Perikly 1
Kristina Perikly
Senior Seminar
Research Project
Tempe Butte
Figure 1
In Tempe, Arizona, immediately east of the popular district on Mill Avenue, just south of the
Salt River, and slightly north of the majority of Arizona State University, lies a magnificent mountain with many names. Most people, including myself, may recognize this area as "A-Mountain" due to the fact that there is a very large, conspicuous letter A on its south side. Other names for the butte abound.
"Our local civic leaders have named the Tempe park 'Hayden Butte Preserve'. However, the official government name on U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps is Tempe Butte"1.
Tempe Butte lies in downtown Tempe. It is sometimes considered part of the landscape for
Arizona State University due to its relative location. In fact the stadium for ASU's football team, called
Sun Devil Stadium - the host for Super Bowl XXX, has Tempe Butte for a backdrop. The letter A on the side of the mountain is a result of Arizona State University, as the "A" is the simplest way to
Figure 1: A bird's-eye view of ASU campus and Tempe Butte. Image courtesy of Arizona Board of Regents. Perikly 2 recognize Arizona State University and Arizona itself simultaneously.
Settlers to Arizona in the late 1800's noted the grandeur of the butte without any knowledge of its historical past. A pioneer named Darrell Duppa, apparently well-educated in Greek geography, is credited with naming the butte. He viewed the mountain and the river nearby and noted the similarity to the Vale of Tempe near Mount Olympus, in Northern Thessaly. The Vale of Tempe is the name given to a large gorge between the mountains and the Pineios River that empties into the Aegean Sea. The comparable site and situation of these mountains, rivers, and valleys, encouraged Duppa to give the butte its name2.
Tempe Butte, named before the city was created, is also considered responsible for the name of the city itself. The areas surrounding Tempe Butte came to be known as, simply, "Tempe". There is only one other city in the world with the name Tempe, and it is found in New South Wales, Australia.
Just like Tempe in Arizona is considered by some a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, Tempe in New South
Wales is a city that is a suburb of another very well-known city, Sydney, Australia.
Prior to Darrell Duppa and the other pioneers of America arriving to the Southwest striving to make homes and find good fortune, another group of people lived near the Tempe Butte. These people are members of the Hohokam tribe, a group of indigenous Americans. They lived near the butte and created canals to provide water for agriculture. There is evidence of these people on the mountain in the form of petroglyphs, hide scrapers, grinding slicks, and pot sherds3. These can all be found if taking a nature hike over the mountain. The Hohokam people left a remarkable history on the butte, which is still visible today. They eventually relocated in the 1400's.
Tempe Butte has been an important landmark in Arizona for centuries. People who have lived in, currently live in, or have visited Tempe, Arizona are forced to face this massive natural feature amidst the man-made city all around it. While many Arizonans are not able to take time to appreciate this central feature, a large proportion of people continue to recognize its importance and its beauty. Perikly 3
The center of
Tempe Butte is located
precisely at 33° 25' 41"
North (or 33.42806
latitudinal degrees), 111°
56' 06" West (or -111.935
longitudinal degrees)4.
The peak of Tempe Butte
is at about 1495 feet in
Figure 2 elevation while the base of the butte is about 1150 feet in elevation5. Therefore, the butte itself is about 345 feet in height.
While Tempe Butte is just east of Mill Avenue, a region of culture particularly for the students attending ASU, the butte itself is immediately east of the Hayden Flour Mill, that which the nomenclature for Mill Avenue is derived. The mill stopped operating in 1984 after about 79 years of operation. A fire in October of 2002 frightened locals that the closest landmark to Tempe Butte would be destroyed, but the mill managed to prevail6.
It remains viewable from the western side of the butte.
The A on the south side of the mountain is the result of many years of place names evolving. Arizona State University when it was first built was called the Tempe Normal School.
Figure 3 Figure 2: Map of Tempe area. Mill Avenue name is cropped and written as "[...] Avenue." Map courtesy of the Brendahls. Figure 3: View of butte and mill. Image courtesy of PPS. Perikly 4
In 1918, several students met on the side of the mountain and arranged several large rocks into a giant
"N" to acknowledge the student body's nickname, "The Normals". These rocks were painted white so that the letter would be visible from a distance; however the size of the original "N" is quite smaller than the letter Arizonans recognize today since it was 36 square feet in size. In 1926 the school became the Tempe State Teachers College, and the previous "N" became a "T". The same rocks were reassembled to create the new letter, and the left side of the "N" was reused as the vertical line of the
"T"7.
In 1938 the letter "A" made its first appearance on the side of the mountain, when the name of the school was once again changed, this time to the Arizona State Teachers College. The letter was also made of the rocks collected from the side of the mountain painted white. In 1952, a strange thing occurred. "It was reported the most of Tempe was awakened by 'thunderous blasts' that obliterated the bar of the 'A.' Students from 'a rival college' were blamed for the prank. That damage resulted in the eventual construction of a permanent concrete 'A.'"8. This A was eventually completed in 1955 and is composed both of concrete and reinforced steel. Its height is about 60 feet9.
The tradition of painting and repainting the rocks white from the original letters on the mountain has continued into the era of the concrete "A". Several times throughout the year, the letter on the side of the mountain changes colors. Sometimes it is painted the colors of the American flag, sometimes it is
Figure 4
Figure 4: The "A" on Tempe Butte painted the colors of the American flag. Image courtesy of the Arizona Board of Regents. Perikly 5 maroon (one of ASU's school colors), but most of the time it is painted with a celebratory gold color.
"Each year, during the week leading up to the ASU vs. UofA football game, the Student Alumni
Association coordinates the guarding of our beloved gold 'A' from being painted by UofA students." 10.
Figure 5
Animosity between Arizona State University and the University of Arizona exist in many ways in part because UofA also has a large butte with a letter "A" on one side. This was created after a winning football game on Thanksgiving Day in 1914. This "A", since it was created before the "A" on
Tempe Butte (indeed several years before the "N" made its first appearance on the mountain), is part of the reason why Tempe Butte cannot officially be titled "A-Mountain". The mountain near the
University of Arizona, previously known as Sentinel Peak, has reserved the right to call it by that name11.
Tempe is located in the Sonoran Desert, which extends east from California into Arizona as well as south into Baja California, Baja California Sur, and eventually southeast into Sonora, Mexico, where the name of the desert presumably originated. This desert climate limits the biogeography in the area and on the butte. Plants and animals that have adapted to these conditions are most common here.
Figure 5: The "A" on Tempe Butte painted gold. Image courtesy of the Arizona Board of Regents. Perikly 6
Figure 6
Figure 6: Map of the Sonoran Desert region among other desert regions in the Southwest. Map courtesy of Desert Museum. Perikly 7
Xerophytic vegetation, such as cacti, are most common on the butte. Barrel cactus, brittle brush, buckhorn cholla, creosote, palo verde, and mesquite trees all grow on Tempe Butte. Animals such as jackrabbits are also seen on the mountain, as I myself have seen several of them there. "The dry climate also means that the hydrology is limited to washes that are dry 99.99% of the time and flow only during extreme rain storms"12.
The air in Tempe is very dry and lacking in moisture or humidity. During the summer months, particularly August, monsoon thunderstorms occur. These months are called "Monsoon Season" by
Arizonans. The monsoon is a result of the shifting of wind direction. In the winter, winds move in from
California and Nevada. In the summer, moisture comes northward from both the Pacific Ocean and the
Gulf of Mexico. This dramatically changes the moisture content of the desert. The monsoon typically occurs when the temperature is between 100 and 108º 13. This causes a series of thunderstorms and often even flash floods in the area around and atop the mountain.
The typically dry climate of the Sonoran Desert has soils that have evolved due to the climate.
The soil type in this desert is an aridisol. Over time, rainwater pushed calcium carbonate down through the layers of soil at Tempe Butte. This is called eluviation, or leaching, of nutrients through the soil. In a wetter climate, the calcium carbonate would be carried down through the soil until it eventually reached the groundwater. "In a desert climate, there isn't enough water percolating downward to wash all of the carbonate away, so a lot of the calcium carbonate illuviates, or deposits in the B-horizon of the soil". Over a period of hundreds of thousands of years, the soil becomes completely blocked with calcium carbonate in hardened deposits, called calcrete. "The calcrete on the south side of Tempe Butte is among the thickest and best developed that you will see in the entire world"14.
The geological processes of the butte are considerably extraordinary. The butte itself has volcanic origins. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the land in the area was mudflats. Volcanic ash from nearby volcanoes settled around the area that is now the butte. After the ash flow concluded, Perikly 8 sandy and muddy deposits from the nearby Salt River gathered in the area15. This sediment collected near the base of the mountain, and it is called colluvium16.
After both of these processes occurred, a flow of lava from a volcano underneath the earth's surface capped the butte. This particular type of lava flow is called andesite magma, and its eruptions
17 are between 900 and 1100º C . These three different stages caused a series of horizontal layers: one with ash, one with colluvium, and one with andesite magma. After all of these horizons were in place, the butte itself began to tilt southwards18.
Natural processes are not the only reason that Tempe Butte is different than it used to be.
Figure 7
Figure 7: Zoning map of Tempe Butte and the surrounding areas. Map courtesy of the Tempe Government. Perikly 9
Humans have also made many changes to the butte over the years. "The east side of the butte was partially excavated in order to accommodate the construction of Sun Devil Stadium in 1958"19. This is visible from any aerial photograph of the area. Other changes to the butte include the addition of a few trails for hikers to climb the mountain. One of these trails is paved and is viewable from the northern end of Mill Avenue. I have climbed this trail several times over the years. It is a challenging climb. To make this hike a little easier as well as safer, handrails were installed on the sides of the paved trail.
The ability to hike up Tempe Butte, as well as its close proximity to ASU and downtown Tempe makes its location unique and accessible. I was curious to see if any Arizonans, particularly those living in close proximity to the butte, ever hiked there, photographed nature there, went there to relax, etc. I was especially interested to discern if any Arizonans considered this butte important to them in any way. I decided to create a survey that first asked several questions regarding the person taking the survey, for demographic purposes, and then followed with several questions about the person's connections to the butte.
I initially sent out the surveys to random Tempe residents through the mail, but I received a very small proportion of responses. I then decided to put the survey online at a website: http://freeonlinesurveys.com. I sent an e-mail to a few people I knew who live in the area and asked them to take the survey and then forward the survey to anyone else they know who also lives in the area or at least in Arizona. This caused the number of people who took my survey to increase exponentially.
Over the course of two weeks of having the survey online, I received a total of 124 responses.
The results of my survey regarding Tempe Butte fascinated me. To begin with, perhaps due to the word-of-mouth aspect of my survey distribution, the majority of my respondents, about 75%, are female. Also the majority of my respondents are between the ages of 26 and 66. A vast majority, 67%, are married, and an even larger proportion, 75%, have children. Only one person (.8%) lives less than a mile from the butte. The majority, about 78%, live over five miles from the butte. Perikly 10
What I found most interesting about the demographics of my survey respondents is that the majority were not born in Arizona. I am curious and would like to develop another project regarding
Figure 8 the number of people who have immigrated into Arizona. Another aspect of this answer that is very engrossing is that almost all of these people who emigrated from another place came from a different state in the United States of America. Only two of the 89 people born outside of Arizona where from another country, those of which are Peru and Taiwan. This may simply be an indication that the survey was spread among a very small community, and other surveys or census data would be helpful in furthering this inquiry.
Most of the people who took my survey answered that they are in the middle class economic
Figure 8: A copy of the survey sent by mail. The same questions and answers were later put into an online survey. Perikly 11 bracket. Another interesting note is that more of the remainder of responses indicated that they were from the upper-middle class economic bracket (35%) rather than the lower-middle class economic bracket (12%).
Another startling majority of people who took my survey, 73%, answered that their religion is
Christianity. The following religions are those of the rest of the respondents, listed with the largest percentage first: No religion, spiritual - not religious, Jewish - which had the same number of respondents as Wiccan, Agnostic, Atheist, and Taoist.
After these questions were answered, I began asking more questions about the importance of
Tempe Butte. I discovered that 35% of the people who answered the survey questions all believe that
Tempe Butte is important or significant to them. This was much larger than the 5-10% I had originally anticipated. Less people, 25%, responded that they visited Tempe Butte; however that statistic is also much higher than I had expected. Of the 38 people who reported visiting Tempe Butte, 36 stated they visit it yearly whereas another two stated that they actually visit the butte weekly. (There were no reports of visiting the butte daily or monthly.) Of these same people who visit Tempe Butte, the vast majority go there to hike (20 of the 38 people who reported visiting the butte). 15 go there to observe nature, 14 go there to relax, and another 2 go to the butte to create artwork, among other responses. One person who reported visiting the butte stated that he helps to paint the "A" on the side of the mountain.
There was a slight variation in the number of people who reported that whether or not they visit the butte is greatly influenced by the weather or season at that time (25 reported that the weather and season matters, whereas 15 reported that it did not). This makes a lot of sense if one understands that the temperature in the middle of summer may reach such hot temperatures as 120º F (or such cold temperatures in the winter as 40º F).
I next asked the respondents if they were to see Tempe Butte on television for some reason what Perikly 12 would they most closely identify it with. The majority of people, 59%, answered that if they saw the butte on television, they would identify it with "Tempe". Another 17% said that they would identify it with "Arizona". About 10% of respondents said that they would not be able to recognize Tempe Butte, and 8% had no opinion. A striking 6.5% of people said that they would identify it with "Home".
I next asked a series of questions regarding the enjoyment of Tempe Butte and other mountains in Arizona. I first asked if the respondents enjoyed when Tempe Butte is painted different colors. The majority, about 45%, said that they do enjoy when the mountain is painted different colors. The minority, about 13%, said that they do not. In between these responses were 23% of people who had no opinion and another 20% who did not know that Tempe Butte is painted different colors.
The final question asked respondents whether or not they enjoyed seeing/having mountains in
Arizona. To this question, none of the respondents answered "No". A small fraction, 2.4%, had no opinion. The remaining whopping 97.6% responded "Yes".
The answer to this question is very interesting to me. I reviewed the demographics of the people who responded that they do enjoy seeing and having mountains in Arizona. A little more than 70% of the people who responded "Yes" to this question were not born in Arizona and have immigrated to the state since their birth.
I was interested in the rest of the different answers to questions based on demographic responses. I discovered that two of the three people who are Wiccan both visit Tempe Butte yearly. I also discovered that the only respondent who stated that she is Taoist also visits the Butte yearly. Both of these religions heavily revere nature.
Finally, the two people who answered that if they saw Tempe Butte on television that they would most likely associate Tempe Butte with "Home" are the same exact two people who visit Tempe
Butte weekly. Both go to the butte for hiking and relaxation.
This survey was eye-opening for many reasons. I look forward to conducting an even larger Perikly 13 survey, one that would be sent to more people in a wider demographic region. Due to the fact that this survey was sent from primarily females to their friends, the resulting trend of a large number of females
(particularly married, Christian mothers) would be different from the results of a more broad survey.
I found the results of people not born in Arizona to be very interesting. Their results - as well as the results of everyone who took the survey - showed that these people who took the survey and live in
Arizona are fond of the mountainous landscape. A large number of people who took the survey came to
Arizona from primarily flat places with rolling hills. Mountains are a very different topographical feature. Their attachment to this unfamiliar scenery is a very novel idea. Perhaps this particular question: "Do you generally enjoy seeing/having mountains?" could be sent around the United States in a larger survey. It would be interesting to see how many people enjoy mountains, particularly those currently living in flat areas.
Tempe Butte has been privy to different cultures over the years. It has survived human manipulation as well as been a feature for human enjoyment. It would be difficult to venture through downtown Tempe or even the Arizona State University campus without becoming awestricken or at least noticing the beautiful butte overlooking the water. I have always felt a connection to Tempe Butte prior beginning this project, which has only encouraged my feelings towards the butte. I hope that other people, outside of those who completed my survey, will cherish and honor this beautiful butte for years to come. Perikly 14
Works Cited
1. "Welcome to Tempe Butte." Arizona Geographic Alliance. 8 Mar. 2008
2. "Darrell Duppa (American pioneer) ." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 8 Apr. 2008
3. "Welcome to Tempe Butte." Arizona Geographic Alliance. 8 Mar. 2008
4. "Tempe Butte, Arizona: Tempe Butte, Arizona Latitude and Longitude." Latitude and Longitude Search. 8 Apr. 2008
5. "Tempe in Touch." Tempe in Touch. 8 Apr. 2008
6. "Restoration plans for Hayden Flour Mill unveiled | Tempe News | eastvalleytribune.com." Arizona local news - Mesa, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, Chandler | eastvalleytribune.com. 8 Apr. 2008
7. "ASU Tempe campus Tour: "A" Mountain." Arizona State University. 8 Apr. 2008
8. "azcentral.com | Phoenix Arizona News - Arizona Local News." Arizona Local News - Phoenix Arizona News - azcentral.com. 8 Apr. 2008
9. "ASU Tempe campus Tour: "A" Mountain." Arizona State University. 8 Apr. 2008
10. "ASU Tempe campus Tour: "A" Mountain." Arizona State University. 8 Apr. 2008
11. "'A' Mountain, ." The University of Arizona, Tucson Arizona. 8 Apr. 2008
12. "ASU Tempe campus Tour: "A" Mountain." Arizona State University. 8 Apr. 2008
13. "Basics of Arizona Monsoon." ASU - School of Geographical Sciences. 8 Apr. 2008
14. "ASU Tempe campus Tour: "A" Mountain." Arizona State University. 8 Apr. 2008
15. "ASU Tempe campus Tour: "A" Mountain." Arizona State University. 8 Apr. 2008
16. "Colluvium (Geology) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 8 Apr. 2008
17. "U.S. Geological Survey, Volcano Hazards Program." U.S. Geological Survey, Volcano Hazards Program. 8 Apr. 2008
18. "ASU Tempe campus Tour: "A" Mountain." Arizona State University. 8 Apr. 2008
19. "Tempe Butte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 8 Apr. 2008