John W. Murphey records

Along with Leo B. Keith and Helen Geyer Murphey, his wife, John W. Murphey owned and operated a number of commercial ventures in Southern Arizona beginning in the 1920s. In 1928 the John W. Murphey and Leo B. Keith Building Company was incorporated and hired Josias Joesler as an architect. Fourteen years later, in 1942, the company was re-organized as the Murphey and Keith partnership, at which time Josias Joesler sold his shares of the defunct Murphey-Keith company. Into the 1950s, these companies constructed homes, performed renovations, sold property, and leased houses in the Tucson area. Large projects include whites-only housing developments such as Catalina Foothills Estates and Broadway Village, commercial spaces at Broadway Village and St. Phillips Plaza, the Hacienda del Sol hotel, and the El Conquistador hotel. After Joesler’s death in 1956, Murphey began working with architects Blanton and Cole.

Projects such as the Catalina Foothills Estates were occasionally branched off into separate corporations. The Murpheys continued to manage the Catalina Foothills Estates well into the 1970s.

The Murphey Investment Company was a separate venture which managed the personal assets of the extended Murphey family, including the lawyer for John and Helen Murphey’s other businesses, Bob Murphey.