Before cool condos became hot commodities, the original inhabitants of this central, southwest portion of the state lived in earthen lodges and caliche-brick dwellings. According to the National Park Service, the ancestral Sonoran Desert people, called Hohokam by archaeologists, occupied the sites that are now called Pueblo Grande and Mesa Grande in the City of Phoenix. These sites were home to Indigenous people for over 1,000 years until their civilization mysteriously disappeared.

The original inhabitants were the first to irrigate the region and they dug a network of canals, more than 100 miles, that diverted water from the Gila and Salt Rivers. The water brought life to their settlement, irrigating crops of corn, beans, and squash through farming, a new practice that changed the way these early inhabitants lived on and worked with the land.

Early non-Native settlers saw the value in irrigation too, and Maricopa County’s modern history can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century when in 1867, Jack Swilling organized the Swilling Irrigation Canal Company, and by the next year, the town of Phoenix was born.

Hohokam is loosely translated to mean “the people who have gone,” and according to the City of Phoenix, the current metropolis eventually arrived at its name after several iterations when Darrell Duppa finally suggested “Phoenix,” meaning that the new town would rise from the ashes, or in this case, the ruins, of the former peoples.

The O’odham and Piipaash Peoples
Maricopa County was named to honor the original inhabitants of the area. Visit Arizona explains that the land that is now the Phoenix metropolis area was made up of the O’odham (Pima) and Piipaash (Maricopa) Tribes.

The Maricopa originally came from the lower Gila and Colorado Rivers, but bands of Maricopa migrated over time. Eventually, the Maricopa joined forces with the Pima peoples, (descendants of the ancestral Sonoran Desert people), in the 1800s to strengthen their resolve against other tribes and settlers.

Today, over 62% of Arizona residents call Maricopa County literally what it is for them— “home”—a home that encompasses so much more than just the major metropolis of Phoenix.