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Avondale, Arizona – In the midst of the solitude of the Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery, there are countless of silent
voices eager to narrate a story. They are the unheard but real voices of the men, women and children who are buried in
this resting place for the dead ones, a graveyard that paradoxically hangs on to exist.
This story is not just the historical account of a man who came from Akron, Ohio to Arizona looking for an ideal land to
grow a special type of cotton during World War I. Nor only the story about how the Arizona desert —deemed at one point a
“valueless” land by a U.S. surveyor*— became a rich region full of homes, businesses and farms. This is also about the
still unfinished story of the peasants who with their hard labor contributed to transform an inhospitable place inhabited by
scorpions and lizards and carpeted by sagebrushes and cacti into fertile and productive cotton fields.
Located about 20 miles west of Downtown Phoenix and surrounded by hundreds of new homes, the Goodyear Farms
Historic Cemetery —also known as Pioneer Cemetery— remains today as a vestige of an important farming era. Almost a
century ago, this became a vast farmland dedicated to the cultivation of high-grade cotton used in the production of tire
fabric by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
The farms gradually disappeared under the spread of housing and commercial development, leaving the cemetery
enclosed within a large residential area, struggling to not vanish as the cotton fields that established it, and hanging on to
Arizona’s history.
Beginnings
The story begins at the dawn of the incorporation of Arizona into the Union, by then the 48th state of the United States. In
1916, two years into the Great War, the emergence of the pneumatic tire and the demand for the cotton needed to produce
it, forced the United States to look into its own territory to find ways on how to grow a variety known as long-staple cotton,
which they couldn’t obtain anymore in the same quantities from the Sea Islands (off the coasts of the State of Georgia) due
to the devastation caused by the boll weevil, and neither from Egypt, due to the activities of German submarines during the
hostilities.
This situation created a challenge for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and an opportunity for the new state of
Arizona. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had conducted experiments in the area of the Salt River
Valley in Arizona, which revealed climatic conditions and soil properties similar to those in Egypt existed. The USDA urged
an executive from Goodyear to travel to Arizona from Akron, Ohio to see this land for himself. Paul W. Litchfield was this
man, and he concluded that the land in Arizona was indeed suitable for growing crops of the desirable long-staple cotton,
analogous to Egypt’s.
To launch the ambitious and visionary farming endeavor, Litchfield established a subsidiary called The Southwest Cotton
Company. Goodyear acquired thousands of acres of land and in 1917 set to turn it into a large and successful cotton
farming operation. Thus, cotton farming would eventually give this area a distinctive identity and would deeply transform it,
not only geographically, but also economically and culturally. And so, cotton culture would begin shaping this area of
central Arizona.
In terms of human resources, the newly formed Southwest Cotton Company recruited a legion of about 2,000 men to get
the difficult job of transforming the autonomous desert into disciplined agricultural fields done. The majority of these new
employees were peasants brought from the country of Mexico and some were Native Americans. Not only World War I was
taking place; the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) was at its height. Thousands of people were migrating to the United
States to escape this civil war. It is very likely that the new cotton farming operation would also attract a good share of
migrants fleeing Mexico and coming to Arizona on their own at that time of revolt.
This pioneer workforce of mainly Mexican and American Indians, making use of more than one thousand mules and about
a dozen gasoline-powered tractors equipped with iron wheels, set to the heavy task of leveling the fields in the challenging
Arizona desert. Part of their work consisted of removing the natural desert vegetation, plowing the soil and digging
irrigation canals to bring to the fields the necessary water from the Agua Fria River, flowing a few miles south. It is easy to
assert these laborers worked very hard to earn the $1.00 to $2.50 a day they were paid.
About this time, Goodyear also established a place to house these farmers in a large camp that became known as
Algodón (the Spanish word for cotton,) and when it was later relocated it was called Agua Fria. The entire farming area
was called Litchfield Park, and the workers camp was located at the core.
The first approximately 3,500 acres of land that were prepared for the initial planting produced a reported harvest of
264,000 pounds of fine cotton in the winter of 1917-1918. The amount of cotton rose to 6,734,000 pounds of the blue-
ribbon grade long-staple cotton the following year. Cotton balls were rolling.
With their hard and pioneer work, these peasants undoubtedly became an important part of the farming and economic
development of Arizona, as well as contributed to the demands of war. The historical record obviously indicates the
Southwest Cotton Company sought to hire cheap labor, as well as a workforce who was at easy reach and in proximity to
the farming operation. Nevertheless, they hired hard-working, skillful, and adept hands.
By exporting this foreign workforce to Arizona, the Southwest Cotton Company also played a part in creating
socioeconomic and labor patterns of immigration into the United States. Within the context of the current immigration
debate in Arizona, and elsewhere in the United States, history can lend a hand to understand social issues like
undocumented immigration in Arizona.
Ultimately, the case of Goodyear Farms further proves the historical need for migrant workers, as well as a mechanism to
allow them to come to work and return home within a legal framework. Today, the Arizona Farm Bureau cites as a priority
the need for a work visa reform and immigrant workers, even during the recession.
The Flu Pandemic and the Establishment of the Cemetery
As World War I was in its final offensives and nearing its end, a ravaging influenza pandemic (also known as the Spanish
Flu) began to spread in March of 1918 throughout the world. According to data, the majority of victims were healthy young
adults. The pandemic lasted until June 1920, and it is estimated that 30 to 50 million died, and 500 million became
infected by the virus. An estimated 675,000 Americans were among the dead. At the end more American citizens died from
this epidemic than in World War I.
According to the United States Department of Health Services (HHS), the influenza reached Arizona in late September
1918, most likely spreading from Phoenix to the rest of the state. By the first week of November, health officials were
overwhelmed as deaths due to the epidemic were four times Arizona’s annual average. After the influenza reached this
peak, the fatal disease declined gradually during the late fall and early winter. By late spring 1919, the pandemic began
disappearing from Arizona.
Historical data establishes that the labor camps were particularly hit hard by the pandemic due to the poor sanitation
conditions that prevailed back then. In response to the number of workers and members of their families said to have died
as a consequence of the pandemic, the Southwest Cotton Company set up an area in the camp to be used as a
graveyard. According to HHS’s dates on when the virus appeared in Arizona, this cemetery was likely established during
the last months of 1918, as it was reportedly created in response to the pandemic.
There are no known records available to determine how many Goodyear Farms’ workers who died due to the pandemic
were buried in this cemetery, presently known as the Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery or Pioneer Cemetery. The
names of many of the people who were buried as well as the date of their death will probably remain unknown, as a large
number of gravestones are completely unmarked today. Perhaps somewhere there is a registry that identifies human
remains by location within the cemetery.
Winds of Change
The cotton farmlands have inexorably long vanished over the years and with them the labor camps. After the Goodyear
farming activities ceased, the Westinghouse Company purchased the 12,000 acres of agricultural land, including the
cemetery, to conduct residential and commercial development plans.
Housing development likely wiped many possible remnants of the farming landscape that characterized this tri-city area of
Avondale, Litchfield Park and Goodyear. The cemetery survived; today it remains delimited by dozens of homes in a
predominant residential area.
At the present time, the Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery is still an active cemetery, and after Westinghouse took
ownership, it was assigned to the care of the Tempe, Arizona-based SunCor Development Company, a building and
developing corporation. For little more than 20 years, since the property of the original Litchfield Ranch was purchased in
1987, SunCor has been running the Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery on a non-profit basis and as a private cemetery.
Now SunCor has requested to the City of Avondale government to take over and administer the cemetery. But the
economic recession has also hit the City of Avondale, which also acknowledges lack of expertise in running a cemetery.
Included in SunCor’s request to Avondale is a trust fund of $244,000 to run the cemetery. The City Council will decide this
matter in May 2010.
“It is History Here”
A small cemetery enclosed in the residential area that replaced the farms and the cotton culture doesn’t have to be a big
problem. The opportunity to cherish history and reaffirm Arizona’s farming and labor roots is not buried, but at hand. The
Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery or Pioneer Cemetery is still there, it has not vanished like the cotton fields, and its
history is not completely lost yet. While much work needs to be done, both the scholar and the layperson can do much to
get it done.
On Saturday, April 10th, Ballet Folklorico Esperanza, an Arizona-based cultural non-profit organization promoting Mexican
regional dances, held a cleanup event at the Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery. Al Soria, who with his wife Kathi runs the
dance group and help to maintain the cemetery on a volunteer basis, said he was happy to see families from different
ethnic groups showing up to help clean the cemetery.
“We put the word out to the community, ‘Hey!, it’s a historic cemetery, it has a lot of history,’ said Soria. “Nobody stopped to
ask: ‘What history?’ They just said: ‘Historic, it is history here, and let’s preserve it and let’s clean it up, and be proud of it.”
Although the fate of the Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery is still uncertain, Soria’s statement remains true, as it would
surely take more to reconstruct history in the future than what it takes to preserve it today.
Copyright © 2010 Hispanic Institute of Social Issues
Grassroots Journalism
www.barriozona.com
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The labor of thousands of peasants brought from Mexico into Arizona in 1917 contributed to the farming
revolution that placed a new state on the path of progress and the workers on a historical dimension.
By Eduardo Barraza
BARRIOZONA
April 13, 2010
Relentless Pioneer Cemetery Evokes Mexican
Migrant Workers Roots in Arizona