History of the Cine Capri Theatre in Phoenix

Phoenix has been home to many movie houses and theaters over the years, but the grandest of all was the Cine Capri. During its 32 year history from 1966 to 1998, the Cine Capri was more than just a movie theater; it was a destination and an icon of Phoenix. Let’s dive into the history of this fantastic, beloved venue.

The original Cine Capri movie theater at 2323 E Camelback Rd.
Photo by: Harkins Theatres

Early Movie Theaters

A few movie houses existed in Phoenix as early as the 1900s, showing short films and cartoons. Costing a nickel for admission, these “nickelodeons” were often set up in converted storefronts. Comfort of the patrons was not a priority. The feature-length films we know today became the standard between approximately 1910 and 1915. The addition of sound in 1927 (bonus points if you can name the first “talkie”) was a catalyst that made movie theaters grow in popularity.

 

Early movie theaters were simple structures that were not fancy or ornate. A typical theater was a box-like building located on a Main Street or busy downtown area. Inside, there was a single screen and seating for a few hundred people. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, the average cost of a movie ticket in 1948 was just 36 cents.

 

A few examples of these early theater buildings still exist today, including:

• Paramount Theatre, Peoria, AZ (built 1920)
• College Theatre, Tempe, AZ (built 1940)
• Avon Theatre, Avondale, AZ (built 1946)
• Saguaro Theater, Wickenburg, AZ (built 1948)

Avon Theatre (1946) Avondale, AZ	Paramount Theatre (1920) Peoria, AZ
College Theatre (1940) Tempe, AZ	Saguaro Theater (1948) Wickenburg, AZ
Photos by: North Phoenix Blog

By the 1930s, movie theaters had evolved into purpose-built structures that emphasized comfort of patrons. Upholstered seating and air conditioning were a few of the amenities that distinguished them from early movie houses, though they were still single-screen venues. This format was the standard for movie theaters until the early 1960s.

The Age of the Multiplex

A Kansas City theater operator named Stan Durwood realized that he could double the revenue of a single theater by adding a second screen and still operate with the same size staff. In 1962, he opened the first two-screen theater called the Parkway Twin. This was more than just a savvy business idea – it was the birth of the “multiplex” theater that is still in use today.

It didn’t take long for Durwood’s multiplex idea to spread. A Canadian company called Taylor Twentieth Century Theaters opened a tri-plex theater in Burnaby, British Columbia in 1965. Not to be outdone, AMC Theaters opened a four-screen theater in Kansas City called Metro Plaza in 1966, and a six-screen theater followed in 1969. The movie theater concept had evolved into a new format with multiple theaters and screens under one roof.

 

The Cine Capri in Phoenix

While theater operators around the country began scaling up and adding more screens in the 1960s, a completely different idea was taking shape in Phoenix. Rather than build a multiplex theater, the Arizona Paramount Company began construction of a new single-screen theater in 1964. This theater would become the Cine Capri. It was located on the southwest corner of 24th Street and Camelback Road next to the Barrow’s Furniture showroom.

The Arizona Paramount Company hired prominent Phoenix architect Ralph Haver and his firm Haver, Nunn, and Nelson to design the new theater. While Haver was most known for his affordable, single-family homes, he also worked on schools, churches, banks, and other civic and commercial buildings. Homes and Son were chosen as the General Contractor for the project.
 

Please visit https://cinecapri.com/in-the-beginning/ to see photos of the theater's construction.

Haver's design was for a grand theater, built with the finest quality materials. The 16,500 sq. ft. facility had an entrance that was flanked by a curved portico featuring unique Y-shaped concrete support columns. A 24 foot stained glass panel filled the lobby area with natural light. According to a history page on Harkins Theaters website, the Cine Capri theater featured lavish decor with imported Italian tile in the lobby and plush couches in the "Powder Room."

The original Cine Capri movie theater at 2323 E Camelback Rd.
Photo by: Harkins Theatres

The theater was equipped with the best in projection and sound technology for its time. It was the first theater in the southwest specifically designed to project all film aspect ratios of the time, including Cinemascope, Vista-Vision, and Cinerama from its 70/35 mm projectors. The theater was decorated with antique gold fabric curtains that would retract to reveal the giant screen as the film began.

View more photos of the original Cine Capri at ModernPhoenix.net: https://modernphoenix.net/haver/cinecapri.htm

A Very Grand Opening

A gala opening was held at the new Cine Capri theater on Thursday, March 31st, 1966 at 7:30 PM. An advertisement in the newspaper described the theater as "A landmark of splendor dedicated to the people of Arizona...your new home of supreme entertainment!!"

The opening film was "The Agony and the Ecstacy" starring Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison. The highlight of the opening was an appearance by the film's star, Charlton Heston himself, on Friday, April 1st, at 8:00 P.M. By all accounts, the new theater was a grand success.

To the right is a newspaper clipping from March 29th, 1966 advertising the Cine Capri's gala opening. Source: Newspapers.com

Operational History

Within a year of opening, the Arizona Paramount company sold the theater to Arizona ABC. They would operate the theater from 1967 to 1974. The theater would change hands again in 1974. This time the Cine Capri was owned and operated by Plitt Intermountain until 1987.

Aerial photo of the Cine Capri theater in 1969
Image: Maricopa GIS

When Star Wars opened in May 1977, the theater's business boomed. The film was so enormously popular with audiences, a line would form around the theater of patrons waiting to see the movie. The Cine Capri played Star Wars for more than a year. This run became the longest run of the Star Wars movie in the United States.

1977 Newspaper ad for Star Wars at the Cine Capri
Source: newspapers.com

In 1987 the theater was sold to CineMark, who operated it for just a year before selling it to local theater operator Harkins Theaters in 1988.

End of an Era

The Cine Capri became part of the Harkins theater chain in 1988. Harkins would operate the theater for the next 10 years, but problems soon arose for the theater. While Harkins owned the building, they did not own the land - which had become increasingly valuable.

According to Harkins Theaters, a year-long battle began in 1997 between the theater company and the landowner. The landowner wanted to demolish the theater and replace it with a high-rise office building. A committee called "Save the Cine Capri" was formed and collected more than 260,000 petition signatures from people who wanted to see the beloved theater saved. Sadly, the property owner had no interest in preserving this piece of Phoenix history.

Cine Capri Theater in the late 1990s.
Photo by: George E. Smith, from the Vintage Phoenix group on Facebook

The final movie shown was James Cameron's Titanic on January 5, 1998. At 2:12 AM, the gold curtains were lowered for the last time. Six weeks later, the theater was demolished - reduced to a pile of rubble.

Souvenir tickets from the final showings of Titanic at the Cine Capri theater.
Photo by: Nanette Adams-Escajeda on Facebook.

Please visit the website https://cinecapri.com/the-curtain-falls to see photos of the Cine Capri's demolition.

Aerial photos of the Cine Capri location in 1991 and 2001
Source: Maricopa GIS

Though the theater was gone, its legacy was not forgotten. Gayle Martin, the daughter of W.E. "Bill" Homes, Jr., created a detailed model of the Cine Capri theater, which her father's contracting company had built. I saw the model on display at the Arizona Historical Society Museum in Tempe, AZ in 2017.

Photos by: North Phoenix Blog

 

The New Cine Capri

In November of 2002, Harkins Theatres announced that they would begin construction of a new multiplex theater called Cine Capri. It would be located in North Scottsdale at the Loop 101 Freeway and Scottsdale Road.

The new Cine Capri at Harkins Scottsdale 101 opened in 2003.
Photo by: Harkins Theatres

 

The new Cine Capri held its grand opening on Friday, June 27, 2003. The new theater was built at a cost of $17 million, according to an industry publication by QSC Audio.

Souvenir ticket from the Grand Opening of the new Cine Capri at Harkins Scottsdale 101 on June 27, 2003.
Photo by: Deganlink on reddit

 

The Harkins Scottsdale 101 Cine Capri features a massive 70 foot by 30 foot screen, with seating for 568 guests. It even has gold waterfall curtains like the original theater did.

Harkins paid tribute to the old theater by including a few of the signature support columns at the new location. A display in the lobby has memorabilia from the original Cine Capri.

These columns pay homage to the original Cine Capri theater.
Photo by: North Phoenix Blog

Entrance to the new 568-seat Cine Capri at Scottsdale 101
Photo by: North Phoenix Blog

Gold waterfall curtains at the new Cine Capri
Photo by: North Phoenix Blog

Present Day

Harkins continues to operate the new Cine Capri theater in Scottsdale at the time of this writing. In 2018, the Harkins chain announced a $150 million upgrade to its theaters. This included new Harkins Ultimate Lounger (TM) seating, reserved seating, and an updated lobby. The Scottsdale 101 location was upgraded to the latest Dolby ATMOS sound and a Laser Projection system.

In fact, Harkins now uses the "Cine Capri" branding at 3 other locations:

• Tempe Marketplace in Tempe, AZ
• Bricktown 16 in Oklahoma City, OK
• Northfield 18 in Denver, CO
  

Final Thoughts

Buildings are more than just structures where we live, work, play, worship and shop. The experiences and emotions that we attach to these places are etched in our memories. They become part of our stories as individuals.

While the Cine Capri was a movie theater that operated for 32 years, it was about more than movies for many Phoenix residents. It was a place for first dates, big-screen thrills, celebrations, and great times with friends and family.

I am glad that the Harkins company decided to continue the legacy of the Cine Capri with the new location. While it may not have the splendor or the memories of the original theater, the new Cine Capri is a fitting tribute to one of Arizona’s greatest movie theaters. It shows that the Harkins company genuinely cares about the community and what this once-great theater meant to the people who went there.

Solar 1 Subdivision by John F. Long

John Fitzgerald Long (1920-2008) was a legendary businessman and real estate developer in Phoenix. While he did not invent the concept of a master-planned suburban neighborhood, he was the first to implement the idea in Arizona.

John F. Long became a household name in the 1950s with the creation of Maryvale, a massive planned community in Phoenix comprising more than 30,000 single-family homes integrated with schools, shopping centers, and community buildings all woven together. After building Maryvale, John did another, lesser-known project in the mid-1980s called Solar 1, whose story I have not seen told anywhere else. I will cover that after a little backstory on John F. Long and his rise to become the most prolific homebuilder in Arizona's history.

John F. Long Builds a House
In 1947, the 27-year old Long had returned from his service in the US military during World War II. He took an $8,000 GI loan to build a home for himself and his wife, Mary. After six months, the home was completed at a cost of $4,200.

Before they could move in, Long received an offer of $8,500 for the newly-completed home and, savvy businessman that he was, sold the home for a handsome profit. He repeated the process, building 15 more homes before finally settling into a place of his own. Between 1951 and 1954 he built nearly 1,600 homes in West Phoenix.

 

On March 5, 1948 John F. and Mary P. Long sold their first house, located at 7017 N. 23rd Avenue in Phoenix to Mr. and Mrs. Walter.
Photo by: Commercial Executive Magazine, Issue 7, 2012

Long had recognized the incredible opportunity that was present in the form of the post-war economic boom following World War II. Affordable single-family housing was in high demand in 1954. Long figured out how to mass-produce single family homes that could be built quickly and at scale. By using modular mass production techniques such as component assembly of roof trusses, wall sections, and custom-designed cabinetry, assembled at the site, he could cut construction time. His innovations in housing were similar to what Henry Ford did for the automobile - he made it affordable to the masses.

John F. Long with GE Spokesman Ronald Reagan at the GE Award Home in Maryvale, 1958.

John F. Long shows GE spokesman Ronald Reagan features of Maryvale's GE Award Home, 1958.
Photo by: Power Lines by Andrew Needham

Maryvale - Arizona's First Master-Planned Community
In 1954, John F. Long Homes began building a massive new community in Phoenix which he called Maryvale after his wife, Mary. What made this neighborhood different was that it had a master plan, which included space for schools, churches, hospitals, shopping centers and parks.

Maryvale was the first master planned community in Arizona, and would become the blueprint that many other homebuilders would use for the next 70 years. Del Webb used a very similar concept in developing the very first master-planned retirement community, Sun City, in 1959 through the 1980s.

Maryvale Model Homes: Greatest Home Show on Earth

Maryvale was a smash hit that made John F. Long a rockstar real estate developer. Buyers could purchase a three-bedroom, two-bath house with a swimming pool for less than $10,000 (approximately $95,000 in 2020). By 1956, two years into the project, his company was selling 125 new homes per week. Between 1954 and 1979, more than 31,000 homes were built in Maryvale, with half of those built by John F. Long. In 1990, the company closed its homebuilding operation to focus on retail and commercial projects in the West Valley.

Long wasn't just a homebuilder - he wanted to build communities. He donated countless acres of land to the community and to county, state, and federal governments. The success of Maryvale brought him a number of accolades including Citizen of the Year in 1957, induction to the National Housing Hall of Fame in Washington D.C. in 1984, the Arizona Businessman’s Hall of Fame in the 1990s, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from WestMARC in the year 2000.

A 1950s era billboard for John F. Long homes, advertising a luxury compact home for $9,400.

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Solar 1 - The World's First Solar Subdivision
But, the whole reason for this post is not to tell the story of Maryvale. I want to tell the story of what John F. Long did after his magnum opus. This is the story of the little-known project called Solar 1.

The origins of Solar 1 go back to 1979, when John F. Long companies built a "solar demonstration home" with an array of photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof. In a 1985 interview with Canyon Echo, the newsletter for the Arizona Chapter of the Sierra Club, Long had this to say about that first demonstration home: 

"We first used photovoltaics (PV) as part of the roof of that house, but eventually moved the panels because part of the roof created shadows. There were also some problems with maintaining and cleaning off the panels and visually, there was an aesthetic problem."

There was a plan to build a solar-powered neighborhood of 100 homes in the Moon Valley area of North Phoenix, but according to the article, the U.S. Department of Energy pulled out of the project, following President Reagan's budget cuts in 1981.

Solar 1 Neighborhood at 71st Dr. and Osborn Rd. in Phoenix
Photo: North Phoenix Blog

An Experiment in Energy Efficient Homebuilding
Still, the project to build a solar neighborhood was not dead. It re-surfaced in 1985 as a scaled-down project called Solar 1, with 24 lots located at 71st Drive and Osborn Road in Phoenix. This time, the project was totally financed without government participation.

A 1985 advertisement for Solar 1 by John F. Long Homes

The first homes were completed in 1985, with final lots being sold around 1989. The homes in Solar 1 range in size from 1,600 to 2,200 square feet. The whole neighborhood is powered by 2,600 flat plate photovoltaic panels from Arco Solar, arranged in two long rows of racks along one side of the neighborhood. The racks are connected to an inverter which changes direct current to alternating. The system has a peak generation power of 192 kilowatts.

The neighborhood is also connected to the local electric grid as a backup. The subdivision has no battery storage, but with careful energy usage, homeowners will have very small electric bills, and in some cases may even produce excess energy, which is sold back to the utility provider.

Map of Solar 1 neighborhood in Phoenix

Re-Thinking the Single Family Home
Solar 1 was the world's first solar subdivision. It is unique for being one of the only photovoltaic central power plants in Arizona that is not operated by a utility company. But to me, the real genius of Solar 1 is that the solar panels are just one part of the project. The homes themselves are also extremely energy efficient, using a rammed-earth construction method and exterior walls which are 21 inches thick.

From the 1985 Canyon Echo newsletter:

"In order to make PV cost-effective, we had to rethink the total building, not just the photovoltaics themselves. After evaluating the whole project, we decided to go with rammed earth walls for thermal storage. What we're doing is putting each home's insulation on the outside of the home to keep the heat out and the rammed earth walls cool.

Starting from the outside, we have stucco-covered urethane foam, then a one-inch dead air space. Next comes the rammed earth wall which is covered on the inside by sheetrock.

Overall, the wall is 21 inches thick; the rammed earth part is 16 inches thick. Again, by putting the insulation on the exterior, heat doesn't get in. On our demonstration rammed earth model home, we have thermocouplers built into the wall (Editor's note: for temperature monitoring). The center thermocoupler didn't vary but one degree over the last few days. Those rammed earth walls can hold three days worth of cooling.

The walls and home interior are cooled in the morning with the evaporative cooler (or maybe refrigeration, depending on the owner). The wall releases coolness at a slow, even rate from top to bottom, without drafts. It's like living in a basement but above ground level."

 

 

The 24 homes in the Solar 1 subdivision look like any other homes in the area, but are constructed using rammed earth exterior walls which are 21 inches thick, and combined with a photovoltaic central power plant for highly energy efficient living.  

I think that the idea of combining energy-efficient rammed earth construction homes with a solar central power plant was brilliant. The idea with this community was not to make them homes look like some wacky "house of the future" but to show that energy efficient homes could be done and they could look normal. Indeed, the neighborhood blends in well with the surrounding area, and no one would suspect that these 24 homeowners have a utility bill that is a fraction of what their neighbors pay.

It is too bad that the idea of building highly energy efficient homes that look totally normal did not progress beyond this one subdivision in West Phoenix. I think that Solar 1 was a great idea that was ahead of its time.

 

This John F. Long sidewalk stamp from 1983 is at G. Frank Davidson Elementary School, across the street from the Solar 1 subdivision.  

For more about Solar 1, check out this video I found on YouTube. It was recorded in 1988, and features an interview with Larry and Jackie, a retired couple who purchased the very first home in the development. I found it amusing how they emphasize that they are not environmentalists - but that they purchased the home purely for the cost savings on electricity. 

Looking Back: 12 Years of North Phoenix Blog

I started North Phoenix Blog 12 years ago, in May of 2008.

The Internet in 2008/2009
At the time, the Internet was becoming "Web 2.0". New services like WordPress (first released in 2003), YouTube (launched in 2005), and Twitter (launched in 2006) were changing the way that people used the web in their daily lives. Websites were no longer one-way mediums that talked at the reader like a newspaper did. They were becoming interactive, with comments and discussions and user-generated content.

To give some context, 2008 was the height of the MySpace era, as people got on board with the idea of joining a "social network" site. The iPhone 3G had just come out in Summer 2008. Sites like Blogger, LiveJournal, and WordPress were at the forefront of this new citizen journalism movement, where people who would otherwise go unheard via traditional media outlets found a voice and an audience online. 

Online publications such as The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Drudge Report were gaining readers as major newspapers were going out of business left and right during the Great Recession. Technology was making it possible to communicate and build an audience in a way that hadn't been seen since the invention of the printing press centuries earlier. It was an exciting time to be online.

The Hyperlocal News Movement
Phoenix is a huge city, with more than 1.6 million residents sprawled out over an area of 518 square miles. Within the city are distinct neighborhoods - the downtown core, Arcadia, Encanto, Maryvale, and numerous other historic and unique neighborhoods, each with their own history, their own character, their own story.

My goal in starting North Phoenix Blog was to be a hyperlocal source for news and information in a specific area of town: North Phoenix, what you might call the Deer Valley or Norterra area. I wanted the site to be the voice of the community and let residents know about things like new restaurants and businesses opening and closing, and maybe share a bit about the history of the area. I felt that the North Phoenix region was overlooked by larger publications like The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix New Times.

The only time North Phoenix ever got any press was from a professional Real Estate Agent who started a blog as a thinly-veiled marketing strategy. I felt that as a person living in the area, I could do better. So I created a free site with Blogger and got to writing.

A Flawed Plan
Well, it soon became clear that there were two problems with my strategy. First, it was 2009 and the economy was in the worst recession since the 1930s. The formerly fast-growing Deer Valley area had ground to a halt. No new homes or businesses would be constructed for years to come, and established businesses were going bust left and right. For an aspiring blogger, I couldn't have picked a worse time to write about local news, when there was little very news happening.

The second problem is that I work a full time job, and did not have the resources to go and do actual journalism. Stuff like conducting interviews, filing public records requests, telling both sides of a complex issue wasn't feasible to do on evenings and weekends. I was just one guy with a computer and an idea.

The lack of content to write about and the lack of time to put into stories (and maintaining a regular posting schedule) meant that my site struggled to find an audience. I wasn't good at writing time-sensitive pieces about events and activities, and after they have passed, no one cares to read about them. I decided to try a new approach, focusing on content that was not time-specific.

Local News Becomes Local History
One thing I did enjoy writing about was history. North Phoenix was built up substantially in the 1970s and 1980s, and is too new of an area to really have much history. The landscape is primarily made up of subdivisions of low-density, single family homes built on large tracts of land by developers, dotted with commercial shopping centers at major corners. Not exactly a thrilling history.

As it turns out, the focus of a blog about one specific area of the city was TOO narrow. So I started branching out with other posts about the Phoenix area and Arizona, such as:

• Arizona Trivia and Little-Known Facts
• 101 Things to Do in Phoenix
• You Grew Up in Phoenix in the 80s If You...
• You Lived in Phoenix in the 60s, 70s, and 80s If...
• The History of Lake Pleasant
• Discovering Arizona's Point of Origin
• Duppa Homestead - The Oldest House in Phoenix

These posts did a lot better, and actually got some good page views and even some real comments. I was finding an audience with these nostalgia/history posts, which wasn't where I expected to be when I started the site.

The Competition
Another problem that I didn't see coming was the competition. As I mentioned, the idea of "hyper-local news" was a pretty new concept in 2009. Today in 2020, there are lots of ways people can find out what's happening in their community.

Reddit has a local news and discussion forum (subreddit) called /r/Phoenix with 75,000 members.

NextDoor.com has become the premier social network for people to discuss issues online with residents of their specific, local neighborhood.

Facebook Groups allow people to join, share, and discuss topics of a shared interest, such as local history. There are a few great Facebook Groups dedicated to Phoenix history, including one with nearly 6,000 members.

NoPhoNews, a local news website launched in 2017, is the online version of a niche print publication founded in 2005. They have basically done what I set out to do, covering local news and issues in the North Phoenix area.


The Future
After 12 years and 200+ posts, I don't know where to go next with North Phoenix Blog. There are still plenty of ideas I would like to write about, but there are also other projects I would like to work on as well.

I will continue to write for the site on an occasional basis, as I have done for the past couple of years. There is no regular posting schedule, but I will publish articles as I find ideas that strike me as worth writing about. 

Looking back over the past 12 years, it has been a great ride writing about the city I love and hearing the responses from readers who have a real appreciation for local history has been very rewarding. Thank you so much for reading, and I look forward to bringing you more articles going forward.

Legend City Log Ride Custom Car

"Legend City was originally conveived in the late 1950s by Louis E. Crandall as Arizona's answer to Disneyland. For kids living in the Phoenix area in the 1960s and 70s, it was an entertainment mecca, a unique and fun place for a magical afternoon or an evening out. Opened in 1963 and closed forever in 1983, Legend City will long be remembered for its Old West atmosphere, cool rides, charming attractions and presentation of such splendid local talent as Vonda Kay Van Dyke, Dolan Ellis, Mike Condello, Hub Kapp, and of course, Wallace and Ladmo. A vanished treasure in Phoenix entertainment history."

Legend City was the closest thing Arizona ever had to a Disneyland type amusement park. The park opened in 1963 and closed in 1983. It had a number of attractions, amusements, and rides - one of which was the Log Jammer flume ride.

Though the park has long been closed, one enterprising man was able to save part of its history in a most unusual way. He acquired one of the original log ride cars from Legend City (car No. 8) and has transformed it into a running, driving hot rod, or as he calls it, a "Rat Log."

An original ride car from the Log Jammer ride at Phoenix's defunct Legend City amusement park has been transformed into a running, driving automobile.

Riding on a modified Chevrolet chassis with a 350 cubic inch V8 engine, the vehicle has been fitted with two seats, one in front of the other, similar to the F-4 Phantom fighter jet. It has headlights, turn signals, running boards, and a custom "wooden log" steering wheel.

The vehicle is adorned with memorabilia from Legend City on the tail, including laminated entry tickets from the 1970s. It was quite a cool creation, and I'm thrilled that the history of Legend City is being preserved in such an eye-catching way. I'll bet the owner gets questions about this car everywhere it goes!

Running boards help with easy entry to the vehicle, which does not have traditional doors.

Though never intended to be a road vehicle, this former amusement ride has been adapted to a car quite well.

Memorabilia from Legend City, Phoenix's former amusement park.

Decorative Sewer Manhole Covers in Phoenix

The greater Phoenix area is made up of more than 20 incorporated cities, towns, and census designated places. Collectively, the "metro Phoenix" area is home to 4.7 million people.

As these cities and towns grow closer together into one giant mass of sprawl, how do they retain their individual identities? One small way that cities set themselves apart is with decorative sewer manhole covers. Here are five good ones that I've come across in the Phoenix area. I will update this post with more unique sewer and manhole covers as I find them.

City of Phoenix sanitary sewer cover featuring the Phoenix bird symbol, which was designed in 1987 in a widely publicized design contest. The winning entry was a design by the firm of Smit Ghormley Sanft and became the official city symbol in 1990.

City of Peoria, AZ storm sewer cover featuring a setting sun, mountains, a Saguaro cactus, and an agricultural field in the foreground. The year 1954 is when Peoria was incorporated as a city.

City of Glendale, AZ sanitary sewer cover featuring the three pillar design that appears throughout the city. The pillars represent three key elements of community—the citizens, the business sector, and the government that serves them. They were adopted as the city's official logo in 1990.

City of Chandler, AZ sanitary sewer cover featuring the city's official logo, which was adopted in 1994. It has a stylized "C" with the San Tan Mountains, the growing city, and agricultural fields in the foreground.

City of Scottsdale, AZ storm sewer cover features a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. The design was adopted as the official city seal around 1951. It was designed by local artist Gene Pennington and was based on an actual Scottsdale cattleman and resident Gerbacio "Harvey" Noriega.

November 2020 Update: I found another one!

The City of Buckeye, Arizona has these unique storm sewer covers in their Historic downtown district. The design features the bud of a cotton plant - a historically important crop in the region. It says "Historic Buckeye - Founded 1888." Interestingly, all of the other covers have a small cutout or notch to facilitate removal of the cover using a special manhole cover lifting tool. The Buckeye one does not have a notch and I have no idea how this would be removed!