ST. GEORGE — The office is tucked away in a nondescript building in the industrial side of town. It is not listed as one of the area's historic sites. It is certainly not a tourist attraction.
But if it weren't for D. Blake Electric & Refrigeration, and dozens more businesses just like it, it's a fair bet that a few blocks away on St. George Boulevard they'd still be looking to put in their second stop light.
It's air conditioning that has made St. George a cool place to live.
Consider this statistic: In 1970, when few homes had any kind of air conditioning whatsoever, the city's population was 7,097. In 2009, when more than 95 percent have air, the population is 72,718.
D. Blake Electric & Refrigeration is one of the oldest air-conditioning purveyors in the city. The company was started 59 years ago, in 1950, when Denzel Blake presciently jumped onto what looked like a promising bandwagon. His son, Peter, along with a partner, Dennis Priest, now own the business that sells, installs and repairs all things air conditioning.
But it's Peter's wife, Julie, who runs the office and knows everything that's going on.
"We capitalize on people's misery," says Julie with a smile as she looks up from a bewildering pile of paperwork in what passes as D. Blake's command center, a small office with three desks, three constantly ringing telephones and a schedule board on the wall.
The middle of the summer is obviously not the best time to interview A/C people in St. George, but Julie is anything but impolite. Plus she has a sense of humor. So while she fields phone calls she talks amiably.
It's 107 degrees outside the office; inside, it's a pleasant 70 degrees.
"I wouldn't live here without air," she says matter-of-factly. "Would you?"
For years, though, people did live in St. George without air, and Julie's not entirely sure what caused the paradigm shift.
"Younger people didn't go through the Depression, maybe that's what it is," she says. "But they do not want to be hot."
As Julie is talking, Rich Mustachia, one of Blake's veteran technicians, walks in between jobs.
Mustachia grew up in Las Vegas — another modern desert hotbed of air conditioning — and is old enough to remember when "air conditioning was a luxury, and now it's a necessity."
"I'll be honest with you, dude," says Mustachia. "I couldn't do what the Pioneers did."
Neither, apparently, can a lot of other people, as evidenced by the 60- to 70-hour weeks Mustachia routinely works in the summer. And he could work more. More than once, he's had $100 bills waved in his face to bribe him to work on somebody's broken A/C unit at midnight.
But it's the St. George old timers who still have an aversion to air conditioning that give Rich his best stories.
He talks about one elderly woman who finally bowed to family pressure and installed a state-of-the-art air-conditioning system in her home. One day she called Mustachia and asked him to come for a check-up.
Everything was in good shape, he told her, but he pointed out that the thermostat was set at 105 degrees.
"I just want to make sure it works when I need it," said the woman.
And then there was the old married couple, both of them named Afton.
When Afton, the husband, was on his deathbed, he turned to his wife and said, "Afton, I want you to have air conditioning in the house."
After Afton was buried, Rich installed the air conditioning.
"I have no idea why they waited so long," he shrugs.
Mustachia has many more stories, and so does Julie Blake, but the phones are ringing and it's hot outside and they're swamped.
Miserable people are out there, and they need their help.
Lee Benson's column runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com.