Melanie Sturgeon — Archives director says look at state’s past to make decisions for the future 

By the time Lewis and Clark reached the three forks of the Missouri River, their expedition had taken them more than 2,500 miles. They were forced to choose one of three paths to follow, continuing their journey through unknown and uncharted lands. They knew not what lay ahead, but were compelled to press onward, despite staring directly into the formidable terrain of the Rocky Mountains.
The famous explorers were not the only ones who, at that very spot, experienced an unflinching need to discover, understand and find answers. Upon learning from her father during a visit to the area that Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea had passed by, a 10-year-old Melanie Sturgeon found herself instantly hooked.
“The sound in my father’s voice made it sound like it was important,” says Sturgeon, now the director of the History and Archives Division of the Arizona State Library. “I wondered why they were there and why it was important. From that time on I’ve always had a thirst to understand it.”
One of the reasons history is such a valuable resource is its ability to be a teacher, she says. It can help people make sense of past decisions, people and events and often predicts what will happen. “I want people a hundred years from now to be able to look at the records and understand ‘why.’”
Sturgeon earned a master’s degree in public history in 1992 from Arizona State University. In 2001, she graduated with a Ph.D. from ASU in history. It was while interviewing residents in Sun City for her thesis project that she discovered how the group, nearly all over age 65, flexed its muscles at the polls.
“They were thrilled that they had squelched 17 school bond measures in a row,” says Sturgeon. “The general feeling among them was that they had already paid for those things and they were done doing it.” And their affect on the state is big, she says, because they are the group that goes out and votes.
Whether people come to the state for retirement, to enjoy the weather or play golf, the fact is that many Arizonans are transplants from other places. While the effect of temporary residents, sometimes called “snowbirds,” is quite positive on many businesses’ cash registers, the negative side is that they don’t feel or act like Arizona is “home,” she says. Even for people who have lived here for 20 years, home is often a place they visualize in their heads, not the ground they’re standing on.
“They don’t feel invested in Arizona. That has a real impact if you live in a place but don’t think of yourself as a resident, it affects everything,” says Sturgeon. “They are not connected with the past, or the future for that matter.”
Early residents
Contrasting from many in the state today, Arizona’s early pioneers came here to build a life, Sturgeon says. When the state was admitted to the Union on Feb. 14, 1912, along with the festivities of the day came a feeling of optimism. Those very first Arizonans felt that they weren’t going to go through some of things other states had experienced. “People were very positive and forward-looking at that time. Women’s suffrage was passed a few months after statehood,” she says.
The early political makeup of the state found it decidedly blue. Rural Democrats had a stranglehold over most of the power in the state. “Initially the state government was more liberal and more willing to take risks,” she says. “As time has passed, it has become more conservative.”
Indian tribes must also be considered when looking at the state. Around the time of statehood and in the earlier years, the tribes were much more marginalized, she says. Now, that has changed. “They have become much more savvy in using the political and legal systems for their benefit.”
In the middle of the 20th century, people started moving to the desert, in mass numbers. Land use, water use and even state culture were all affected by the mass population of the Valley of the Sun, she says.
World War II brought changes to Arizona, as it had to the entire world. The time period signaled a shift in the economics of the state from agricultural production to the manufacturing industry and eventually the service industry.
“People who moved here brought the strength from where they came from,” says Sturgeon. “There was still a lot of optimism after the war with a lot of people coming in with different ideas and perspectives on ways to grow the state.”
Today’s Valley
Youngtown, Ariz., the first age-restricted community in the United States, opened in 1954. Developers, realizing that there was a market to be served, started feverishly building more retirement communities, the most notable being those under the Sun City name, constructed by Del Webb.
The advent of the air-conditioner has made the aggressive heat in the desert livable, while the procurement and management of water has made life here flourish. However, Sturgeon says, “People often forget we are in a desert. When water gets low at Roosevelt Dam, people worry. Then when it rains again, people forget.”
Politically, she says, today there seems to be a lot of different factions. Past legislators, many of whom have been interviewed for Sturgeon’s department’s oral history project, paint a different picture of the Legislature than the one they served in.
One thing that was said to the department’s interviewer was: “They won’t sit down and work on a problem until it is worked out, they will draw lines and stand on either side.”
As a historian, Sturgeon has the luxury of looking at today’s issues and comparing them with those from the past. She says that they really aren’t that different and that the past provides a blue print for navigating the state through today’s tough areas.
“We keep stumbling over the same problems,” says Sturgeon. “There are decisions for the future of Arizona that are being made that would be best served by looking at the state’s past. People don’t do that very often now.”