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INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF PEORIA, ARIZONA?
"Phoenix's founder, a saloon brawler and drug addict named Jack Swilling,
re-excavated a network of prehistoric Hohokam Indian canals that irrigated
thousands of acres of farmland along the Salt River. His efforts also helped
give birth to Southeast Valley Settlements that became the cities of Tempe
and Mesa.
Unfortunately, for the northern and western portions of the Salt River
Valley, no Indian Canals were there to restore. So the lands that make up
Northwest Phoenix, Glendale and Peoria today remained raw desert more than
15 years after the East Valley cities had already been settled. For the
barren Northwest Valley to come to life, it, too, needed that all-powerful
resource--water."
The idea was soon born to build a canal 44 miles long from its heading on
the Salt River westward across the northern part of the Valley to the Agua
Fria River. Thus, the Arizona Canal Co. was incorporated on December 20,
1882, by M.W.. Kales, William A. Hancock and Clark Churchill, three prime
builders of pioneer Arizona... After conquering gigantic engineering
problems, (William James Murphy) watched triumphantly as the first water
flowed through the newly constructed Arizona Canal in May 1885." "In 1888, a
persistent (William James) Murphy successfully convinced Joseph G. Greenhut,
an influential businessman from Peoria, Illinois, to promote and found the
settlement of "new" Peoria about 13 miles northwest of Phoenix. In that same
year, Murphy and others constructed a diagonal road, known as Grand Avenue,
from Phoenix to Peoria, thereby providing the first direct link to the
northwestern portion of the Valley from Phoenix."
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