August 2025 Arts + Culture Spotlight: Arizona Heritage Center
August 2025 Arts + Culture Spotlight:
Arizona Heritage Center
Despite being the 48th state to join the Union, and relatively young at only 113 years old, Arizona is rich in history. From the Indigenous Period before the Spanish arrived to the modern Statehood era, Arizona is so much more than the last century. A visit to the Arizona Heritage Center in Tempe, located in the Papago Park area, is a fun (and air-conditioned) way to discover that history.
The Arizona Historical Society currently manages a number of historic and cultural heritage sites throughout the state: the Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park in Tempe, the Arizona History Museum in Tucson (both of which have just joined the Culture Pass program), and historic properties like the Strawberry Schoolhouse, the Charles O. Brown House, Fort Bowie National Historic Site, Tombstone Historical District, and Jerome State Historic Park. To learn more about the AZHS, visit their website here.
Visitors to the Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park can see key artifacts from Arizona’s history ranging from rocks and minerals to Santa Ana’s uniform to Barry Goldwater’s ham radio office, completely recreated down to the last detail, as if he just stepped out to get some fresh night air.
Arizona is full of stories, and the story of Sen. Barry Goldwater’s MARS station during the Vietnam War is a notable one. He was the only MARS radio station stateside that G.I.s in Vietnam could get through to. Not only that, but Barry Goldwater and his team used this as a way to connect the soldiers with their loved ones back home. One soldier said: “…Mars was there for me in Vietnam, and I want to thank all the folks who let me say ‘Hello Ma, over’ and there was nothing better than to luck out and get into the Goldwater Net, and get the free call home in the states from our good friend Barry…Thank you folks, well done.” Another said “…The MARS site was great, because it allow[ed] me to call home, when propagation allowed. We liked to make radio contact with a station in Arizona supported by Barry Goldwater, because he paid the cost of phone calls from his station to people’s homes.”
This is just one of the incredible Arizona stories the Arizona Heritage Center tells its visitors. To me, there is nothing more enjoyable than learning about history through storytelling, and museums are one of the best ways to experience this.
As an arts and cultural partner of the Act One Culture Pass program, public and academic library card holders for program member libraries in Central Arizona may check out a pass for the Arizona Heritage Center good for admission for two and valid for one week upon checkout. For more information about the museum, please visit their website. For more information about Culture Pass, such as which locations are available at your local library for checkout, visit https://act1az.org/culturepass.
https://arizonahistoricalsociety.org/museum/arizona-heritage-center/
1300 N College Ave Tempe, AZ 85288 | 480.929.0292
Photography by Casimir J. Jaworski
