Gilbert adds a new face of Phoenix

from Senior Life - Elko Edition - March 2023

Placebo power works

And it’s easier to do things here.

By the time you get to Phoenix, you may have heard of Gilbert.

This community of almost 300,000 was facing an impossible task just a couple of years ago. This fourth largest community in the Valley of the Sun was preparing to mark its 100th birthday as the fastest growing city in the country. But it was — and still is — a town.

With a population more than twice the size of Topeka, Kan., it can claim to be the fastest growing town in the nation, and maybe even the biggest town on Earth. It’s the rapid rate of growth that is responsible for its quandary. With a population of less than 2,000 in 1970, it’s grown too fast to give local politicians time to take care of the resolutions and paper work required to call itself a city.

Many of the locals like it that way. It’s more neighborly and friendlier than a city, they say.

To take advantage of the baseball interest spurred by the annual spring training of some 16 teams in the Valley — and the period of benevolent weather — the town renovated a former sports facility and reopened it last year as Cactus Park, a home for youth baseball tournaments, adult softball and kickball leagues with replicas of eight baseball stadiums from around the country.

They can cheer for their favorite local players in Chicago’s historic Wrigley Field, jeer them at St. Louis’ Sportsman’s Park, have a hot dog at Angel Stadium, or grab a pretzel at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks a few miles from the original in downtown Phoenix.

Downtown Gilbert has become a diner’s delight with offerings ranging from zesty ribs to tantalizing tacos. The renovated Heritage District is easy to ﬁnd. Just head for the town’s trademark water tower, which also straddles the weekly farmer’s market alongside the railway tracks that still carries bellowing diesel-towed trains through the heart of Gilbert.

In 1902, the Arizona Eastern Railway asked for donations of right of way to establish a rail line connecting Phoenix with Florence, the Pinal County capital about 60 miles southeast of the state capital.

A rail siding was established on property owned by William “Bobby” Gilbert. The siding, and the town that sprung up around it, became known as Gilbert.

It was a prime farming center, fueled by the construction of the

Roosevelt Dam and the Eastern and Consolidated Canals in 1911. So prosperous was the community that it became known as the “Hay Capital of the World” until the late 1920s.

Gilbert began to take its current shape during the 1970s

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