Photo taken on what is now Arizona Biltmore property with Piestewa Peak in the background.

It was the Roaring 20s and Arizona’s McArthur brothers, owners of the largest automobile dealership in the southwest and founders of Arizona’s first radio station (now KTAR), decided that Arizona was destined to become a tourist destination.

Acting upon this belief, the brothers turned one of their Dodge trucks into an RV by adding bunks, seating, an accompanying supply car and chef, and Arizona’a Wonderbus Tours was born.

The Wonderbus Tours were met with such early-on success that the McArthur brothers decided to build the very first resort in the city of Phoenix.

With majority investor William Wrigley, Charles and Warren McArthur convinced their older brother, architect Albert Chase McArthur, to move to Arizona and in 1924 they began their plans to build what would become the Arizona Biltmore.

With architectural cues from Frank Lloyd Wright, the Arizona Biltmore opened in February of 1929 and has since become one of Arizona’s most cherished landmarks and one of the world’s hallmark destination luxury resorts.

This year the Arizona Biltmore celebrates its 84th birthday.  And just think, it all began with a dream, a primitive RV, and the beautiful Sonoran desert serving as a gracious host.

It just shows you what a heaping helping of American ingenuity can accomplish.

Link: Arizona Biltmore

Note: photographs courtesy of the Arizona Biltmore

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