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| Affiliation | Republican |
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| Name | Dwight B. Heard |
| Address |
, Arizona , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
Unknown
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Thomas Walker
Feb 04, 2009 01:08pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | PHOENIX, ARIZ, - For more than 70 years, the Heard Museum has been a landmark in Phoenix, a place where visitors from across the globe come to learn about the region's Native cultures and art. With its latest expansion, the Heard Museum encompasses 130,000 square feet of galleries, classrooms and performance spaces. That's more than eight times the size of the original structure, built in 1929 to house collections of two Phoenix residents, Dwight and Maie Heard.
Dwight Bancroft Heard moved to Chicago from Wayland, Mass., shortly after high school. He began working at Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett and Company, one of the biggest wholesale hardware companies in the country and the precursor of True-Value Hardware Stores. While there, Dwight Heard was a protege of Adolphus Bartlett and subsequently met his daughter, Maie Bartlett. In 1893, Dwight Heard and Maie Bartlett were married. Just one year later, the couple headed for warmer, dryer climates on a doctor's advice after Dwight was diagnosed with lung ailments. After traveling throughout the Southwest, the young couple settled in Phoenix in 1895 and decided to make it their home.
Once settled in Phoenix, the young couple began what would be a lifelong dedication to the betterment of their new community. Dwight Heard was one of the largest landowners in the Salt River Valley, and his Bartlett-Heard Land and Cattle Company south of Phoenix raised prize cattle, alfalfa, citrus trees and cotton. As the president of the Arizona Cotton Growers' Association, he is credited with helping to make the Arizona cotton growers industry competitive internationally. His other business interests included real estate development, investment lending and newspaper publishing.
Maie Heard also became actively involved in her new community, founding or supporting a number of civic endeavors. Maie Heard and other Bartlett family members donated land for the city's first civic center, where the original Phoenix Art Museum and Phoenix Library were built, and where the recently expanded Phoenix Art Museum stand today.
The Heards built a 6,000-square-foot house called "Casa Blanca" in what was then north Phoenix. The home featured Spanish-style architecture and was built around an open courtyard. The couple planted hundreds of palm trees along four miles of roads in Los Olivos, the neighborhood surrounding their home which was developed by Dwight Heard, and the couple are credited with introducing the stately trees to Phoenix.
Casa Blanca was a major gathering place, where the Heards hosted a variety of family and friends over the years including Marshall Field; Charles L.Hutchinson, founder of the Art Institute of Chicago; Herbert Hoover; Harvey S. Firestone; Theodore Roosevelt and others.
While learning about their new community, the Heards developed a keen interest in Native American artifacts and art, and they began to acquire pieces that they exhibited in their home. Over the years, the Heards built their collection through travel and contacts with trading posts as well as with Indian arts dealers such as the Fred Harvey Company.
Much of the archaeological material in the Heard's collection came from La Ciudad, a Hohakam Indian ruin they purchased in 1926. The Heard often shared the site with the public through a series of afternoon viewings, and Mr Heard was a frequent lecturer.
Through the years, it became evident that a space larger than their home should be dedicated to the collection and, on the suggestion of the daughter-in-law, Winifred, the Heards decided to build a museum.
The Heard Museum opened quietly in June 1929, several months after Mr Heard died of a heart attack. There was little fanfare, and the museum didn't even have a sign in its early days, although the Arizona Republican newspaper noted its incorporation with headlines in June and its official opening in the fall of that year. Visitors often rang a doorbell connected to the Heard's nearby home, Casa Blanca, so that Mrs Heard could show them the museum.
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