train and continued their journey westward to the battlefields of the Pacific.

Postwar Winslow was buzzing with railroad freight business, and La Posada was its social center.

Route 66 went right through Winslow, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing for La Posada.

- They built all these Route 66 motor courts in the 40s and 50s.

So to stay at La Posada was five to $12, and to stay at one of the motor courts was a dollar.

In 1957 they closed the building.

And in 1959, they auctioned off all the furniture.

Mary Colter was living in retirement in Santa Fe.

They asked her how she felt about closing LA Posada.

And she said, "Now I know that such a thing "is living too long."

- [Narrator] For the next four decades the railroad used La Posada as its Arizona headquarters and remodeled it to fit the style of the day.

Arches were filled in, ceilings dropped, fluorescent lights installed.

They even removed much of the flagstone floor and installed wall-to-wall linoleum.

(somber guitar music) - It became, to most people, just a dusty old building.

- [Narrator] In 1979, the last stretch of Interstate 40 was completed, replacing Route 66.

Most travelers bypassed Winslow, and its downtown effectively died.

In the early 1990s Winslow residents Marie LaMar and Janice Griffith joined forces to fight to save La Posada.

They were joined in their fight by a stranger from California, Allan Affeldt.

Winslow was awarded federal funds to purchase and begin restoring the building.

But the city wasn't interested in taking on the liability of a $12 million restoration.

Affeldt decided to take it on himself.

In April of 1997, Affeldt and his wife artist, Tina Mion, became the owners of La Posada.

They were also now responsible for restoring the 73,000 square foot hacienda.

Allan, Tina, Tina's brother Keith, and Allan's friend, artist Dan Lutzick, began tearing out the 60's era walls, floors, and equipment.

By November they had rooms for rent.

(gentle Spanish guitar music) Over the years, the spirit of La Posada has been restored.

Many of the rooms and public spaces have been brought back to life.

Even the lunch counter, which had become the nerve center for all Santa Fe trains in the state, has been transformed into one of the finest gourmet restaurants in northern Arizona.

(Spanish guitar music) The restoration continues.

Room by room, La Posada past and its future are revealed.

Today with nearly 40 rooms ready to rent and a constant stream of visitors, La Posada is again Winslow's social center.

- [Allan] People come here from everywhere.

We have Route 66 fans.

We have rail fans.

And this is, maybe what it never was before, this really is the destination resort hotel for northeastern Arizona.

- All aboard.

- [Marie] The building is a part of Winslow that I wish to see go on a hundred years from now.

That's what La Posada is to Winslow.

It's its heart and soul.

(Spanish guitar music) ("Hot July Winds") - [Narrator Two] In 1947, a newly married vet named John F. Long returned to Phoenix to find his own piece of heaven.

The future developer began with a single house.

- This first home was to be our own, and I really hadn't decided what I wanted to do, but anyway we built the home, practically all the work ourself.

We sold the home and then built the next one.

That was to be our home.

And I think we built 12, 13 homes individually like that until 1949 is when I started the first subdivision.

- [Narrator Two] Now that the automobile allowed homeowners to live farther from downtown, Phoenix didn't just spread outward, it took a giant leap.

- We started Maryvale in 1954, and the overall plan was to develop a community that would provide homes for young families and a place for their recreation and employment and so forth, and their shopping, all in one given area.

- [Narrator Two] In building an entire community from the ground up, Long pioneered the idea of a master planned community.

- He hired one of the eminent planners in that era to lay out Maryvale with streets that would create neighborhoods, where there would be parks that were planned in advance.

And in fact, he built many of those parks, and then gave them to the city of Phoenix, with school sites designated in advance of where they would go in the subdivisions.

(bright music) - [Narrator Two] Building on a mass scale, allowed Long and other developers to experiment with ways to lower construction costs.

- That resulted in the ranch house being sort of hit on as the prototype for how to do this.

Simple construction, relatively plain house, typically one story, built on a slab, slab-on-grade construction.

It could be delivered very quickly and very efficiently.

- [Speaker] Phoenix is world renowned as a city of beautiful homes.

This is where the home building industry was revolutionized, where new building techniques were developed, where methods were devised to give the homeowner a lot more home for a lot less cost.

- We moved down to Maryvale, and it was a little $7,000 house out on 47th Avenue and Indian School, and John F. Long had built these.

God bless him, because it was the first time we could afford a house.

It was the first home my father ever was able to buy.

Payments were $55 a month.

These were great little houses.

- [Narrator Two] In those years, even a mansion was relatively cheap.

- I remember when they built the first $200,000 home in the Biltmore Estates.

It was a front page story.

Now $200,000 homes are normal, but it was beginning to show that real estate development was taking hold in the Valley, and it was not going to stop.

- I think future historians will mark in Arizona as 1950 as really the dividing line between old Arizona and the new Arizona.

With all of the changes that were coming in the 50s, and we were attracting a whole new type of people, no longer the agriculture and the mining types, but college educated type people coming out to work in the manufactured industry.

- [Narrator Two] By the mid 50s, manufacturing replaced agriculture as the Valley's number one industry.

The job market tempted even more people to move here.

- We were building as many as 20 houses per day.

Had a real difficult time keepin' up with sales.

We'd sell...

There was times that we were sellin' 100 homes a week.

- [Narrator Two] By 1959 more homes had been built in the Valley in one decade than in the previous four combined.

- [Speaker] A new concept of home building was born in Phoenix.

Several young creative builders were responsible for this.

One such builder is John Hall.

- [Narrator Two] In Scottsdale alone, John Hall was building 100 Hall craft homes a week.

And in downtown Phoenix, Del Webb was erecting the city's first residential high rise.

A prominent feature of these new neighborhoods was the patio.

(bright music) - About that time is when the family living was transferred to the backyard, rather than the front yard.

Homes just used to have a front porch, and people sat on the front porch and watched other people and cars go by.

And then, it was in the 50s then that the patio and the barbecues and so forth, went to the backyard, and you very seldom see anyone in the front yard.

- [Narrator Two] The patio was so popular it spawned a new lifestyle.

- [Speaker] The sun-filled patio brings Arizona outdoor living into the home.

This is where the family is likely to congregate for rest, recreation, and relaxation.

The patio serves as a symbol, too, a symbol of a way of life.

(gentle guitar music) - [Narrator Three] On the outskirts of the central Arizona town of Wickenburg lies a monument to the Vulture Mine.

Legend has it the town's namesake, prospector Henry Wickenburg, discovered gold here when he bent over to pick up a rock to throw at a stubborn burro.

Whatever its origin, the Vulture went on to become the most productive gold mine in the history of Arizona.

The mine produced over $200 million worth of gold and sparked the development of Arizona in the city of Phoenix.

Thought to be played out, it was closed in 1942.

Today the Vulture is more ghost town than mine and attracts more tourists than prospectors.

(birds chirping) - [Narrator Four] Few 21 year olds have statues erected in their honor, fewer still are the number of young men who accomplished what Frank Luke, Jr. did.

(bright orchestral music) He was America's top ace at the time of his death, having shot down at least 18 enemy airplanes and balloons in World War I.

- [Bill] He was given a job and he did it, and he was a daredevil, he was.

- [Narrator Four] Bill Luke, Jr. never knew his uncle, but learned plenty about him from family members.

- When he was in high school, he had the brainy idea that he'd like to see if he could use a umbrella and jump off the auditorium of Phoenix Union High School.

His principal said, "Why don't we try this first with a dummy?"

He did that and found that there was a lot of damage.

So he decided that wasn't a good idea.

- [Narrator] Before Luke joined the army in 1917, he worked the mines in Ajo.

- There was a prize fighter that came through the mining camp, and he decided that he'd challenge the guy.

And he won.

- [Narrator Four] Luke was sent to France in the spring of 1918.

He reported to the front a couple months later.

- Major Hartney told Lieutenant Luke when he first checked him out and everything in combat, he says, "If you last two weeks "you may be assured of havin' it made."

Being able to survive.

And two to three weeks was considered normal life expectancy of the pilots that flew these airplanes.

All these aircraft, as I mentioned earlier on, over there are fabric covered, which is bedsheet.

The same thing they sleep in every night, just- - [Narrator Four] Mel Derry tours at the Champlin Fighter Museum at Falcon Field in Mesa.

The museum has a replica of Luke's airplane, the French built SPAD XIII.

(intense music) Luke preferred to go after the most dangerous of all targets, observation balloons.

- [Mel] It wasn't uncommon if you went down and around a balloon trying to shoot it down, you'd end up being shot down yourself.

It was from the people on the ground.

So that was the reason most people avoided it.

- [Narrator Four] Luke's passion for downing balloons earned him the nickname the Arizona Balloon Buster.

- [Narrator Five] He was the most daring aviator, the greatest fighter pilot of the entire war.

His life was one of the brightest glories of our air service.

He went on an eight-day rampage and shot down 14 enemy aircraft, including 10 balloons.

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker.

- [Narrator Four] After his two closest friends died on balloon-busting missions with Luke, the Arizonan began going it alone and was grounded by his commander.

- [Mel] Now on the way back, he shot a balloon down, came in and land, in his base commander says, "Put yourself under house arrest.

"You're gonna be court marshaled."

So that really upset him.

So he went out, got in his airplane, and left a note and said, "Watch the three bags on the Meuse River."

- [Narrator Four] The Arizona Balloon Buster found more than a half dozen German fighter planes waiting.

Nearby French residents claimed Luke downed two German planes, but were never confirmed.

He went on to shoot down all three enemy balloons, but Luke would not return to base to face the consequences of defying orders.

He had been hit by anti-aircraft fire.

- Luke saw the congregation of German soldiers, went down, strafed them, and supposedly killed maybe six of them, and then went around and landed adjacent to the village.

And that's when the Germans approached the airplane, expecting to capture him, and he wasn't there.

- [Narrator Four] No one knows for sure what happened next.

Historians believe Luke got out of his airplane, but died from his wounds before the Germans could kill him.

Luke's death made the headlines back home.

His brief life gone, but not forgotten.

- I think he was an extraordinary boy who met an extraordinary challenge and did the best he could.

- [Narrator Four] An air force base is named in Luke's honor, a reminder of his success and sacrifice.

(planes whirring) Luke is buried in a military cemetery in France.

His simple cross does not boast of his accomplishments.

Those speak for themselves.

(gentle orchestra music) (bright music) ("Audivi Vocem") - [Narrator Six] There is a mystery to the glittering art of stained glass.

A basic substance, sand, is transformed by fire, colored with metallic salts and oxides, and set in patterns to glow from within.

Stained glass windows are thought to have evolved from ancient cloisonné, mosaic and jewelry making.

Their historic home has been the church.

- They wanted 'em to be theologically correct, but they were also meant to tell a story, because there were a lot of people in the early 1900s who didn't read, obviously.

So you could look at those windows and you could kind of tell a whole story by looking at them.

- For centuries, obviously we're talking about Europe, the stories that they saw in glass were the stories that nurtured people's imaginations and their religious zeal and stuff.

And their heroes were Santa Ana or San Joaquim, or God knows, and they would see stuff in glass.

- [Narrator Six] Perhaps the finest stained glass windows in Arizona are those of the nearly century old St. Mary's Basilica in downtown Phoenix.

They still tell stories to people every day, like this one of Jesus in the temple.

- [Alonso] They see him being respectfully heard by these elders.

I mean, that's completely, he should be respectfully listening, and yet they're so wowed by the kid.

(Gregorian Chant) - [Narrator Five] St. Mary's is the mother of Catholic parishes in the Valley.

Founded in 1881, and since 1914, staffed by Franciscan friars, or as Father Alonso calls them, the boys in brown.

In the early 1900s, the windows at St. Mary's were crafted in St. Louis, and brought here by their maker, Emil Frei.

- We tracked down the actual shop that turned them out, and went to them.

I think the grandson was still there.

And so, yeah, they said that he brought 'em out, he assembled them in St. Louis and came out on the train.

Chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga, with these things in wooden crates, himself holding onto everything.

- [Narrator Six] Each piece of stain glass is hand painted and fired in a 1200-degree kiln several times until the paint becomes part of the glass.

Set in wooden frames, the glass and lead have withstood the Phoenix heat for more than 90 years.

However, time, and the renovation of the new Civic Plaza across the street caused concern.

- The foundations, it's all un-reinforced masonry.

So there are no steel rebars in our foundations of any kind.

So subsequently, the building is more susceptible to vibration and any damage that might occur because of the construction next door.

- [Narrator Six] Art glass experts were called in to inspect the windows.

- These windows here in particular are one of the better sets I'd ever seen them do.

They're extraordinary windows.

We found multiple bulging in the window, where the window actually bows in and out.

There were some cracked pieces, some broken out pieces.

The frames are in need of conditioning.

They've cracked and dried out and repainted.

We had some previous repairs that were done that were coming undone that we had to redo.

- [Narrator Six] John Phillips and his craftsmen began the tricky procedure of removing the windows, then set up shop on site at St. Mary's.

- [John] Usually about every 100, 125 years you need to completely re-lead, take 'em apart piece by piece and replace all the lead.

- [Narrator Six] The windows at St. Mary's were generally in good condition.

- [John] Part of having stained glass windows is you have to maintain 'em.

They're not where you put 'em in and you just left, leave 'em go.

You have to keep continually doing maintenance on 'em.

Fortunately, this building and this diocese is real good about doing that with their windows.

- There was quite a sacrifice in our obtaining them and revering them.

And of course, part of the thing is, yes, people have that need for continuity.

They even say, "Well, my grandparents..." In fact, some of their names of their grandparents are up here for them to see and show their kids.

- [Jeffrey] I think they see the building as a very important part of Phoenix as it is today, but I think they also see it as an important part of the future ongoing, and it is.

It's a jewel in the heart of downtown Phoenix.

- [Narrator Six] The stained glass windows of St. Mary's Basilica shine once again, restored to their original glory for today's parishioners and for future generations.

(Gregorian Chant) (bright music)