O’odham long have utilized the ribs of the saguaro cactus for structures such as ramadas (wato), roofing and shelves for traditional homes (ki), and cultural items including calendar sticks. The people also incorporated cholla cactus wood in everyday and religious items.
At least as early as the 1930s Depression, incoming Anglo-Americans found these desert resources to be useful raw materials for what came to be known as cactus crafts. One such craftsman was Herbert F. Wood (1887-1966), who arrived in Tucson after an injury forced him to leave Pennsylvania where he had been a stonemason. According to a 1946 article in Desert Magazine:
A series of incidents transferred him to the Arizona desert, and now he is using his talents fitting together bits of cactus wood and making sturdy, beautiful furniture.
He is one of the few craftsmen who make real furniture from the natural wood of the arid Southwest, and he began by necessity. He needed furniture for his own home; the cactus wood was available, so he set to work.
Wood set up shop in southwest Tucson in the area of Mission and Ajo roads, near where he had built his family a stone home and also ran a gas station. In addition to the large furniture pieces, he made smaller pieces for tourists:
For many years tourists have been buying ash trays and other small objects of cactus wood to take home with them. They are charming little novelties to take east.
In a July 1952 article in the Tucson Citizen, which reported on a call Wood had received from Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille who was considering making a movie about him, the writer noted: Now he can sell his cactus furniture for as much as $500 a piece—sometimes a table for as much as $1000—but he does that in his spare time around the service station.[i] No word on what the stagecoach lamps commanded. Wood passed away in 1966; there is sadly no record that DeMille ever produced a movie that told his story.
[i] Tucson Daily Citizen, July 17, 1952, p. 10.