looks different because the darker exposure shows the distant mountains, but
obscures the buildings. This photograph is important because it shows what buildings
have been built in the previous two years. The Santa Catalina apartments, and two
square brick houses at 933 and 945 Euclid are seen. Four more houses soon to be built by
Louise Foucar on Tyndall. The sites for the buildings of Arizona Historical Society and
Valley National Bank are between campus and the new homes. Photo courtesy
Special Collections, University of Arizona Library. Views 1890-1910, N854
backstop and bleachers are in place.This is also used as a football field. The light streak in the middle
of the picture is the intersection of Park Avenue and recently graded Second Street. In the darker area
are creosote bushes, future site of the Arizona Historical Society Building.
The two dark rectangles are 933 and 945 North Euclid, built by Professor Foucar on land purchased in 1901 from Alther Feldman. The long, light-colored building to their left is the adobe Feldman homestead built in 1878 on the corner of First Avenue and Second Street. They are on opposite corners of the same city block.
The Feldman homestead was enlarged by Theta Chi fraternity in the late 1940s. This is block 31, Feldman's Addition to the city of Tucson.
Alther Feldman was an Arizona pioneer who came from eastern Europe to the United States about 1860 at age twenty seven. In 1878 he came to Tucson, and built an adobe home for his wife and six children. His land grant for 160 acres signed on May 25, 1883, by U.S. President Chester A. Arthur was located in the northeast comer of the city and extended outside the original city limits to what is now Drachman Street and Park Avenue. This land is referred to on plot maps as the Feldman's Addition to the city of Tucson.
built by Professor Foucar, shown as dark specks in the 1904 photograph above. Four
similar houses would be built on the west side of Tyndall, near First Street. Each of
the houses have a back porch the length of the house as shown in the above picture. The
porch later was enclosed with window-screen for a screened porch. Residents often
slept on these porches during the hot summer months. The icebox was there for
convenient delivery of ice. TKM FB
When the two-mile square plot of the City of Tucson had been planned on paper, the streets and lots were numbered from the northeast corner starting with First Avenue and First Street. Alther named the street just north of the city limits Feldman Street. A few years later when horseless carriages were speeding through the city streets, the speed limit in the downtown area became seven miles an hour and in the rest of city ten miles an hour. Feldman Street, just outside of the city limits, became "The Speedway."
Mark Walker married Alice Feldman. Louise and Mark were listed in the 1898-99 UA Register as the only two graduate students. Mark's sister, Mary, was one of the three graduates in the first class of 1894, their father, Mark Sr., had been Assistant Horticulturist since 1891. We forget how closely interwoven were the lives of the early UA students and faculty members.
In July and August 1903, Louise bought Lots 17 to 20 on block 27, First Street from Euclid east to the alley. The Santa Catalina apartments were immediately built at 803 and 811 East First. Since 1990, the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and public parking. The lot beside the alley was the site of a Mission Revival duplex, built in 1926.
These buildings are the heart of this book because my parents lived in apartment 2, 811 East First from August 1926 to June 1928. At that time they moved next door to 819 and lived there for forty years. The Marshall property rental office was in my parents home during these years. It is now the Roy P. Drachman Institute for Land and Regional Development Studies.
The Tucson Citizen reported construction progress from August to October 1903. Not knowing their name, the newspaper referred to the two buildings as the "Foucar Cottages." More recent newspaper articles named them "The Territorials," a good description.