Garfield Abram Goodwin
9 Dec 1880 - 31 Mar 1944
diedTempe, Arizona, USA
bornSalt River, Missouri, USA
SchooltblData
BiographyBusiness owner.Came to Tempe in 1888.
Agent for Wells Fargo and Company, c1903-1925. And Am Ry Exp Co in 1921 and 1923. Owner of Goodwin Curio Store at 514 S. Mill Avenue and storage rear of 516 Mill Ave. for 41 years, c1903-1944.
Tempe City Councilman, 1922-1928.
Mayor of Tempe, June 12, 1924 - June 10, 1926.
With his brothers, he built the first street car system in Tempe. At the time, the Goodwin brothers expected that an inter-urban line from Phoenix to Mesa would ultimately be built and that this local franchise would be the connecting link between the communities. However, this extended line was never completed.
Graduated from the Territorial Normal School in 1899. He played on the Territorial Normal School football team, 1896-1899, and was a member of the Normal School Alumni Association in the 1920s. In 1922 was sec-treas of Magnetic Copper Co. He served as Secretary of the Arizona State Teachers College Board of Education in 1930s and 1940s, and was one of the leaders in the fight to make ASTC a liberal arts college. He pushed for construction of a new ASTC football stadium, built in
1937, which was named Goodwin Stadium in his honor.
Collected and sold Indian curios and novelties at 514 Mill Ave. in 1922, -'28, and 1932. Sold his first collection to Mrs. Mae Heard, who started the Heard Museum. In the summer each year, he would go to Indian reservations and to Albuquerque and Santa Fe to buy silver, pottery, and Chimayo
blankets and rugs. After he died, Mrs. Goodwin ran the store for about a year, and then sold it to Larry Miller, who reopened it as Miller's Indian Store.
President of the Tempe Chamber of Commerce and the Tempe Rotary Club. In 1934, he headed the Tempe Beach Committee, which planned park improvements, including the construction of walls around the park and stadium bleachers.
Lived in several places in Tempe, including 247 E. 8th Street (c1905, -'21, -25, -'26, -'28; Mill Avenue (1910); 607 E. Tyler Street (1915); 247 E. 8th Street (1918-1924), and 930 S. Mill Avenue (1931, -'32, 940). In 1929 lived at Fennemore Apt.
OSB 93
BIO-Goodwin
Federal census (Tempe), 1900, 1910
HPS-141; HPS-190; TH-311
Tempe CD, 1905-1932,'38, '39, '41-'42
Tempe Telephone Directory, 1924, 1940
Double Butte Cemetery, Tempe
Hopkins and Thomas, The ASU Story, pp. 133, 140,
200, 222
Person TypeIndividual
