Pitt, Donald

This first clip is a walking tour of a few blocks of downtown Tucson. Stories range from the late 1930s through the 1960s. This audio was recorded on February 12th, 2018. Pitt’s autobiographical oral history can be found in the interviews below.

The route begins on Congress between Church and Stone, heads east and travels briefly down Stone. Then it’s back north, walking up the east side of Stone to Alameda and returning to Congress on the west side of Stone. From there, Pitt takes us west, down Congress, to a pedestrian overpass where Meyer Avenue used to be. The final stretch of Pitt’s narrative covers the north side of Congress, from Stone to 6th Avenue, and returns to Stone on the south side of Congress. 

Place descriptions include: financial institutions, pool and gaming, markets, newspapers, the Old Pueblo Club, the barrio, the Miller, Pitt, and Feldman law firm, Little Gem Barbershop, Porter’s Western Store, Pioneer Hotel, Arizona Trust Real Estate, Southern Arizona Bank, Steinfeld’s grocery and hardware stores, Santa Rita Hotel, Sam R. Kaufmann’s Haberdashery, Prizer’s stationary and pens, Pitt’s Jewelry Store, Frank Patania’s Thuderbird Shop, Fox Theater, Paulos’ bar and restaurant, American Airlines Store, furniture stores, Lyric Theater, thrift store, civic activities downtown, State Theater, cigar stores, Levy’s and other department stores, jewelry stores, Gus Taylor, Minerva Greek food, ten-cent stores, Graves Electric, Western Union.

Part 1 was recorded at Donald Pitt’s house in Tucson, Arizona on February 21st, 2018. The interview covers the following themes: 

b. 1930 

  • Parents’ lives in Detroit, failure of father’s business in Great Depression, and Family move west. Arrival in Tucson in the mid/late 1930s. 

  • Father’s launch of jewelry store. 

  • Pitt’s experience with scarlet fever. 

  • Attending Sam Hughes Elementary School and games. 

  • Work during the Depression. 

  • Singing in the Tucson Boys Choir. 

  • The Rodeo Parade. 

  • School sports, including playing against Dunbar. 

  • Music. 

  • Memories of notable fellow students. 

  • Unemployment during the depression. 

  • Communications: party phone lines and the importance of radio. 

  • Attending Tucson High. 

  • Anti-Semitism in Tucson during World War II and inability to join non-Jewish fraternities at UA. 

  • The outbreak of World War II. 

  • Traveling to Los Angeles via train and car. 

Part 2 was recorded at Donald Pitt’s house in Tucson, Arizona on January 15th, 2019. The interview covers the following themes: 

  • Enrolling at the University of Arizona in 1947. School reputation, sports, golf, and Pitt’s interest in law. 

  • Dropping out of college to start an ice cream parlor. 

  • Returning to the UA to avoid the Korean War draft, attending law school and joining ROTC.  

  • Entrepreneurial work around UA sports: selling programs and parking spaces.  

  • Selling jewelry to friends. 

  • Friendship with Donald Diamond. 

  • Golf. Caddying at the first Tucson Open. 

  • Presence of Air Force personnel in Tucson. 

  • Reading. Career options and college degrees. 

  • Critical thinking and access to information across Pitt’s life—violence in media, children’s exposure to media, rise in drug use. 

  • Attending college with returning WWII vets. Attitudes towards the Korean War. 

  • Law school in the early 1950s: application, student demographics, internships, lack of legal specialists. 

  • Brief military stint as a reserve officer in mid-late 1950s. Launch of Sputnik.  

Part 3 was recorded at Donald Pitt’s house in Tucson, Arizona on April 22nd, 2019. The interview covers the following themes:

  • 1957 formation of law firm Merchant, Parkman, Miller, and Pitt. 

  • Community of lawyers in Tucson. 

  • Representing Detroit mobster Peter Licavoli in a land transaction. 

  • Visiting Las Vegas in 1949. Concern with letting professional sports teams play in Vegas. 

  • Changes in the practice of law: generalists, specialists, information technology, first jobs after law school. 

  • Tucson’s real estate market and zoning in the early 1960s. Resistance to growth. Land swap that created Catalina State Park. 

  • Tucson’s opposition to an organized road system and urban density. Rise of air conditioning.

Part 4 was recorded at Donald Pitt’s house in Tucson, Arizona on May 8th, 2019. It covers the following themes:

  • Growth in the 1960s, continued, including some of Pitt’s development projects. 

  • Different types of growth. Tucson’s failure to attract Motorola. 

  • Economic priorities of Tucson and Phoenix and the relationship between economic opportunity and quality of life. Sense of community. 

  • Commercial migration out of downtown and the development of El Con Mall. 

Part 5 was recorded at Donald Pitt’s house in Tucson, Arizona on May 21st, 2019. It covers the following themes:

  • Urban Renewal. Pitt’s law firm’s acquisition of a corner of the Urban Renewal area. Pitt’s bid to develop La Placita as half-residential, half-commercial space.  

  • Development for IBM and Allstate. Construction and financing of Tucson’s Transamerica Building. 

  • Co-founding the Phoenix Suns. The changing opportunities for investments and entrepreneurship. Changes in financing from the 1960s to the 2010s. 

  • The NBA in the 1960s and managing a new sports team. 

Aengus Anderson