When was peoria az founded

These early settlers either built adobe homes or used large tents. One half of the tent contained a floor and served as the living quarters while the other half housed grain, hay, spare furniture and tools. Rattlesnakes, scorpions and desert rats often sought refuge under the floor from the hot desert sun. Life was even more difficult if floods washed out the canal diversion dam. When this happened, it was a six-mile trek to the Grand Canal for domestic and stock water.

Once there, the settlers had to dip water from the canal into barrels. The water trips often occurred every other day and lasted for months to keep up with demands. With the growth in production at Vulture Mine came an increase in traffic along this route, and so it was named Grand Avenue in By , Peoria was really on the map with the establishment of a U. Post Office for its soaring population of After the proposed town site had been surveyed and a well dug in the northwest corner of section 26 the center of Peoria was firmly set at Washington and Grand Avenue.

To accommodate the expanding community, Central School was built in and used continuously for the next 70 years. Today it is home to the Peoria Museum where tantalizing tidbits from the past await you. Gradually our town was born as entrepreneurial businesses moved in to meet the needs of the growing community.

By the town still only had about 2, people. Four families from Peoria, Illinois were among the first to move to Arizona to occupy and work their land. Residences in the new community sprang up, and a school and Post Office were established by More people followed the original families and Peoria continued to grow as a farming community.

The farmlands were fertile and the people made a good living, despite having to battle swarms of red ants and the occasional rattlesnake in the kitchen. Peoria was incorporated in , with boundaries covering one square mile of land.

The city was formally incorporated in By the town still only had about 2, people. However, it did have all of the shops of a small, self-sufficient and warm-hearted community. Today, with a population of more than ,, Peoria continues to grow and prosper. Please enable JavaScript in your browser for a better user experience. Jump to subpage View Full Site.