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Four Reserve Citizen Airmen from the 924th Fighter Group of the 944th Fighter Wing conducted a flyover with four A-10C Thunderbolt II Warthogs over game four of the Major League Baseball World Series at Chase Field in Phoenix, Ariz., Oct. 31, 2023. The 56th Fighter Wing Color Guard from Luke Air Force Base presented the colors during the opening ceremonies of the game as well. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Tyler J. Bolken)
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Tyler J. Bolken / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

Audio walking tour

Phoenix Audio Walking Tour

Sonoran Stroll: Where Desert Light Meets Living History

Stops
39
Core walk
38 of 39 stops within 1.5 mi of the center
Farthest stop
1.7 mi from the center
Start
Arizona State Capitol
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Thirty-nine stops walk Phoenix across downtown's one-mile core and the Capitol district. The Arizona State Capitol opens the route; Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, the 9/11 Memorial, the Pioneer and Military Memorial Park's seven 1884 cemeteries, and the 1908 Phoenix Carnegie Library carry the civic blocks. Burton Barr Central Library, Margaret T. Hance Park (capping the Deck Park Tunnel), and the Japanese Friendship Garden (Rohō-en) follow. The Phoenix Art Museum and the Heard Museum anchor Central Avenue. Civic Space Park, the Predock-designed Arizona Science Center, and Heritage Square's Rosson House, F.S. Baird Machine Shop, and Monroe School gather Heritage and Science Park. The 1929 Spanish Baroque Orpheum Theatre, the Luhrs Building, Luhrs Tower, the Professional Building, the Security Building, Hotel San Carlos, Phoenix Symphony Hall, Herberger Theater Center, and the Phoenix Theatre Company carry the arts. The Westward Ho, Chase Tower, U.S. Bank Center, Bank of America Tower, Arizona Center, CityScape, and Chase Field close the walk.

Highlights

  • Four Reserve Citizen Airmen from the 924th Fighter Group of the 944th Fighter Wing conducted a flyover with four A-10C Thunderbolt II Warthogs over game four of the Major League Baseball World Series at Chase Field in Phoenix, Ariz., Oct. 31, 2023. The 56th Fighter Wing Color Guard from Luke Air Force Base presented the colors during the opening ceremonies of the game as well. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Tyler J. Bolken)
    Chase Field

    Formerly Bank One Ballpark, Chase Field is the retractable-roof stadium you face in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. This is the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks; it opened in 1998, the year the Diamondbacks debuted as an expansion team.

  • Built in 1899-1901, this Beaux Arts-style building was designed by James Riely Gordon to serve as the Arizona Territorial Capitol. The building was expanded with additions to the west (rear) of the original structure in 1918-1919, designed by A.J. Gifford, and 1938-1939, funded by the New Deal-era Public Works Administration (PWA), and designed by Orville A. Bell to serve the growing needs of the state government. Both of these additions were designed to match the original building. In 1956-1960, two new Modern International-style buildings, designed by Lescher and Mahoney with Pereira and Luckman, were built to house chambers for the Arizona State House of Representatives and Arizona State Senate were built to the east of the original capitol, flanking a courtyard in front of the building. In 1974, a new office tower, designed by Varney, Sexton and Sydnor in the Brutalist style, was constructed to the rear (west) of the original capitol. The original building was subsequently rehabilitated in 1978-1981 under the direction of Gerald A. Doyle Associates, and again in 2001 under the direction of TRK Architecture with Otwell Associates. The original building is clad in rough-hewn tufa above a rough-hewn gray granite base, with a hipped roof, a low copper-clad dome with a weathervane statue, known as Winged Victory, atop the dome, ionic pilasters, arched bays at the base, engaged ionic columns at the front portico, a decorated front pediment, a cornice with dentils, decorative trim surrounds at the window bays, one-over-one double-hung windows, a recessed second-story portico, skylights atop the roofs over the original house and senate chambers, an interior cylindrical rotunda with pilasters, and four-story office wings to the west of the original structure. The 1960 house and senate buildings are clad in marble with concrete exterior shade screens, wide overhanging concrete eaves, and large aluminum-framed curtain walls, and are freestanding, standing to either side of the front facade of the original building. To the rear of the original building is the 9 story, 110 foot (33 meter) tall Executive Tower, which is clad in concrete panels with recessed narrow vertical window bays, and is flanked by two-story wings to the north and south. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Today, the building complex remains in use as the Arizona State Capitol, with the original building serving as a museum and state government office building.
    Arizona State Capitol

    Your eyes take in the seat of government for the U.S. state of Arizona, right here in Phoenix. This site includes the original State Capitol building, two buildings that house the legislative chambers for the Arizona State Legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the Executive Tower, which contains offices for the Governor.

  • The Chase Tower in Phoenix seen from Monroe Street in January 2022, with the tower top sign being visible removed.
    Chase Tower

    Chase Tower rises 40 stories at 201 North Central Avenue in Phoenix, right in front of you. Opened in 1972 and designed by architects Welton Becket and Fred M. Guirey, it was built for Valley National Bank and later carried the names Valley Bank Center and Bank One Center before becoming Chase Tower in December 2005 after Chase’s merger with Bank One; Bank One had merged with Valley National Bank in 1992.

  • Rosson House, at 113 North 6th Street at the corner of Monroe Street in Downtown Phoenix, Arizona, is a historic house museum in Heritage Square. It was built between 1894 and 1895 in the Stick-Eastlake Queen Anne Style of Victorian architecture and was designed by San Francisco architect A. P. Petit, his final design before his death. Named for Dr. Roland Lee Rosson and his wife Flora Murray Rosson, the house changed hands numerous times before being purchased by the City of Phoenix and restored to its original condition.The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
    Rosson House

    On the corner of Monroe Street and North 6th, right here in Heritage Square, the Rosson House at 113 North 6th Street waits for you. This is a Victorian house museum built between 1894 and 1895 in the Stick‑Eastlake - Queen Anne style, the work of San Francisco architect A. P. Petit.

  • Phoenix Art Museum entrance.
    Phoenix Art Museum

    Picture the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States rising here on the Central Avenue Corridor in Phoenix, Arizona: the Phoenix Art Museum. Its galleries and facilities occupy 285,000 square feet (26,500 m2), and inside international exhibitions sit alongside a comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works: American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design.

All 39 stops

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