A well-established, civilized society inhabited the land we know as Phoenix hundreds of years before any of the settlements in the eastern portion of our country. Pueblo Grande’s ruins, which was occupied between 700 A.D. 1400 A.D., attest to the ancient origins of our region. The massive Salt River flowed through the Valley of the Sun, but there was no rain and no melting snow on either side to moisten the brown soil from the river to the mountain range.

These former inhabitants were hard-working, enterprising, and creative. An irrigation system was established, consisting mostly of about 135 miles of canals, and the soil became fertile. However, the ultimate destiny of this ancient culture is a mystery. The agreed conviction is that a severe drought ruined it. Observing the Pueblo Grande ruins and the vast canal system left behind by these people, the Roving Indians gave them the name “Ho Ho Kam”—the people who have gone.

The modern history of Phoenix starts in the second half of the nineteenth century. Jack Swilling of Wickenburg halted in 1867 to rest his horse at the foot of the White Tank Mountains’ northern slopes. He looked down and caught the rich gleam of the brown, dry soil turned up by the horse’s hooves through the expansive Salt River Valley and knew the area had potential.

Neighboring cities include Cave Creek, Peoria, Scottsdale, Tempe, Glendale, and Avondale.