By Ruth Noggle
(Joseph Noggle contributed significantly to our community and later opened a Bronze foundry. In this first part of two-part article the author tells us of Joe Noggle's background.)
We three Noggle kids had it all in the 1950's. Both our parents worked, but they watched over and nurtured us as best they could. Joe Noggle, my father, built five log homes in the 800 block of Whetstine Ave. and we lived in the first at 849 from 1948-1958. It sat on a large lot with plenty of elbowroom for us growing, exploring kids.
Joe helped us build a tree house in a tall oak tree south of our house. He brought in the bed of a horse-drawn freight wagon for the yard and placed a large, used, wooden-stave ore bucket on the front porch. He enjoyed taking pictures of his family and relatives next to that bucket.
His old Reo Speedwagon truck hauled slabs of flagstone from the Drake quarry and he stored a thick column in the backyard. He spent hot, sweaty hours laboring over those slabs, chipping, slicing, and breaking them to precise measurements. I often wondered how many imprisoned dinosaur tracks would never be seen after he laid them in cement.
Besides the flagstone, Joe kept a variety of building materials in the backyard for the company he owned and operated--Sun States Construction Company. This included pipe and fittings, insulation board, full and empty oil drums, wallboard, kindling, lumber, cement blocks and plywood sheets. He helped us build a cement block fort with a plywood roof.
Our dirt-floored basement became Joe's drafting room. He used a level, a flat-leaded carpenter's pencil, a folding wooden ruler, and a shovel to design and dig out a flat, square area. Here he produced numerous tracings at his drafting table for his construction jobs. His muscular, stocky body bent over as he drew lines and angles with a protractor and marked perfect straight lines with knife-sharpened drafting pencils. My brother, Roy, and I liked to watch him with his shock of salt and pepper, wavy hair going over his forehead. His forearms, hand, neck and face sported a rich bronze tan. When he finished the tracing, he snapped rubber bands around the rolls.
Joseph Henry Noggle was born in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1908 and lived in Ann Arbor. He grew up with the University of Michigan close by and took classes in industrial arts with an introduction to bronze casting. At a Congregational Church young people's meeting, he met Harriette Louise Clark, who had graduated with a degree in nursing. They were married in 1937 in Lander, Wyoming and lived together for 25 years.
We kids grew up with dogs, cats, a duck, chickens, fish and turtles. Joe treated them and us with manly care. One frosty winter morning, one of our cat's paws froze to the iron handle of the ore bucket. Reassuring me all would be fine, he poured warm water over the paw, releasing the frightened animal.
Joe drove the large, flat-bedded Reo with its running boards back and forth to Michigan, hauling our belongings out and taking all the neighborhood kids for rides in the back. On the slatted, wooden sides, he advertised in rope: "Sun States Const. Co."
He built three redwood homes in the 700 block of Flora St., worked for Mr. Sweet in Sweet's Acres off Senator Highway, built a house near Oregon Ave., and others around town.
Joe took us all up to the dentist, Dr. Schaffer at his second-floor office above Gurley St. across from the north side of the Plaza. For a little girl, the stairway was a dark, forbidding place. But after each visit, the dentist gave us kids a card good for one comic book at a store downstairs. We proudly showed our comic books to Joe and mom at home.
Joe remodeled Dr. and Mrs. Shaffer's home on Smoki Ave., building a billiards room and laying in a magnificent flagstone floor. Dr. Schaffer displayed many stuffed animal heads on the walls and had an enormous black bear rug on the floor.
In the 1950's, deer and elk hunting was the big fall event. Joe owned a thirty-ought-six rifle and left with supplies and his friends for his hunting trips. On one trip, they rescued another party lost and stuck in the snow. Most years though, they drove over Mingus Mountain, through Jerome, Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Sedona, and up Schnebly Hill Road to Kel Fox's summer cattle ranch on the Mogollon Rim.
Joe was like most men at that time. He took his deer or elk downtown to be weighed-in on the big scale and probably draped it over a front fender for the trip to Jim Luger's meat market on the corner of Gurley and McCormick. Here it was dressed out and Joe brought the meat home. We kids played with the antlers and mom cooked the delicious venison that we ate during the winter months.
Joe and Harriette belonged to the Prescott Hoedowners. Nearly every summer Saturday night, we kids roamed all over the Plaza while they square-danced. The old Reo carried a couple of square dancers plus the band in the Fourth of July parades and helped haul our friends down to Skull Valley for a scene in a Randolph Scott movie. It was filmed at the railroad depot, renamed "Dodge City." Joe took pictures of the event including us kids at the side of the steam locomotive which was bedecked with red, white and blue bunting.
Joe's camera was an Arguflex with a shutter that didn't lock or advance the film. When friends and relatives gathered for a slide show and a double or triple exposure projected on the screen, he exclaimed with laughter, "That's an economy shot!"
Joe was involved in the Frontier Rotary Club and youth activities. He and other men helped Frank Kuhne build Prescott's first community swimming pool on Whipple Street next to the old County maintenance barn. My brothers, Roy and Carl, learned to swim there.
Joe's character was highlighted by a jovial sense of humor and he enjoyed entertaining people, especially those unaware of his ability to elaborate a story. He told us about his first job in Prescott. The unaware person asked what it was? "Why, my first job was riding shotgun on the stage coach from here to Phoenix." The unaware person countered with, "I had no idea the stage still ran." Then Joe happily described the bumpy, dusty road, outlaws shooting at the stage, native Indians lurking behind boulders, the cavalry trooping over, flashfloods, the history of Bloody Basin...as long as he had their attention.
Next article, learn about Noggle and the first bronze foundry in Prescott.
Ruth Noggle is Joe Noggle's daughter. She has recently donated many items to the Museum to better document the life of her father.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (Noggle collection, kids in the truck). Reuse only by permission.
Joseph Noggle's company truck, complete with logo written in rope, not only served his business, but also was frequently seen filled with the neighborhood kids. Noggle was very active in his community and helped build the first public swimming pool in Prescott in the 1950s. Noggle Collection, Sharlot Hall Museum