Cool breeze: Marking 110 years of air conditioning

PHOENIX — Today marks the 110th anniversary of air conditioning and the Valley would be a very different place without it.

The Valley is home to about 4 million people. Without air conditioning, state historian Marshall Trimble said that number would be closer to one resident in the Valley of the Sun.

Trimble said affordable air conditioning was part of a package that led Arizona into the modern age.

“Motorola came here in 1949, kicked off the computers and high tech,” he said. “That and affordable air conditioning about 1950. And another thing that came in about that time were the swimming pools.”

Air conditioning did more than just make the Valley livable, Trimble said. It actually wrecked a lot of marriages because “pre-A/C” husbands would ship the family off in the summertime.

“The very wealthy would send the wife and kids away from the Valley to San Diego,” he said. “The sort-of-rich might send the family to Prescott.”

And when the cat’s away the mice play in August, said Trimble.

Most family men were good boys all year and didn’t frequent the downtown Phoenix bars, but once air conditioning arrived the family stayed put, hemming in dad, Trimble said with a laugh.

Here are other inventions that changed the way Arizonans live:

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