They held a race and called it the Cactus Derby. It was a derby insofar as it was an off-road car race, interstate paved roads being somewhat rare. And cactus as it was a race through the desert from LA to Phoenix, which couldn’t have been a very big city back then.

cactus derby 1914

Sharlot Hall Museum

Avid racing fans line up along West Gurley Street anxiously awaiting a glimpse of the first racer into Prescott on Nov. 11, 1914.

Wow! How about that. And I checked, so you know, and Phoenix’s population in 1910 was 11,314. It has grown by 23,332% since then.

You can read more about it here, in Part 1. More to come.