In 1888, Visiting the Salt River Valley, Army Chaplain Winfield Scott was pleased with its promise and subsequently made a down payment on 640 acres to start a farming venture. Near the heart of present-day downtown Scottsdale, the acquisition of Scott will be the catalyst for the city that bears his name to grow.

Scottsdale’s favorable climate, the location of the irrigated desert, and the stunning scenery affected its initial settlement. While the primary draw was agriculture, many health seekers came to Scottsdale in its early years. Many of the town’s initial inhabitants, recruited from back East and the Midwest by Scott, were educated and had an appreciation for cultural activities. In 1896, these early settlers founded the Scottsdale public school system, embraced a burgeoning community of artists and writers in the early 1900s, and facilitated Scottsdale’s association with the earliest resorts in the area, the Ingleside Inn (1909) and the Jokake Inn (1922).

As the city pushed northward into the high Sonoran Desert and experienced many building booms, the following decades brought more population and land development. By 1980, 88.6 square miles contained a population of more than 88,000. By 1990, it had reached more than 130,000 in population and grown to around 185 square miles, approximately its present size. By 2000, the city had over 202,000 inhabitants and by 2019, 258,000.

Neighboring cities include Fountain Hills, Carefree, Cave Creek, Paradise Valley, Tempe, and Phoenix.