Phoenix

History

Native Americans occupied the site of present-day Phoenix hundreds of years ago, building a thriving community between 700 and 1400, establishing an agriculture-based civilization in the dry land of the region by developing an irrigation system that included over 161 kilometers (100 miles) of canals. By the middle of the fifteenth century, this civilization had vanished, possibly decimated by an extended period of drought. Their Native American successors called them the Hohokam ("the people who have gone").

By the sixteenth century, Hispanic conquistadors had arrived in Arizona, introducing new agricultural techniques, as well as horses and cows. Over the following centuries, Europeans began settling in the region, drawn by mining and trading opportunities. The modern city of Phoenix had its beginnings in the late 1860s when a small group of settlers formed a colony in the area and began building canals on the site of the former Hohokam irrigation system. Because the new settlement was rising from the ashes of a former civilization, the name "Phoenix" was chosen for it in 1868. In 1881, its local government was changed from a village trustee system to one consisting of a mayor and a city council, and the city was incorporated. Its population was 2,500 at the time. Phoenix progressed rapidly. Within a decade it had a horse-drawn streetcar line and one of the earliest electric plants in the West, and the Southern Pacific railroad had arrived, promoting the economy of the growing city.

The completion of the Theodore Roosevelt Dam in 1911 was a milestone in Phoenix's history. The largest masonry dam in the world, it was also the first dam constructed to supply both water and electricity. The following year, Arizona became a state, and Phoenix became its capital. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the city's population grew from approximately 5,000 to 29,000 as Phoenix began to make the transition to a modern city. In addition to the railroad and the Roosevelt Dam, a third technological advance—the development of air conditioning—played an important role in the city's continued growth. World War II (1939–45) brought large numbers of men to military bases in the area and contributed to the growth of industry, which rapidly replaced agriculture as the most important sector in the city's economy.

In the postwar decades, Phoenix prospered, growing more rapidly than ever. Since 1950, the city's population has risen from 106,000 to 1.2 million, the seventh largest in the nation, and Phoenix has become the leading southwestern center for business and industry. In the 1990s, it experienced yet another in a series of population booms, as a number of Californians moved to the area. Although Phoenix has inevitably experienced some of the disadvantages of rapid growth, including urban sprawl and air pollution, its city government has been recognized as one of the most effective in the nation and is committed to maintaining the quality of life for its residents as the city's growth continues into the twenty-first century.