Famous faces N
History-makers who have called the West Valley home
for them. Luminaries have been from all realms, including arts, educa- tion, politics and sports. Entrepreneur Billy Moore was instrumental in the establishment of the community of Coldwater, which later became Avondale. He settled the area in 1895 and established a stage coach stop and built a saloon and a general store. Moore was the initial Coldwater postmaster.
Moore Heritage Days celebration. William “Buckey” O’Neill once owned the Buckeye Irrigation
Co. and extended the canal to Arlington Valley. O’Neill went on to gain fame as one of Teddy Roosevelt’s
Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. O’Neill was killed in battle during the charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba. Since those pre-statehood days, numerous luminaries have been associated with the area.
Arts Famed author Upton Sinclair once lived in Buckeye. It is not certain exactly when Sinclair moved to Buckeye. Anthony Arthur’s biography Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair (2006, Random House) states that Sinclair “bought a tiny house in ... Buckeye” in 1950. He was still living there a decade later as certifi ed by several letters to the editor published in 1959 and 1960 issues of Time magazine that were signed “Upton Sinclair, Buckeye, Ariz.” Sinclair is best known for The Jungle, a book exposing unsani- tary conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking plants.
V12 The city used to honor its founder with an annual Billy
otable people have had a connection to the South- west Valley since before Arizona attained statehood in 1912; some of them through living or working here, and others through having landmarks named
Lt. Frank Luke Jr., the fi rst U.S. aviator to be awarded a Medal of Honor, stands next to his plane in an undated photo. Luke Air Force Base was named in his honor.
His exposé created a public outcry that paved the way for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat inspec- tion Act in 1906, which required the federal inspection of meat products. T e 2007 Academy Award-nominated motion picture T ere Will Be Blood was based on Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!
Goodyear in the mid-1950s and was a fl ight instructor at Luke Air Force Base in nearby Glendale Luke Air Force Base is named for Frank Luke Jr., the fi rst aviator to be awarded a Medal of Honor. T e Wigwam resort in Litchfi eld Park recently named the fi rst hole of its Patriots Course in honor of Luke.
Education
was replaced in 1955 by Agua Fria Union High School. Coor was president of ASU from 1990 to 2002. Lattie Coor Elementary School in Avondale is named for
Lattie Coor was a graduate of Litchfi eld High School, which
Coor’s father. Cindy McCain, wife of Arizona senator and former presiden- tial candidate John McCain, taught special education at Agua Fria High School in the late 1970s. Michael Anderson School in Avondale is named for the NASA
100 Vista — West Valley View, Avondale, Arizona years
See NOTABLE on V31 Spring/Summer 2012
Aviation Astronaut Frank Borman, commander of Apollo 8, lived in
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