Gilbert, Arizona

Introduction

W hy write the history of our town? For my family, Gilbert, Arizona, offered a lifestyle that they and many people in America at that time were seeking. In most family histories of the early settlers who came to Gilbert, it is clear that they, too, were seeking land, freedom and success. Many of the first settlers who came were cowboys looking for range for their cattle. The Homestead Entry Act was their oppor tunity to acquire land cheaply. The sodbusters were looking for the same privilege of reasonable land to farm. Both cowboys and farmers began filing on property in the Gilbert area in the 1890s. Others came to escape the 1917 Depression. Even more came after the stock market crash in 1929 brought on the Great Depression of the 1930s. During this same period, the Dust Bowl drove many from Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to the Gilbert area. This pictorial review of Gilbert history is about those who found success here and stayed. Everything that is Gilbert today has been built upon the good works of those who came before us and left their mark on our community. Those early cowboys and sodbusters left more than their grave stones behind them. They started schools, opened businesses, built a bank, and granted a right-of-way for a train line that opened our area to commerce and the world. These early people built a water tower and furnished potable water to residents in our first subdivisions. They paved Main Street and later provided a sewer system. From these very beginnings of Gilbert, we have grown into a mega-residential community of almost 200,000 people. Our first full-service hospital, Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, has just been completed and adds to the wonderful miracle of modernization that we are privileged to enjoy. I hope that all readers of this book, whether they are current and former Gilbert residents or have never been to Gilbert at all, gain a greater appreciation of our wonderful community through this text. Gilbert has gone through many changes and will continue to change. The sad part is that those we have learned of in our early history have already died. There are few people remaining who have a memory of Gilbert dating to 1920, for example. Those that do have a perspective on our history are asked to assist us by recording that information in the Family Library we are maintain ing at the Gilbert Historical Museum. Precise information from firsthand knowledge will aid us in having a more detailed history of more recent days. Fifty years from now or beyond, such knowledge will be priceless to future students of Gilbert history.

Dale C. Hallock

8