Rescued after the University of Arizona sold it in a surplus auction, this silent film from 1958 shows the annual homecoming parade in downtown Tucson. The opponent that year for the Arizona Wildcats football team was the West Texas A&M Buffaloes, aka West Texas State Buffalos, as shown on a float at (1:06). At (1:35) the Dave Bloom & Son’s store is seen in the background, this was at E. Congress St. and N. 6th Ave. At (2:10) part of a campaign against Proposition 200, which (when it passed) changed the official name of the Arizona State College at Tempe to Arizona State University. Tucsonans took issue, since UA was the defacto state university for 73 years. At (4:28) the Army Store and Sears are visible. At (5:27) footage from the football stadium during the game. At (6:37) a wonderful float from Gordo’s restaurant shows a “buffalo-q”. At (13:32) the homecoming queen is shown dancing at a formal. At (14:51) a fraternity sign for Kappa Alpha is visible. Kappa Sigma fraternity members won first place for their “Prop 200” funeral procession.

Arizona won the game incidentally by a touchdown, 15-8.

Motion picture films don’t last forever; many have already been lost or destroyed. For almost two decades, we’ve worked to collect, scan and preserve the world as it was captured on 35mm, 16mm and 8mm movies — including home movies, industrial films, and other non-fiction. If you have endangered films you’d like to have scanned, or wish to donate celluloid to Periscope Film so that we can share them with the world, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us via the weblink below.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com