Gilbert, Arizona

continued, bringing many people to town during the 1970s and setting the stage for further growth. In 1972, the Town Council hired Lynn Stuart as the first Town Manager and began to modern ize the town. Prior to this time, the clerk of the town ran things. In 1974, Lynn Stuart and I worried that Gilbert was going to be run over by Mesa to the north of us and by Chandler to the south.We decided to encircle our town with a strip annexation to stop the manifest destiny by those two communities.The strip annexation required landowners, mainly farmers, to sign an annexa tion petition agreeing to our annexing them into Gilbert. Ordinance No. 174 was presented and approved on January 8, 1975.A copy of the annexation map attached to the ordinance is shown below.

In 1971, a new law was enacted that increased the town council to seven members from five. The old procedure for seventy years had been that the councilman who received the most votes would become the mayor.The seven new members elected me, Dale Hallock, as mayor. I had served as the Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman for the previous year. As an escrow officer in the title insurance business, I invited many builders to come to Gilbert and build homes. Jalma Hunsinger came to Gilbert and began building Hunsinger Homes. Jalma later built a subdivision called College Park Country Estates on Guadalupe Road.The house-per-acre idea brought many to the area to enjoy the farm climate available in the 1970s and ’80s. Among many builders who came to the area during this time were the Brimhall brothers, who built the Rawhide Subdivision. Building

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