Friday, Dec.19, 1932 dawned bright and sunny, but before it concluded, it turned out to be a very bad day for John Charman McPhee, the 26-year-old editor of the Mesa Journal Tribune.
The young McPhee was the energetic newspaper editor in his second year at the Mesa Journal Tribune, the ancestor of the present-day Mesa Tribune.
He also had a Chamber of Commerce energy.
Mesa was deeply mired in the Great Depression. Seeking a strategy to boost residents’ mood while helping businesses salvage something out of the Christmas season, McPhee had an idea…