Salt River Stories vs A Deeper Map

Salt River Stories (or PHXstories) is a free mobile app that puts the history of the Phoenix-Scottsdale-Tempe metro area at your fingertips. A collaboration between the Public History program at Arizona State University and the Papago Salado Association, Salt River Stories lets you explore the people, places, and moments that have shaped the region’s history. Learn about the region through layered, map-based, multimedia presentations, use social media to share your stories, and take curated historical tours of the desert metropolis. Each point on the interactive GPS-enabled map tells a story about the site and includes images from the region's archives. Many stories also include audio clips and short documentary videos, sharing oral histories or expert knowledge. Perhaps best of all, Salt River Stories is a collaborative project with stories created collaboratively by teachers, students, professors, and community members. Students and faculty in the School of Historical Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University curate Salt River Stories. 

If you know of a story, a site, theme, or topic that we’ve not explored, check back often because we will be adding new material on a monthly basis. If you would like to suggest a site or become involved in developing digital stories, reviewing content, or collecting regional history please contact us. 

 You can find us on the web at saltriverstories.org; you may email us at publichistory@asu.edu, or you can find us on Facebook at SaltRiverStories and on Twitter @PHXstories. 

 We are sometimes asked why we named the project “Salt River Stories,” and there are many reasons, including that our coverage is not bounded by a single political entity subdivision in the Valley. Also, and critically, the Salt River defines the valley in which Phoenix and the broader metropolis that emerged during the 20th century. The Salt River is both a watershed and valley--in which gravity forces water to flow from the Granite Reef to the East into the Valley nurturing human development in the region. To highlight the breadth of our region and the amazing ways the chose to call this historical project Salt River Stories to highlight the amazing ways that environment and human society have shaped the Valley of the Sun, we have titled our project Salt River Stories.

A Deeper Map is a public art project that takes the form of a map-based mobile app. The project allows current residents of the lower Salt River Valley (home of today’s metro Phoenix area) to appreciate the ancient legacy that inspired our modern desert metropolis. The project is designed to show current residents of the Valley where ancient irrigation and agriculture once existed where they now live, work or go to school. We have paired contemporary maps with archaeological maps of the canal paths and conjectural renderings of ancient agricultural fields to inform the general public about the scope and sophistication of prehistoric agriculture here. The central metaphor for the app is a modern map of the area that can be slid away, revealing a fixed prehistoric map below. The contemporary map is viewable in three modes: an opaque map (juxtaposing ancient and modern), a translucent map (allowing both the historic and prehistoric layers to be seen at once), and a satellite view (allowing viewers to locate individual buildings and features relative to ancient agriculture). By sliding the maps back and fourth, our audience can become more conscious of the how places of relevance to them have changed over time. We have consulted with the tribal and archaeological communities to ensure that project is both culturally sensitive and accurate. We have also developed content to go alongside our maps, to provide viewers another way to appreciate the past, and it’s relevance to the present.