Statement urging preservation of Mesa’s Buckhorn Baths

The case for preservation of Mesa’s unique, one-of-a-kind Buckhorn Baths is overwhelming. To replace it with another cookie-cutter apartment complex would be a missed opportunity – and a slight at Arizona history.

Despite its dilapidated appearance, Buckhorn represents an irreplaceable monument to Arizona history on so many levels, including the development of tourism, the Cactus League and the Pueblo Revival style of architecture.

For all these reasons and more, Buckhorn Baths was named to the National Register of Historic Places, an honor richly deserved.

“Although the buildings are in need of minor repairs, their historic integrity is excellent and Buckhorn Baths stands as an excellent example of a regionally themed tourist facility for the 1930s and 1940s,’’ Mesa historic preservation architect Ron Peters wrote in the application for national recognition in 2005.

We know that any developer must turn a profit, but this site at Recker and Main streets is large enough –about 16 acres—to accommodate a striking mixture of new and old.

The most essential parts of Ted and Alice Sliger’s creative, handmade lifetime achievement deserve preservation at all costs, leaving plenty of room for an attractive new townhouse complex.

Arizona Baseball Legacy and Experience joins a chorus of Arizona voices that have agreed for decades that the Sligers’ dream deserves preservation. Nothing would please us more than to see a Buckhorn Baths renaissance from its present state of decay, with its role in the Cactus League recognized and a line of customers awaiting an opportunity to experience the magic and cultural impact of this unique landmark.

Any new development should be inspired by the Sliger’s remarkable resourcefulness in turning an isolated track of desert into a major tourism attraction after digging the well that accidentally gave birth to famous mineral baths, which could accommodate 75 guests in their heyday.

Among those guests were New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham and baseball luminaries, including Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Gaylord Perry. An annual sojourn to the baths by Stoneham and the Giants became a spring training tradition aimed at conditioning achy muscles and avoiding injuries.

It took the Sligers 11 years, from 1936-1947 to build Buckhorn Baths lovingly, one piece at a time, adding a bath house, cabins, a motel and a “Wildlife Museum’’ featuring an astounding array of taxidermy.

Along with the allure of medical remedies attributed in those days to mineral baths, Stoneham and Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck were motivated by an altruistic reason in launching the Cactus League during the late 1940s.

At long last, thanks to the courage of Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey and Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, Major League Baseball was finally desegregating.

Stoneham and Veeck were anxious to join the trend and looked at Arizona, which was progressive and less hostile for Black players than the Jim Crow laws  prevalent in Florida’s Grapefruit League.

It was Veeck who signed Larry Doby, the American League’s first Black player, adding more momentum to integration in baseball. Doby debuted in July 1947, several months after Robinson broke the color barrier in the National League.

From these humble beginnings, with the Giants playing in Phoenix and the Indians playing in Tucson, the Cactus League would turn into a major Arizona tourism attraction featuring 15 teams, or half the clubs in Major League Baseball.

Someday, Arizona Baseball Legacy and Experience hopes to recognize all the special places around the state that have played an important historical role in the sport. Please don’t destroy one of the most important places of all before we can bring this dream to fruition.

Respectfully,

Arizona Baseball Legacy and Experience

Board of Directors

Mike Phillips, Charlie Vascellaro, Steve Berg, Peter Corbett, James Walsh