In the late 1950s, Pinal County Sheriff’s Office built a substation and jail in Maricopa just east of West Garvey Avenue.
Even after Maricopa was incorporated in 2003, the city’s law and order mostly came from the county sheriff and justice of the peace. The city contracted with PCSO until it established its own police department in 2007.
Once Maricopa Police Department was established in 2007, the substation property was no longer used by PCSO but continued to be owned by the county. In 2012, the building was leased to F.O.R. Maricopa food bank, which remodeled it for a very different use, though the jail cells and outdoor enclosure remained.
The building was demolished to clear the path for the John Wayne Parkway Overpass in 2018.
Before the sheriff’s office sent personnel to town, the primary law enforcement was a series of justices of the peace, according to the Maricopa Historical Society.
Before the judges, the main turn-of-the-century lawman in Maricopa was John “Maricopa Slim” Powers, a Southern Pacific railroad detective who took policing the whole community upon himself.
His main nemeses were the many hoboes who illicitly rode the rails into and out of town. He was reportedly killed by a vengeful circus clown in 1914, according to the historical society.
