Bob Fletcher
Peoria - Maricopa County
Inducted in 2013
Born in Phoenix on March 28, 1920, Robert Fletcher became a business tycoon, racetrack owner, racing team owner, airplane mechanic, church leader, ranch farmer, and conservationist. His role in Arizona's history has been gigantic.
The son of Herbert LNM Abby Fletcher, young Robert, had good role models. His father was prominent in Arizona banking and agriculture. William S. Fletcher's grandfather came to Arizona in 1890, selling first in Kingman. According to his grandson, he epitomized the term a jack of all trades. William bought a small mind in the Kingman area. Eventually, he had mining interests in California, Mexico, and British Columbia, but his heart was in farming. He next bought a section of land in the Maricopa area. With an engineering and surveying background, he set the section corner on his land, and they became a key. For all the surveyors in the area, they worked off the Fletcher section. Bob's grandfather died in an accident on the farm when he went down into a well to check a pump motor. He hit a bad run on the wooden ladder when he was about 60 feet from the bottom and fell to his death. Bob's father was just 16, and his brother was 14 when the accident happened. Like most farms, there was a mortgage, and the family lost everything. It was up to Herbert and his brother to support their mother. Neither boy finished high school, but both wound up as officers of the Valley Bank.
When Bob was a youngster, Herbert raised pigeons and rabbits, which he showed at the Arizona State Fair. The poultry barn was on turn four of the fairground racetrack, like a magnet to the curious young boy. When he was about five or six, Bob was well on his way to developing his fascination with cars. While his father was busy, he would sneak away and run over to the track, sticking his head through the wooden fence and watching the cars. His father would remove his belt and swap him back to the barn, but the punishment didn't know his interest.
Bob learned to farm, working beside his dad when he was ten and still in grade school. He attended Emerson Elementary School and went on to Phoenix Union High School. When I attended, there were 5800, and some odd kids went in there." At that time, there were only three high schools in Phoenix. "There was Saint Mary's Catholic High School in Carver High School. Those were the only three high schools that were here," he remembers.
While his classmates were playing sports or participating in other activities, young Bob was working at Consolidated Motors in Phoenix or tinkering with his own car or one of his friends' cars. A heart murmur prohibited him from participating in the school sports program, but cars were his passion, a passion that earned him numerous driving citations in later years.
By 1939, he was farming and selling produce from his truck garden at the Fourth Avenue market, eventually amassing 700 acres of citrus and 400 acres of other crops, including cotton greens. He remembers his day starting at 3 AM when he took his produce to market; the market opened at 4 AM, and then he was off to shift at Thunderbird Field as an airplane mechanic, leaving Thunderbird Field at 10 PM. He went home and slept just long enough to keep going, and then it was back to work on the farm. "That's what I was doing until I went to sleep coming out north of Peoria and ran off across the desert in my truck, "he said. "That scared my wife and family. The second time I did it, my wife said, "That is it!"
He sold off his farms and was assigned to the Army Air Corps. He spent the war as a mechanic in Northern Africa and Italy. Because of his heart murmur, his mother had always felt secure in the belief that he wouldn't be accepted in the military. "I forget that's the doctor's name, but everybody forgets that Phoenix was a tiny town. Then I had one of my first numbers to register and had to go down and get a physical, and I came home." The doctor I went to also doctored me a little bit for my heart. He said, "Bobby, you're fine. You can go in the service." Bob said when he told his mother he had been okay with going, she went straight to the phone and called the doctor to object. He told me that Bob was fine for the military, and that was that.
When he returned to the valley in December 1945, he worked for the D'Arigo Brothers produce farm in Picacho, AX. Four months later, he joined John Jacobs Farms. In 1948, he developed his farm but leased the property out because he had no money to farm. After two years with John Jacobs, Bob started a Buick and GMC dealership in Barstow, California. Unhappy at not doing the work he loved, he returned to Arizona in 1950 and developed land in Peoria.
Over the years, Fletcher founded and operated RI Fletcher Construction, a general construction business, the Cobra Tire Co., Cobra Automotive Parts Company, Cobra Industrial Supply, Fletcher Farms, Cody Farms, TeaLand Farms, Phoenix Frozen Food, 80X Corp., New River Utility Company, Oliver Tractor Dealership, and with Clyde Smith, founded the Smith Supermarket Chain. He also sat on the board of several corporations and was the founder and director of a championship auto racing team.
In 1951, along with the attorney Fred Ironside,SRP, and geologist Bob Goodman, Bob was asked to represent agriculture in bringing Colorado River water to Central Arizona. He was a Director and co-founder of McMicken Irrigation District and Electrical District Number 7, which bought CAP water and cheap power for farmers.
His interest continued with his business and agricultural endeavors. He was president and one of the founders of Amigos, an organization of Arizona business leaders dedicated to keeping Arizona's mining industry thriving.
Bob's love of racing never died. In the early 1970s, when he heard that his racetrack in the Estrella foothills might be torn down, he purchased the track and established Phoenix International Raceway. He eventually sold it to Buddy Jobe, who made numerous improvements to the property before selling Phoenix International Raceway to International Speedway Corporation.
Throughout the years, Bob has always found time to be involved with the United Methodist Church at the local district and conference levels.
Bob Fletcher has received numerous awards over the years, including the Soil Conservationist of the Year award for the state of Arizona in 1966 for his flat pan in dead leveling program to conserve water. The method is still used. He was listed in Who's Who of Arizona in 1977.
It is not generally known, but Bob Fletcher donated the money he had to help establish the west campus of Arizona State University. "There was a battle in the legislation regarding where the new university campus should be built. Tucson kind of had the edge, and it was going down there. Because of that, it was at a standstill. "I wanted to go to university on the westside for the farmer's kids, including everybody who had no opportunity to go to college. They couldn't go clear over to Tempe. Stan Turley, president of the Arizona State Senate at the time, said that if someone would donate a million dollars and tell them where they wanted the university to go on the Westside, he would pass the legislation and match it will nine hundred thousand or a million dollars." Bob was asked to meet with the president of ASU a short time later. When he was told what Turley had said, he said, "I'll donate the million dollars." the campus was finally built in Glendale.
Bob and his wife Jerry were married in 1942; she passed away in 1978. The couple has three children.
Affiliations
Committee to bring Colorado River water to Central Arizona, 1951
McMicken Irrigation District and Electrical District 7, co-founder and director
Arizona Citrus Growers - Director, Past President and Board, 20 years
Amigos - Co-Founder and President
Arizona State Chamber of Commerce - Board Member
Federal Citrus Lemon Prorate Committee, over 20 years
Arizona Lemon Growers
Arizona Cattle Growers Association - Member
ASU West campus - Architectural Committee
Methodist Southwest Conference - Lay Leader
Little League - Team Manager
Thunderbird Bank - Chairman of the Board
Boys Scouts of America - Eagle Scout and Assistant Scoutmaster
JC Lincoln Hospital - Board of Directors
Awards
The Soil Conservationist of the Year Award- Arizona, 1966
Amigos-Founder Award 1999
Wildlife Habitat Award -Arizona Game & Fish, 2007
Who’s Who of the West, 1977
Conference Layman of the Year- Southern California-Arizona Methodist Conference
