Ralph C. Flores was born in 1908 in San Cristobal, Sonora, Mexico and was age eleven when he arrived in Tempe with his family in 1921 from Douglas, Arizona, their home after leaving Mexico to escape the chaos of the Mexican Revolution. His father learned of the need for cotton pickers in Phoenix and that workers were being hired. The Flores family rode with Mexican families on a World War I Army truck and they were left in a corral near the Tempe Bridge. Families were hired to pick cotton and produce on farms in Laveen and Phoenix, where the family remained for several years. Ralph grew into manhood and married his wife, Lupe, in 1934. By 1949 he and his wife and four children lived in the house he built in Tempe at 6th Street and Farmer. Ralph became a plasterer and found construction work in Tempe. He helped build the rock baseball bleachers and walls at Tempe Beach Park and did construction work in new homes in growing Tempe. After his retirement from construction, Ralph worked for the Tempe School District as a handyman at the Rural Elementary School for ten years. As President of Tempe’s League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) , his leadership in civil rights work is well known. Ralph organized fund raisers for the children of Guadalupe and delivered gifts at Christmas and school supplies at the Frank Elementary school. Ralph C. Flores died in 2003.
2026 Tempe Legend – Ralph C. Flores (1908-2003)
