Thornton Wilder's Desert Oasis

For the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Douglas, Arizona was a place to "refresh the wells" and drive into the sunset

  • By Tom Miller
  • Smithsonian magazine, July 2009, Subscribe
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Douglas Arizona 1949
Thornton Wilder discovered Douglas, Arizona, when his T-Bird broke down. (Douglas Historical Society)

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Thornton Wilder

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The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder

by Thornton Wilder, Jackson R. Bryer, Robin Gibbs Wilder
Harper Collins, 2008

The Eighth Day

by Thornton Wilder
HarperPerennial, 1967

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It was here that he established a routine of reading and writing. His agenda included Lope de Vega, Finnegans Wake and refreshing his Greek. He'd set his work aside around noon and stroll to the post office for his mail. Lunch was usually a sandwich of his own making, followed by more work. He'd take an occasional jaunt into Agua Prieta, the Mexican city adjoining Douglas, or explore other nearby towns. Dinner would usually find him at the Gadsden, the Palm Grove or the Pioneer Café. He'd end most evenings chatting in a bar. "My plan is working splendidly," he wrote to Isabel. Back in Connecticut, his sister told callers he was somewhere in the Southwest recovering from exhaustion.

A typical Wilder report: "Midnight: Went up to Top Hat to close the bar...new bowling alley restaurant and bar has stolen business from all over town." At the end of one letter, he wrote, "Now I must get this to the P.O and then go to the Gadsden Bar and get a hair of the dog that bit me last night." Sometimes, when Douglas bartenders announced last call, Wilder and his drinking buddies would cross the border a mile to the south to continue their drinking in Mexico.

Wilder came to douglas with no grand work in mind, theatrical or literary. Yet slowly, an idea began taking shape, one more suited for the page than the stage—a murder mystery, one that began in a mining town and, like its author, traveled far and wide.

In the winter of 1963 he felt confident enough to divulge his book's beginnings to intimates back East. He described his manuscript, eventually titled The Eighth Day, "as though Little Women was being mulled over by Dostoyevsky." Soon he hit his stride: "Every new day is so exciting because I have no idea beforehand what will come out of the fountain-pen," he wrote (and underlined) to his sister. It opens in early 20th-century "Coaltown," Illinois, and spans continents, generations and philosophies. A convicted murderer escapes from custody and, as a fugitive, develops a new personality. After 15 years writing exclusively for the stage, Thornton Wilder was once again writing a novel.

At least once a month he would drive to Tucson, where, as "T. Niven Wilder," he used the University of Arizona library, bought the New Yorker ("It continues its decline," he wrote home) and visited Ash Alley 241, a folk music club. He enjoyed the long drives not merely for the change of pace, but also because, lacking a radio in his apartment, he could listen to the news as he drove. During the Cuban missile crisis that October, he drove 50 miles to dine at the Wagon Wheel in Tombstone in part, he acknowledged to a friend, because "I wanted to hear what the air could tell me of Cuba and the United Nations." For Christmas he gave himself a record player from Sears and bought recordings of Mozart string quartets.

The citizens of Douglas thought Wilder a most amiable odd duck, recalls Nan Ames, whose husband owned the Round-Up, a bar the writer visited regularly. People nodded to him on the street, and he nodded back. On occasion he'd drop by the telephone company to make a long-distance call—he had no phone at his apartment—and provoked some suspicion on the part of the local operator, who detected an odd accent in the voice of this man who invariably and unaccountably wore a coat and tie.

Wilder would have an occasional drink with Louie, the town engineer, Pete from the Highway Patrol or Eddie, the Federal Aviation Administration man at the local airport. Among his acquaintances he counted Rosie, the Gadsden elevator operator, and Gladys, the cook at the Palm Grove. He wrote home that Thelma's daughter Peggy, who had gotten fired from a bar, married a fellow named Jerry. He learned that Smitty, a bartender at the Gadsden, was hospitalized with stomach ulcers and that Smitty's wife spent "a good deal of time on a high stool at Dawson's." He referred to his nighttime coterie as "the Little Group of Serious Drinkers."

He was more observant than judgmental. "Peggy was fired, I guess," he wrote of the merry-go-round among tavern employees. "And is replaced by Haydee—there's this floating population of waitresses—bar attendants— each several times divorced; each with several children...our geishas." The bar crowd's intrigues sufficed. "I've met no 'cultivated' folk," he wrote a friend a year after moving to Douglas, "and I have not missed them."


The playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder won three Pulitzer Prizes, the admiration of his peers and success at the box office and bookstore. Ever accessible, he gave lectures, responded to queries about his plays and even acted in them. But eventually he tired of strangers asking him what the ladders in Our Town symbolized or what metaphor readers should take from The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Wilder had been so famous for so long that, nearing 65, he felt worn down. He wanted a break, he told the Associated Press in March 1962, so that he could "refresh the wells by getting away from it all in some quiet place."

Wilder's travels over the years had taken him to spas, aboard cruise liners and to world capitals, where he mingled with the intelligentsia. This time, though, he sought an unpretentious town in which to settle for a while, envisioning, he told the AP, "a little white frame house with a rickety front porch where I can laze away in the shade in a straight-backed wooden rocking chair." It would be a place where he could belly up to a local bar and hear real people talk about day-to-day trivialities. Most of all, he wanted a place where he could read and write at his own pace. He hoped, his nephew Tappan Wilder says, for "solitude without loneliness."

Shortly after noon on May 20, 1962, Wilder backed his five-year-old blue Thunderbird convertible out of the driveway of his Connecticut home and lighted out for the Great Southwest. After ten days on the road and almost 2,500 miles, the Thunderbird broke down on U.S. Highway 80, just east of Douglas, Arizona, a town of some 12,000 on the Mexican border about 120 miles southeast of Tucson. Douglas lay on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, and summer temperatures there routinely exceeded 100 degrees, broken only by occasional thunderstorms.

Wilder checked into the Hotel Gadsden, where rooms cost from $5 to $12 a night. Named for the United States diplomat who, in 1853, negotiated with Mexico for the land Douglas sits on, the Gadsden has an ornate, high ceiling with a stained-glass skylight. Its staircase is of Italian marble. Its restaurant offered a fried cornmeal breakfast with butter and syrup for 55 cents and a lunch of calves' brains, green chili and scrambled eggs with mashed potatoes for $1.25.

The Phelps Dodge copper smelter just west of town dominated the landscape—and the local economy. Established at the beginning of the 20th century by mining executive James Douglas, the town was laid out in a grid with streets wide enough for a 20-mule team to make a U-turn. It mixed an Anglo upper and merchant class with a strong, union-oriented Mexican-American working class; schools were loosely segregated.

Wilder informed his sister Isabel, who was handling his business affairs back East, that he found his fellow Gadsden bar patrons that first night an amiable lot. No one asked him about ambiguity in the poems of T. S. Eliot or nonlinearity in the fiction of John Dos Passos. He extended his stay for another day, then a week, followed by a month, finally staying more than two months at the Gadsden.

"Arizona is beautiful," he wrote to his friends writer-director Garson Kanin and his wife, actress Ruth Gordon, "oh, overwhelmingly beautiful." Wilder wrote frequently to friends and family, ruminating on literature, theater and his solitary life. He started a ritual of sunset drives into the nearby Sonoran Desert, and when he drove farther in search of good food—to Bisbee, Tombstone or Sierra Vista—he marveled at the "grandeur of the ride, an hour into the Book of Genesis." He introduced himself by his middle name, Niven, and people called him "Doc" or "Professor," perhaps because of the many questions he asked.

In early August, Wilder rented a small three-room furnished flat on the top floor of a two-story apartment house at the southwest corner of 12th Street and D Avenue. It had everything he needed: two single beds—one for himself, the other for his papers—a divan, an overstuffed chair, four gas burners atop a stove he was afraid to ignite, an unsteady card table on which to work and Art Nouveau lamps.

It was here that he established a routine of reading and writing. His agenda included Lope de Vega, Finnegans Wake and refreshing his Greek. He'd set his work aside around noon and stroll to the post office for his mail. Lunch was usually a sandwich of his own making, followed by more work. He'd take an occasional jaunt into Agua Prieta, the Mexican city adjoining Douglas, or explore other nearby towns. Dinner would usually find him at the Gadsden, the Palm Grove or the Pioneer Café. He'd end most evenings chatting in a bar. "My plan is working splendidly," he wrote to Isabel. Back in Connecticut, his sister told callers he was somewhere in the Southwest recovering from exhaustion.

A typical Wilder report: "Midnight: Went up to Top Hat to close the bar...new bowling alley restaurant and bar has stolen business from all over town." At the end of one letter, he wrote, "Now I must get this to the P.O and then go to the Gadsden Bar and get a hair of the dog that bit me last night." Sometimes, when Douglas bartenders announced last call, Wilder and his drinking buddies would cross the border a mile to the south to continue their drinking in Mexico.

Wilder came to douglas with no grand work in mind, theatrical or literary. Yet slowly, an idea began taking shape, one more suited for the page than the stage—a murder mystery, one that began in a mining town and, like its author, traveled far and wide.

In the winter of 1963 he felt confident enough to divulge his book's beginnings to intimates back East. He described his manuscript, eventually titled The Eighth Day, "as though Little Women was being mulled over by Dostoyevsky." Soon he hit his stride: "Every new day is so exciting because I have no idea beforehand what will come out of the fountain-pen," he wrote (and underlined) to his sister. It opens in early 20th-century "Coaltown," Illinois, and spans continents, generations and philosophies. A convicted murderer escapes from custody and, as a fugitive, develops a new personality. After 15 years writing exclusively for the stage, Thornton Wilder was once again writing a novel.

At least once a month he would drive to Tucson, where, as "T. Niven Wilder," he used the University of Arizona library, bought the New Yorker ("It continues its decline," he wrote home) and visited Ash Alley 241, a folk music club. He enjoyed the long drives not merely for the change of pace, but also because, lacking a radio in his apartment, he could listen to the news as he drove. During the Cuban missile crisis that October, he drove 50 miles to dine at the Wagon Wheel in Tombstone in part, he acknowledged to a friend, because "I wanted to hear what the air could tell me of Cuba and the United Nations." For Christmas he gave himself a record player from Sears and bought recordings of Mozart string quartets.

The citizens of Douglas thought Wilder a most amiable odd duck, recalls Nan Ames, whose husband owned the Round-Up, a bar the writer visited regularly. People nodded to him on the street, and he nodded back. On occasion he'd drop by the telephone company to make a long-distance call—he had no phone at his apartment—and provoked some suspicion on the part of the local operator, who detected an odd accent in the voice of this man who invariably and unaccountably wore a coat and tie.

Wilder would have an occasional drink with Louie, the town engineer, Pete from the Highway Patrol or Eddie, the Federal Aviation Administration man at the local airport. Among his acquaintances he counted Rosie, the Gadsden elevator operator, and Gladys, the cook at the Palm Grove. He wrote home that Thelma's daughter Peggy, who had gotten fired from a bar, married a fellow named Jerry. He learned that Smitty, a bartender at the Gadsden, was hospitalized with stomach ulcers and that Smitty's wife spent "a good deal of time on a high stool at Dawson's." He referred to his nighttime coterie as "the Little Group of Serious Drinkers."

He was more observant than judgmental. "Peggy was fired, I guess," he wrote of the merry-go-round among tavern employees. "And is replaced by Haydee—there's this floating population of waitresses—bar attendants— each several times divorced; each with several children...our geishas." The bar crowd's intrigues sufficed. "I've met no 'cultivated' folk," he wrote a friend a year after moving to Douglas, "and I have not missed them."

Wilder accepted an invitation to dinner at the home of Jim Keegan, the town's surgeon, and his wife, Gwen. While she prepared spaghetti in the kitchen, Wilder peppered the doctor about his profession. "He brought a bottle of wine," Gwen recalled recently. "I loved his laugh. He was a very curious guy—easy to talk to, full of knowledge and life. He was very vibrant."

The relentlessly curious Wilder listened to his Douglas acquaintances talk about how to make soap and which drinks go with kippered herring. He asked a lot of questions, and many of the answers found their way into The Eighth Day. "He wanted to know how one would set up a boardinghouse," Nan Ames recalls. "He was not as down-to-earth as most people in the world. He was learning to be casual. Ask questions—that's what he did best."

For all the goodwill and friendly respect Douglas offered, Wilder began to detect an undercurrent "bubbling with hatred." At a bar one night, a rancher pounded the table with his fist and declared: "Mrs. Roosevelt did more harm to the world than ten Hitlers." A woman who worked at the telephone office asked another townsperson, "Who is that Mr. Wilder, is he a Communist?" Just after the assassination of President Kennedy, a fellow at the Gadsden bar said, "Well, he had it coming to him, didn't he?"

After a year and a half, Wilder left Douglas, Arizona, on November 27, 1963, never to return. He traveled to Washington, D.C. to receive the Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson, then to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for his brother Amos' retirement from the Harvard Divinity School faculty. The Eighth Day, after considerable expansion and revision, was published in 1967. By far Wilder's longest and most ambitious book, it became a best seller and won the National Book Award. Tappan Wilder, the author's nephew and literary executor, says "he went to Douglas, Arizona, as a playwright and came home a novelist."

Who among us doesn't seek a hideaway, a place without distractions, a neutral space in which to do whatever it is that nurtures us—solitude without loneliness? Thornton Wilder regained his literary voice in remote Arizona, and for him his temporary hometown's name became synonymous with rejuvenation. More than five years after departing the Arizona desert he wrote a friend: "Ever since I keep hunting for another 'Douglas.' "

Tom Miller has written ten books about the American Southwest and Latin America, including The Panama Hat Trail.


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Additional Sources

The Thornton Wilder letters, ©2009 The Wilder Family LLC. By arrangement with The Wilder Family LLC and The Barbara Hogenson Agency, Inc. All rights reserved. Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the Garson Kanin Estate hold the Thornton Wilder letters quoted here.


 

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Comments (18)

IT WAS GREAT GROWING UP IN DOUGLAS MY FANILY RAN THE PAUL LIME PLANT FOR OVE THREE GENERATIONS . MY DAD WORK THERE FOR 48 YEARS ALONE . I WILL RETIRE THERE WHEN I TURN 55 . CANT WAIT .

Posted by RUDY AREVALO on April 19,2012 | 07:24 PM

My dad was Pete the Highway Patrolman, actually MVD ( Motor Vehicle Division) for the State of Arizona. I had met Thornton Wilder when I was 9 years old. I recall he sold his T-Bird to his gardener for a $1.00 before he left. My dad was a WWII combat veteran in France & Germany and was awarded the Bronze Star for his heroric actions on 16 March 1945 with the 63rd Division, Company "L", 254th Infantry Regiment in the vincinity of Ensheim, Germany. Pete is still alive as of 8Oct2011.

Posted by Pete Hansen on October 8,2011 | 07:50 PM

I grew up in Douglas, and attended school there. I concur with those who said that Douglas was a wonderful place to grow up in. The names that surfaced as I read this article brought me back to a time when I was a child and young man. Chief of Police Bowden was head of the police department as long as I can remember. He was an interesting man who always wore a white stetson hat, and he too, frequented the Round-Up Bar, as did my dad, George Brizzolara. The Pioneer Cafe was adjacent to the Round-Up and the famous B&P Palace which was a bar/pool hall with spitoons that were regularly used. This bar was truly a historical site. My dad was the chef at the Palm Grove from 1947 to 1958. He likewise was the chef of George's Italian Villa which was across the street from the YMCA.

Posted by Gene Brizzolara on August 25,2011 | 10:47 PM

To Dianne (Lucas) Geddis,

Your mom made the best Chocolate Chip cookies. I haven't tasted any since i was a kid. My sis use to work in the rectory at Immaculate Conception. Your mom would bring a big plate of cookies and she was my CCD teacher. BEST CC cookies ever. Big HUGs to her.
Great article, I love to read positive things about my hometown.

Posted by Veronica on August 25,2011 | 03:23 PM

My dad spent time in the late thirties near douglas. He frequently mentioned ending the evening at a place called the Top Hat.

Where, and what exactly was the Top Hat? thanx

Posted by J W Freeman on October 23,2009 | 11:36 AM

Great article on Thorton Wilder, although I think the photo of G Ave. was not dated correctly.

I was a young police officer ( 22 to 26 years of age) in Douglas from 1962 to 1966 and at times was charged with taking Mr. Wilder home from the Gadsen Hotel bar, or from one across the street. I once took him out to the San Bernadino Ranch, once the home of Texas John Slaughter and later the home of Stan Jones of "Ghost Rider" fame and other music and tv. I was once a reporter on the Douglas Dispatch and knew I was in the company of a "Great" writer.
Douglas was the home to a number of characters (like police Chief Percy Bowden and more), but it was a great and productive community and a good place to live.
I knew most of the people mentioned in the story.
Andrew Murphy

Posted by Andrew (Andy) Murphy on August 10,2009 | 05:47 PM

Great article Tom, at long last! I believe you must have spent about four years on this piece, at least.

It was certainly well worth it, and I wish there were more authors who love their craft enough to take the time to produce a gem like this. It takes the reader into the down, lets him meet the people, and get inside of an amazing writer and see what made him tick.

The descriptions of his daily writing routine reminded me of Hemingway. As a writer, I am always interested on how others actually get the job done.

Thanks also, for recommending that I read all the comments. I visited Douglas many times before I retired from the Arizona Historical Society, and you certainly captured the town pride and how much people love the place.

You certainly did many people a favor by introducing Douglas to the world, and bringing back fond memories for those far from their home town.

I purchased a copy of The Eighth Day when you first told me about it, now I guess it's time to read it!

Look forward to your next piece, hope it is not so long in coming next time . . .

Jim Turner, www.jimturnerhistorian.org

Posted by Jim Turner Historian on July 24,2009 | 07:25 PM

My mom is Gwen, who was quoted in the article. She has very fond memories of Mr. Wilder, and their long, drawn out conversations at the kitchen table. I wish I was able to remember those times, but I was just too young.

This article brought my mom, who is 81 now and still producing killer spaghetti, tremendous joy and comfort.

Posted by Dianne (Lucas) Geddis on July 24,2009 | 02:41 PM

i don't care what cira the photo of my home town is,
it was good to see it. It brought back many great memories of my hometown, Douglas,Az

Posted by DAN on July 24,2009 | 01:22 PM

While I was a student at Douglas High School my English teacher, Mr. Landon, mentioned that Wilder was living in town. Actually I guess he lived about five blocks from my house on the same street.

The song "Ghost Riders in the Sky" was written by a person who lived out past "D" hill. He was living on a ranch to regain his health.

Tom

Posted by Tom Bates on July 20,2009 | 12:25 PM

I just wish the author of the article would spent more time describing, at least briefly, Wilder's best pearls, which brought him a Pulitzer prize. Those creations are awesome, unbelievably intriguing and interesting to read. I suggest everybody should read it.

Posted by Oleg on July 14,2009 | 01:24 PM

My parents, my younger sister Nancy and I moved to Douglas in the summer of 1948. My father purchased a sporting goods store directly across from the Gadsden Hotel. Douglas was in its heyday during the late 40's and the 50's and into the 60's.

Phelps Dodge Corporation, one of the giants of the Copper industry has its Western Headquarters in Douglas as well as a large copper ore smelting plant. The concentrate mined in Bisbee, about 25 miles to the west was transported via train to Douglas several times a day and was smelted in the large smelter in Douglas. One could see the twin smoke stacks at the facility just 2 miles west of downtown Douglas from miles around. The white plooms of smoke rising night and day. At night when the slag was dumped by remote controlled trains the sky and the smoke would light up from the red and orange and yellow reflecting from the dumping of the slag cars. The bright colors would slowly dim over several hours but were always a point of curiosity and interest to all that passed by the smelter. The Douglas Drive–In Theater was across the highway from the smelter and while watching a movie it was common to see the bright glow of the slag dumping light up the interior of our autos as we sat watching the latest movie.
In the 40’s – early 60’s, Douglas was a great place to grow up... no crime, no drugs, no problems even though it was a "border town". Most of us never locked our doors! The fence between the two countries was 3 strands of barb wire if there was any fence at all. We had less than a half dozen border patrol agents and a few customs officers at the border. There was no influx of illegal immigrants. Mexicans and Americans freely crossed the border like it was crossing the street.

I am limited to 2000 characters so this is part 1 of 2

Shields Thomas Fair former Douglas resident

Posted by Shields Thomas Fair on July 14,2009 | 10:02 AM

My wife and I have recently spent time in Douglas, meeting the people, eating at the restaurants, dealing with both Douglas and Cochise County public officials, etc. We like it very much and plan to build there. You can have Sierra Vista with its strip malls and six lanes of traffic. You can have the "new money" and the pretentious plastic people who judge you on how well you have manicured your lawn. During our stays at Douglas we have met more good hearted down-to-earth people who are living their lives at a pace which preserves the humanity blown away by the rat race. Also, there is a steady stream of creative artists, musicians, educators, etc. recognizing what is there and settling in.
Much of what Wilder appreciated is still there.

Posted by Robert Constant on July 12,2009 | 11:42 PM

To Robert Worth: I believe the photograph in question is *not* the one of Douglas, it is the one below of Thornton Wilder himself, taken about 1949. No claim is made for the date of the photo of Douglas. Note that the caption reads "Wilder (below;c. 1949) discovered Douglas . . ."

Posted by Ken M Williams on July 9,2009 | 01:16 AM

Yep, I concur, Dougles used to be a great little quiet town. (It would be interesting to find out if there is any truth to the rumor that Louis L'amour also used to reside there and write books?)

But, like pretty much everything, time does change things and not always for the better. Douglas has changed from the days when Phelps Dodge used to keep the local economy thriving. Those were 'new' dollars coming into town.

Back then, everybody's lawns were manicured, the roofs were all taken care off, and the fences were for decoration and not for security. Now, two of the biggest employers are Govt agencies. (The Border Patrol and the prisons.) That is not 'new' money coming into town, it is recycled money, i.e. tax $.

And the nature of having those two industries there leads one to beleive that, like most border towns, it is somewhat of a war zone.

Still.....Douglas is a town to visit! There are several Historical Monuments there, and the Dove-of-the-Desert, the Gadsden Hotel, alone is well worth the trip.

Please do go there - look for the culture - investigate the history - and enjoy the town!

Go Bulldogs!

Posted by Keith Stanford on July 4,2009 | 04:33 PM

I am surprised at the sloppy research conducted by your publication covering the photo of Douglas, Arizona. You state that the photo is "c.1949" when in fact there are at least two 1954 and a couple of 1953 model autos in the photo. Care to comment?

Posted by Robert Worth on June 28,2009 | 12:17 AM

Come to Douglas. Visit the HOTEL..Robin is a great host!!
We also have many famous ranches that have been in the area for over 100 years protecting the land from development and keeping the open spaces open!! The Cowbelles a women's organization that promotes the education of the ranching history and beef education. We will celebrate 70 years this October. We were the first women's group to do be organzied on Oct. 17th 1939.

Posted by Sue on June 25,2009 | 08:48 PM

Great article! The Gadsden Hotel is still there in Douglas, and is a great place to stay. I really doubt that much has changed at that hotel since Wilder lodged there. The bar is original, the elevators still have human operators. It truly is a time capsule.

Posted by Carey Granger on June 22,2009 | 10:45 PM




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