Photo by Mary Bell

It was a tour de force and proof that Phoenix was a progressive town when, in 1903, developers built a conservatoire, the Arizona School of Music, at 600 N. Central Avenue.

The school was ranked the finest in the West. This was a distinguishing honor, considering that Phoenix was little more than a clearing in the wilderness (the school was built over a dusty patch of toll road) and that the Arizona Territory was still 11 years away from statehood.

The conservatoire’s founding director, Abi Creighton, was a gifted pianist, even as a child. After receiving her diploma from Simpson Conservatory in Iowa, she traveled the world to study music under renowned teachers in New York, Italy and Paris, eventually becoming a resident of Phoenix after her marriage to Mr. Shirley Christy. Thanks to Creighton and Christy, progress in the Valley had taken on an exciting partnership with the arts in 1903.

The ornate structure made of just 96 blocks had become the crowning jewel in a cow town one mile long and a half-mile wide. But the building would succumb to progress in 1929, when the school relocated to smaller quarters. Today, the Hotel Westward Ho towers where the school once stood.