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November 22. The walkout was called to
force Lee Moor to become an exclusively
union firm, although AFL members already
constituted 85 percent of the 58 men
employed on the project. “We are going to
decide once and for all whether the Lee
Moor firm wants to be union or nonunion.
Our members will remain on strike until
the contract is signed,” A.H. Peterson, AFL
Color images: Central Avenue Underpass,
2014.
Black and white images: Central Avenue
Underpass construction, 1939-1940.
Images courtesy of author
Junior Chamber of Commerce proposed
the construction of a Central Avenue fourlane underpass. Construction began eleven
years later after the city secured the rightof-way for $70,000, and obtained $250,000
in federal funds for the project. The
Arizona Highway Department was the
designer/engineer and the construction
contract was awarded to Lee Moor
Contracting based in El Paso, Texas with a
low bid of $178,089 in April 1939. “The
finished structure will be one of the largest
and most modern underpasses in the
state,” W.R. Hutchins, the state engineer,
said in the May 1939 issue of Arizona
Builder & Contractor.
Construction began in June, including
excavation and driving piles to support
trestles for the railroad tracks. "At age 18,
I was a truck foreman and driver for J.D.
Williams,” 96-year-old James Bond recalls.
“We had the contract with Lee Moor to
remove all the dirt in three months under
the tracks to make way for the new road."
Activity at the jobsite came to halt,
however, because of a strike called by the
American Federation of Laborers (AFL) on
representative, said in the December issue
of Arizona Builder & Contractor.
Lee Moor settled with the AFL later
that year and work was completed on time
in May 1940. The resulting streamlined
structure featured a rigid concrete frame,
cast concrete winged motifs, and “Central
Avenue” rendered in aluminum letters on
corbelled pylons.
The underpass opened with fanfare speeches, a parade, and street dance
according to a 1940 Arizona Republic
article. The Phoenix Union High School
band led a caravan of dignitaries that filled
more than 50 motor cars through the
underpass. Boy Scouts distributed
commemorative windshield decals to the
first 5,000 vehicles to transit the tunnel.
The underpass proved to be a safe and
speedy
pathway
that
facilitated
development of the industrial-warehouse
district and south Phoenix.
Arizona contractor & community