The ASU Gammage venue in Tempe is celebrating its 60 year anniversary. The performing arts center has served as the hub for musicals, convocations and other events.
Famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the building and worked with past ASU President Grady Gammage.
In an appearance on “Arizona Horizon,” the building’s executive director, Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, says the venue came to fruition when Wright took a tour of the campus.
“Mr. Wright and President Gammage walked the grounds of Arizona State University. Mr. Wright put his stick, walking stick, in the ground and said, ‘Here, we will build a great performing arts center with open arms that says welcome to Arizona,’ and it happened to have been the women’s athletic fields," she said.
Neither Wright nor Gammage lived long enough to see the completion of the building.
Over time, the venue evolved and increased accessibility by adding ramps.
-
Up until Congress passed the landmark Indian Reorganization Act, tribes weren’t fully seen as sovereign in the eyes of the U.S. Most of them didn’t have constitutions either. That all changed in 1934. -
According to witnesses, a white man — believed to be in his 60s or 70s — fell while standing atop furniture inside the Desert View Watchtower. Staff rendered first aid to the visitor, who left before law enforcement was dispatched on June 17. -
Those original inhabitants were labeled by writers Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston as so-called “merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” -
This so-called Freedom Rock is now the crown jewel of Prescott Valley — a hand-painted tribute to some of the Grand Canyon State’s military heroes, featuring portraits of Ira Hamilton Hayes, Lori Ann Piestewa, Navajo Code Talkers and Pat Tillman. -
Native Americans have a long history as runners — but, for one high school student in rural Nevada’s, it was personal. Ku Stevens’ great-grandfather escaped an Indigenous boarding school when he was just 8 years old.
