Echoes of the Southwest

The Space Age Restaurant in Gila Bend, Arizona Spaced Aged Lodge lobby fancy artwork Entrance to the restaurant which has one hell of a delish bacon cheeseburger! a fun little hotel... ...what is up with Gila Bend's finest parked outside some rooms?  The new office? A party?  Big drug bust?  Who knows, but we were definitely curious. Gila Bend's water tower (actually not in use anymore). It reminds me of "Pettycoat Junction".

One of the places Sharon wanted to take me on our Gila Bend/Casa Grande trip was the mysterious Domes. These strange dome shape structures sit in the middle of the desert of Casa Grande only a few miles from the interstate. As you drive up on them, you notice that one object is shaped like a flying saucer and the other three structures resemble caterpillars. How did they get there and what was the purpose of the building shapes? In July of 1982, Patricia Zebb, who owned InnerConn Technology Inc., was speaking to a group of around 75 people about her new computer manufacturing company. Her plan was to move the company headquarters from California to the newly constructed site in Casa Grande she called, “The Domes”. The new offices were dome shaped with a Thermoshell construction with the main office resembling a definitive flying saucer. Zebb was very excited about the new plant and couldn’t wait for that first circuit board to roll off the assembly line. Sadly, that was nev...

Just like many other cities across the US, Phoenix has its share of haunted houses. One house I have heard is very haunted is the Billington House. The big mystery is not just what happened there but where the hell is the house located? When I looked up information on this elusive dwelling, all I could find is a zip code. I pulled up maps for Phoenix zip codes and found the general location of the house. That particular area was small so I thought it should be easy to spot an old haunted house, but I was wrong. One Thursday armed with my camera, I was on the hunt for Jo Jo’s Alley, the location where a 9 year old girl’s ghost had been seen, and the Billington House. I had my Google maps pinpointing the locations and the route I was going to take. Since Jo Jo’s Alley was near my house, I started there first. After driving the creepy alley, I headed downtown where the other two places were located. The cross streets in Phoenix are laid out nicely, north-south and east-west. Some ...

This trailer looked like Nester's trailer in the movie, "Tremors".  As we looked around the eerie sight, we felt the ground move a bit under us.  We looked for solid ground or large bolder, but found nothing.  The trailer park looked like the graboids had a party there.  The place was a huge mess.  Thank goodness we didn't see a graboid pop its head through the ground or any other creature roaming around the place.  R.I.P. Nester...

As you walk into the abandoned trailer park, off to the right you see a swing set just sitting there all alone.  Sharon felt at one time a little girl once played there, perhaps with her siblings or other friends who also lived in a trailer located on this desert park.  For the most part the swing set is intact, but is now surrounded by garbage and desecrated trailers. 

There is one little town set in the middle of the desert that wouldn’t appear to be a hotspot of UFO and even Bigfoot activity, but Gila Bend can brag that it is. Founded in 1872 and located in Maricopa County, Arizona, Gila Bend gets its name from the 90 degree bend found in the Gila River at the point where the town is established. With a population of about 2,055 people living in this town, it is the roadside attractions, Spaced Age Lodge and unusual theme of the place that seems to keep the tourist and enthusiasts coming along with the UFO hunters. Gila Bend is a popular place for many UFO sightings. There have been numerous reports of strange objects and lights in the sky which have been hard to explain. Here is some history of Gila Bend from Wikipedia: “The town of Gila Bend is situated near an ancient Hohokam village. When Father Eusebio Francisco Kino visited in 1699, the older site along fertile banks of the Gila River had been abandoned by another early tribe calle...

There are a few urban legends floating around this city and other places as well. One is about the ghost of the nine year old girl that has been seen in several areas around Phoenix. On August 6, 1995 a little girl was struck by a hit and run driver and died on the scene. Stories are told that witnesses noticed her looking out the window of the ambulance as the paramedics were trying dreadfully to save her. Her little hands and face were seen pressed against the window as the ambulance pulled away. The person who hit the little girl was never found and justice was never served. Right after her death, there were reports of seeing her ghost in several parts of the city. The strongest area, and the place with the most sightings, is the area she was killed at, 5th Avenue between Roosevelt and Fillmore. Her ghost was also seen a few miles away by a woman who was in the middle of cooking dinner at the exact same time her husband was woken by a box falling on him. She reported that the ima...