Arlington, AZ |
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| History – 1890 to 1990 | |
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Historic settlement in the river valleys of Central Arizona began with the
communities of Florence, Adamsville, and Phoenix. The former began with a
group of Anglo and Hispanic settlers who farmed and ranched along the Gila
as early as 1866. Adamsville was larger than Florence and, like its
neighbor, consisted of farmers and ranchers, but the town evaporated from
the landscape with the expansion of the Gila River Indian reservation in the
1870s. Phoenix arose like its namesake from the ashes, or more
appropriately, dust of a former civilization that had departed from the Salt
River Valley in 1450. Starting in 1867 with a small settlement along a
canal excavated along the same land contours as the ancient Hohokam, Phoenix
quickly grew and outpaced its sibling on the Gila.
Both Phoenix and Florence provided foodstuffs to the mines in Arizona, which, prior to 1866, relied solely on products from California. However, unlike Phoenix, Florence had to compete for water rights with upstream settlements such as Safford and the Gila River Indian community downstream. Hence, Florence was stunted in its evolution at an early date. Not so for the Phoenix and the later communities of Tempe, and Mesa on the Salt River. Agriculture became big in Phoenix, Mesa, and Tempe, and newer communities started to spring up nearby. The Arizona Canal fed the irrigation ditches of Glendale and Peoria. Further to the west, where the Agua Fria enters into the Gila, the Town of Buckeye was founded and fertile land was put under the plow and watered by the Buckeye Irrigation Company’s canal. This canal also was used initially by the citizens in what would soon be known as Arlington. The Buckeye diversion dam, supplying that town’s irrigation system was put in at the mouth of the Agua Fria River in 1885 and the canal was extended to the mouth of the Hassayampa and surveyed to the south end of Arlington Valley in 1889. The irrigation of the area would prove to be too problematic for the Buckeye Irrigation Company and within ten years, a new canal company, and with it a new community, would be formed. (Parkman, 10; Murphy, 54; Barnes, 28) For comments on the site, or to offer additional information, please send email to vince@azmurrays.net. |