Phoenix, Arizona - Odd Facts and a Potted History

Phoenix, Arizona is the second largest city in the West with only Los Angeles larger; Phoenix is a major center not only as a place to work and live but also in terms of connections with the surrounding western United States, culture and fun!

The city was founded in 1881 however there have been people living on the site for much, much longer. The native Indians, the Hohokam, had farmed the area for centuries until drought had forced them away and the white settlers had used the ancient ruins and particularly the old irrigation canals and paths as the basis for new settlement. Jack Swilling was a Civil War veteran looking for a place to call his own and found the valley within which modern Phoenix resides, noting the ruins and that only a lack of water was stopping the development of the spot as a rural community.

In 1867, Swilling embarked on a canal building exercise, closely following the old ruins and started modern day development in what is known as the Valley of the Sun because it surrounds the spot on all sides. Initially, Swilling wanted to name the new settlement, "Jackson", after General Stonewall Jackson (Swilling had fought on the Confederate side) however the local population would have none of it and eventually a friend of Swilling's suggested that as the city was rising from the old Hohokam ruins, it should properly be called "Phoenix".

The name stuck and Phoenix was adopted to recognize the city rising from the ashes of the old Indian and Mexican ruins and in 1881, the city was formally incorporated.

The first Sheriff was elected in 1871 in a three way election which resulted in Tom Barnum eventually winning as the only candidate left standing. Two other candidates John Chenowth and Jim Favorite, decided to settle the issue with a shootout resulting in Favorite being buried in Boot Hill and Chenowth beating a hasty exit from the area. Such frontier occurrences would have continued and the embryonic township would have remained a small stop over point but for the coming of the railroad in the 1880's.

The railroad went by Phoenix and instead of being a sleepy, backwards frontier town where mountain men would trade pelts for whisky and supplies, now goods from across the country poured in the town. Growth after this was rapid as the economy took off fuelling the growth of the city. Banks, courts, shops, saloons, hotels, city hall and a mayor soon formed part of the downtown melee with President Ulysses S Grant providing the land patent for the site of what is now downtown Phoenix.

With the birth of the 20th Century and President Roosevelt signing the Land Reclamation Act, the construction of dams became a reality to harness the power of the rivers and stabilize water supplies for the growing metropolis and farmers. This huge construction project attracted thousands of workers and their families, and many of them stayed after finishing the project simply because of the First World War producing thousands of jobs in munitions factories and servicing the huge military bases established in the area. This was simply compounded with the advent of the Second World War causing everything to be repeated again.

Today, Phoenix is the fastest growing city in the United States as well as being the largest state capital and the only one with a population over a million people; it is the largest city in the Mountain Time Zone and the hub for the regions cultural and economic activities.