Tucson History Podcast

In December 1970 a blaze erupted in a downtown landmark, resulting in a tragedy that still holds the distinction of an event that led to Tucson's greatest loss of life, but it was one of Tucson Fires most heroic efforts.

In the early hours of the morning January 28th 1903 a communication error at tiny Vail Station led to the worst rail disaster in Arizona history. On Tales of the Esmond Train Wreck, we talk with J.J. Lamb President of the Vail Preservation Society and Bill Kalt Railroad Historian and Author of Tucson Was A Railroad Town.

The story of Ed's life and career in Tucson radio.

In the 80's business was booming at IBM Tucson and the company was looking to add thousands more jobs at Rita Rd. and I-10. Tucson was poised to become one of the nation’s largest tech hubs. Then a fateful election in 1987 catapulted a U of A professor into the position of mayor and it all began to crumble.

In the closing days of World War I, the deadly Spanish Flu crossed the Atlantic and the Nation. It swept through Arizona one dark Autumn, hitting Native American and impoverished mining communities with a particular vengeance. State health officials under-reported deaths at 519. That number didn't even began to tell the real story. 1918 The Forgotten Pandemic on The Tucson History Podcast.

In 1972 Arizona Basketball had fallen on hard times, with a 6-20 record and crowds of a thousand at Bear Down Gym. Then Fred Snowden came to town and changed the game. In the Desert Fox we look at this legendary coach that turned Tucson into a basketball town.

We look at Tucson's time in the confederacy and it's days as a territorial capital. We explore Arizona's journey to become the 48th State in 1912.

Featured Guest:

Official State Historian Marshall Trimble

On this bonus episode we explore the history of malls in Tucson and examine their future as Americas Grand Cathedrals of Consumerism enter their final days.

In the fifties the landscape of America was changing but Tucson never joined the ranks of cities with a freeway culture decade after decade the crosstown freeways never came. As we enter the third decade of the century, the Tucson History Podcast from 1030 The Voice explores what might’ve been. What stopped them, is too late to build them and is it even still a good idea? Where are our freeways?

Featuring Guests:

Gene Caywood, Tucson Transportation Historian

Diana Alarcon, Tucson Department of Transportation Director

Steve Farley, Former AZ State Representative and Senator

A week before Christmas in 1967, An Air Force 4FD loses all power as it nears a neighborhood with a crowded Food Giant supermarket. In The Crash, the premiere episode of The Tucson History Podcast, we take a deep dive into the events of that fateful night that lifelong Tucsonans still recall over a half century later.