Gila Bend museum

What we learned this winter is that Phoenix, AZ is a very hard metro area to tour. Unlike other major cities the Phoenix metro area covers a lot of ground and everything is an hour away.  The next time we are in this part of the country we will  look at the geography a little better and tackle it by quadrant – a couple of days in the northwest quadrant, a couple in the northeast quadrant, and so forth.  The other issue is that there are few campgrounds in the metro area and none of them are state parks – so this trip gets pricey.  Because I can stay at military installations we headed to the Auxiliary Air Force Base in Gila Bend and used this as our base of operations.  

We did get to see a lot of the area but it really was inefficient for the eastern metro areas (Tempe, etc.).  Seeing Gila Bend was our base we started with the Gila Bend Visitor’s Center, which also serves as the Gila Bend Museum.  It turns out that the Gila Bend museum has some very interesting artifacts and documents the area’s history very thoroughly.  Along with the artifacts there is a lot of documentation regarding the native tribes that occupied the area over the years. 

I also found the docent on duty to be very knowledgeable and forthright.  One of the questions I always ask is about how the town got to its current state (of success or failure).  Gila Bend is currently in a depressed state with many closed businesses.  Even the local food market recently closed leaving residents with a 40-minute ride to either Ajo or Buckeye.  What killed Gila Bend was the 1980’s housing market collapse.  Gila Bend is trying hard to redevelop itself using everything from a sense of humor on its welcome sign – claiming 1917 Friendly residents and 5 old crabs (actually naming names!).  

It’s always nice when they keep swinging!