Forrest and Phebe at Bell Helicopter School,
November 1960.
Gene and Hilda Cox, 2015.
And it’s a good thing they did, because Cox went
on to become one of Arizona’s most prolific
homebuilders in the 1940s and 50s in Phoenix.
It was a career that found him as much as
he found it. After buying a parcel of land in the
mid-1940s near Camelback Road and Central
Avenue, Cox started building a modest home
for his family. “Before he could even finish the
project, a buyer came along and made him an
offer,” Gene said.
Cox sold the house and used the funds
from the sale to then build two more houses,
only to discover those sold quickly too. “He
made money at that and said ‘This could work,’”
Gene recalled.
Cox ultimately founded Forrest Cox Homes
and went on to develop a neighborhood near
Uptown Plaza in central
Image courtesy of author
Images courtesy of the Cox family
Actress Betty Grable and Forrest Cox at
training field in Glendale CA prior to RAF
deployment, spring 1941.
Phoenix, some homes in Eloy, tracts in
Scottsdale, and approximately 5,000 houses
total over the course of his career.
He was also one of only two people in
Arizona permitted to own and fly a personal
helicopter – a shiny Bell chopper which he
stored in the backyard of his home at 5620
North Fourth Street. “He loved that helicopter,”
Gene said.
“He said he wanted it to advertise his
homebuilding business,” added Hilda, “but I
think he just wanted it.”
Ironically, Cox survived some of history’s most
dangerous military air battles, but it was a
routine leisure flight in his beloved helicopter
that ultimately cut his life tragically short.
In 1961, 45-year-old Cox and his friends
C.W. “Bill” Laing and Carl A. Wilfert were
returning home from a trip searching for Indian
artifacts up in the mesas when
tragedy struck. “It was night and he
hadn’t come home yet, so
both Mom and I knew something was wrong,”
Hilda said.
Their fears were confirmed when they
learned that their father’s helicopter had gone
down in a fiery crash near the Verde River.
Authorities determined an unmarked power
line was to blame and the helicopter’s skids
became tangled in a high tension wire. The
crash sent a shock wave through Arizona and
shined a spotlight on the importance of marking
power lines – often done today with large
orange balls – so they are more visible to pilots.
“When he died, he was at a very high point
in his career,” Gene said.
Forrest Cox Homes General Manager Fred
Godwin and Sales Manager Kermit Butler kept
the operation going in the short term, but a
Greece-based company named Cyprus Mining
ultimately purchased the company from the
Cox family. “We were very lucky because two
or three years later, it was a horrible recession,”
Gene said.
Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community