Sun Cities Museum Sign

Del Webb Sun Cities Museum - the first of five
model homes that opened January 1, 1960.

"Concrete, steel and lumber make the buildings, but people make the community. As has been the case so many times in the past, if people of good will sit down together with one objective - the building of a better community - the future has great promise."

— Del Webb



Breen  Jacobson

SUN CITIES AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
L. C. Jacobson and Tom Breen Interview
by Glenn Sanberg and Louise & John Byrne on November 29, 1983.
Transcribed by Belva McIntosh April 13, 2007


(Transcriber note: Speakers were difficult to identify and often talked over each other. There was a great deal of background noise so transcription is not always verbatim.  ----- or ….. indicates parts of the conversation that were unintelligible.)

"Interviewer: You mean he (Del Webb) had never even seen this (Sun City)? | Breen: No, he didn't know what it was. He used to call me up on the phone from New York or someplace and, God I can still remember that, he would get on the phone and say, Tom, how is your old folks home coming. Then he would say, will I hope you know what the Hell you're doing."
Interviewer:  This is Glenn Sanberg. This is Monday, November 28, 1983. We are in the office of Mr. L. C. Jacobson, former President of the Del Webb Corporation. With Mr. Jacobson is Mr. Tom Breen, also a former executive of the Del Webb Corporation.  With me, helping to conduct this interview is Mr. & Mrs. John Byrne. John and Louise have arranged this interview for us on behalf of the Sun City Oral History Project.
Jacobson:  This was in 1958.  The first contact we had with Boswell on the land he wanted to develop out there was in a golf game that he was playing with Bob Johnson, district manager of our Los Angeles Office. They were playing at the Annenberg Country Club in Pasadena and Jimmy told Bob he had some land out there that- lousy cotton land - and he wanted to know about some way there was to do something with it, the proper way, so felt that it had some kind of future. So Bob told him that the person he should get in touch with was me with the Phoenix office. And Jimmy came in and we discussed the development with him and I painted the best picture that I could. [READ MORE]

YouTube logo  "The Beginning"
Promotional video about Sun City, Arizona produced by Del E. Webb Corporation in about 1961. Great look at the 1960's - cars, customs, etc.   [click here to view Part 1] Part II of promotional video produced by Del E. Webb Corporation in early 1960's. Great look at the 60's including cars, clothes, etc.
[click here to view Part 2]
movie part 1

Jane Freeman Interview with Jane Freeman
by Beverly Brown, Aug. 5, 2007.
[click here]



Del Webb Sun Cities Museum tour with museum president, Bill Pearson.



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