GETTING AWAY

Old Cordes Antique Store
I’ve always said that you often find the best places in Arizona by following the dust down an old dirt road. That was certainly the case when I turned off of I-17 and drove about three miles west on Bloody Basin Road until it dead-ended at the Cordes Station Antique Store on Old Black Canyon Road.

Stepping inside the store is much like stepping back in to history, and history is why owner Cathy Cordes says she reopened this old stage stop several years ago. Cathy says her great-great-grandfather John Henry Cordes bought the old stage stop in 1883 from a fellow mill worker who wanted out after his brother was apparently murdered there.

The building the antique store is in was built by her great-grandfather in 1915 and was a welcome site for travelers on the dusty dirt road between Phoenix and Prescott.  It was also a true oasis for nearby ranching families who could go to the general store and buy everything from radios to blasting caps. In fact, Cathy says she’s often asked, “Where in the world did you get this all this stuff?”

She says everything lining the top shelf “is stuff from when it was my Grandpa’s store, but none of it’s for sale.”

Not to worry though, as there are plenty of shelves and lots of treasures to capture your — and your wallet’s — attention.

Cathy loves to share her family history, and she especially loves to talk about her grandpa Henry Cordes, who eventually closed the store in the late 1960s when I-17 opened and moved it to Cordes Junction, where I-17 and Highway 69 intersect.
  
I’m proud to say I’ve known the Cordes family for a long time. Cathy’s mom Patsy worked at the Orme School for many years, and I knew her from my summer camp days in the mid 1970s.  But I have to admit this was the first time I had stopped into the antique store. I not only got reacquainted with old friends, I got an awfully good taste of the Arizona history I love.

— Dan Davis