Scottsdale has always run more events than its size could justify, and most of them don’t last. A few dead ones are well enough documented to have their own pages. Most of the rest survive as a single line in a newspaper column, a souvenir program on eBay, or a photo caption in the Historical Society’s files. This note is a finding aid for those.
For each event we give what a source actually confirms, what remains unknown, and where the answer probably lives. The best published source on almost all of them is Joan Fudala, now the city’s historian. Two of her “Remember When” columns do most of the work here: one listing forty facts about WestWorld at 40, and one on a century of Scottsdale holidays. Where she gives a single line, we have a single line.
Already written up
These defunct events have full pages:
- The Sunshine Festival (1951–1952). The merchants’ winter festival that the Jaycees renamed Parada del Sol.
- The Scottsdale National Indian Arts Exhibition. A juried show of the 1960s and 1970s. Its fourth edition ran in early 1965 at the Executive House.
- Mighty Mud Mania (1976–2019). It began as the Shout It Out Decathlon, a Parks & Recreation program for kids, and was held every year through 2019.
- The Tradition at Desert Mountain (1989–2001). A senior-tour major on the Cochise course.
- The Thunderbird Balloon Classic. It began on the Thunderbird campus in Glendale in 1975, moved to WestWorld in 1991, and was cancelled after 2006.
- Native Trails (2003–2019). Free noontime Native song and dance on the Civic Center.
- The Grand Prix of Scottsdale (2015–2017). Cyclekarts racing through Old Town.
The rest are below, roughly in the order they disappeared.
The Salad Bowl and its queen (1948 to early 1950s)
What’s known. From 1948 through the early 1950s, the Salad Bowl college football game was played in the Valley around New Year’s. The visiting teams stayed at Scottsdale-area resorts, and a Scottsdale High School student was chosen to compete for Salad Bowl Queen.
What isn’t. Which resorts housed which teams, which years Scottsdale was involved, and whether the Scottsdale candidate ever won. The game itself was a Phoenix event; the Scottsdale angle is the part nobody has written down.
Where it lives. December and January issues of the Arizona Republic from 1948 to 1954. Scottsdale High yearbooks for the queen candidates. Resort guest registers, if any survive. The Scottsdale Historical Society would be the first call.
The Santa Claus Fairy Tale Parade and the Kiwanis carol sing (1950s)
What’s known. A December 1955 photo in The Arizonian shows bands from six Scottsdale elementary schools in the Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce’s Santa Claus Fairy Tale Parade: Kaibab, Kiva, Ingleside, Loloma, Tonto and Tonalea. Bands, floats and costumed children marched to Scottsdale Stadium, where they got candy and cookies. In the late 1950s the Scottsdale Kiwanis Club, chartered in November 1946, sponsored an annual Christmas Carol Community Sing. The 1958 sing was held at Pima Plaza in Old Town.
What isn’t. The parade’s first and last years, its route, and whether 1955 was typical. How many years the carol sing ran.
Where it lives. The Arizonian and the Scottsdale Progress, December issues 1953–1962, on microfilm at Scottsdale Public Library’s Civic Center branch. The Scottsdale Area Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club for their own minutes and scrapbooks. The Historical Society’s photo files. For the decade around it, see the 1950s.
Las Posadas on the Civic Center (1970s)
What’s known. In the 1970s the Scottsdale Parks & Recreation Department co-hosted Las Posadas, with a parade and an event on the Civic Center. Fudala describes it as a version of the Miracle of the Roses. That pageant was phased out in the early 1970s, so Las Posadas looks like the city-supported successor during the years the older pageant was dark. That is our reading of the timing, not a documented handoff.
What isn’t. Who the co-host was. The parade route. Whether it ran every year of the decade. When and why it stopped.
Where it lives. Parks & Recreation annual reports and council minutes from the 1970s, through the City Clerk. Scottsdale Progress December issues. Our Lady of Perpetual Help’s parish records, if the parish was the partner. Oral histories with the Corral, Gonzales and Herrera families.
Scottsdale Shakespeare festivals (1970s–1990s?)
What’s known. Very little. Scottsdale Center for the Arts is said to have hosted Shakespeare festivals, and a troupe there is said to have been renamed the Arizona Shakespeare Festival in the early 1990s. Both claims come from a single theater-history website, and we haven’t confirmed either.
What isn’t. Nearly everything: years, producers, plays, venues, and the relationship, if any, to today’s Valley Shakespeare companies.
Where it lives. Scottsdale Arts, the nonprofit that has run the Center since 1987 (the city ran it before that). Season brochures from 1975 to 2000 would settle the question in an afternoon. The phoenixtheaterhistory.com archive is a starting point for the troupe names.
Scottsdale Thunder, pro arena polo (1988)
What’s known. In 1988 the city’s horse park was renamed HorseWorld; it became WestWorld in 1990. That year HorseWorld was home to the Scottsdale Thunder, a professional arena polo team. Matches were held on Saturday evenings from September through November 1988.
What isn’t. The league, the roster, the owners, the attendance, and whether there was a second season. Arena polo is played in an enclosed arena rather than on a grass field, which made it a natural fit for a horse park at night. It has nothing to do with today’s polo championships on WestWorld’s grass fields, which began decades later.
Where it lives. The Scottsdale Progress sports pages, fall 1988. WestWorld’s event files at the City of Scottsdale. The U.S. Polo Association’s records of arena leagues.
The International Cowboy & Indian Congress (October 1994)
What’s known. It was held at WestWorld in October 1994. Highlights included a Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and a Buffalo Soldier Boot Camp. In the same month, on October 3, 1994, the City Council met on the patio of WestWorld’s Brett’s Barn and voted to create the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. October 1994 was a busy month at the grounds.
What isn’t. Who organized it, how many days it ran, and whether “congress” meant a gathering of performers, a trade show or both. As far as we can tell it happened once.
Where it lives. Arizona Republic and Scottsdale Progress, September and October 1994. WestWorld’s event contracts for that fall.
National Festival of the West
What’s known. Fudala lists it among the notable events WestWorld has hosted. Beyond that line we have confirmed nothing: not the years, the organizer, the program, or whether WestWorld was its only home. It has no Wikipedia page.
What isn’t. All of it. The name suggests a Western-heritage gathering, but that’s the name talking, not a source.
Where it lives. Arizona Republic entertainment listings of the 1990s and 2000s. The library at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West. Arizona chapters of the Western Music Association, whose members would have played it. WestWorld’s event files.
Cactus Cup mountain-bike race
What’s known. Fudala also lists a “Cactus Cup bike race” among WestWorld events. That is all we have confirmed.
What isn’t. Years, organizer, courses and winners, and whether WestWorld was its only venue.
Where it lives. Mountain Bike Action and VeloNews back issues, which covered the national race calendar. WestWorld’s event files at the City of Scottsdale.
The McDowell Mountain Music Festival (from 2004)
What’s known. The first edition was held at WestWorld in 2004.
What isn’t. Whether it stayed at WestWorld, where it went if it moved, its nonprofit model and beneficiaries, its headliners by year, and when it ended. We have seen each of these answered online without a source we’d stand behind. It has no Wikipedia page.
Where it lives. The Phoenix New Times archive, which covered the Valley’s festival circuit. Wayback Machine snapshots of the festival’s own website. The Concert Archives listing for WestWorld.
The Beat the Heat Race (from 2013)
What’s known. The first Beat the Heat Race was run at WestWorld on June 22, 2013. It was 104 degrees, and the race drew 1,248 runners.
What isn’t. How many more editions there were, who organized it, and whether it moved or just stopped. Running a June race in Scottsdale is either brave or a marketing idea, and we’d like to know which.
Where it lives. Timing-company results archives, which usually keep every year of a race. Scottsdale Independent and Arizona Republic sports briefs. WestWorld’s event calendar archive.
The rest of WestWorld’s attic
Fudala’s WestWorld list includes several more events about which we know nothing beyond the name: a dragster mud bog, a llama sale, an open-air summer rodeo series in the 1990s, SolFest, HarvestFest and the Shrine Circus. Each is one line in one column. If you went to any of them, the Historical Society would like to hear from you, and so would we.
How to help
These events vanished because nobody thought to write them down while they were running. If you have a program, a poster, a race shirt or a photograph:
- Take it to the Scottsdale Historical Society at the Little Red Schoolhouse.
- Or ask Scottsdale Public Library’s local-history staff to scan it.
The microfilm can tell us when and where. Only the people who were there can tell us what any of it was like.