Phoenix Then and Now®, Paul Scharbach

Phoenix’s origins date back to 700 AD, when the area, named Pueblo Grande by the Spanish, was home to a progressive agricultural community who constructed canal irrigation systems that fed off the Salt River. The U.S. military sparked the redevelopment of Phoenix and other towns in the Salt River valley by establishing Fort McDowell in 1865. Two years later, Jack Swilling of Wickenburg, Arizona, was traveling on horseback through the region and decided the desert setting was an ideal place to establish a new community.

The name Phoenix came from the idea that, just like the bird that rose from the ashes, the new town would spring from the ruins of a former civilization. Phoenix has grown so rapidly that several outlying towns have now been absorbed into the metropolitan district. Tempe started south of the Salt River around 1870, Mormons started Mesa to the east in 1878, and land developers founded Glendale in 1892 and Scottsdale in 1894. Phoenix became the capital of Arizona in 1912. Phoenix Then and Now looks.