Historical Society highlights pre-city Maricopa

Maricopa was a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger destination until 1927 when the main line was moved to Phoenix. Travelers no longer disembarked in Maricopa, taking a small shuttle train into the big city. Between the late 1920s and 1940s Maricopa, with its few small farms and some cattle ranching, no longer attracted business or pleasure travelers.

At the end of World War II, however, the United States began restoring peacetime production. One of the basic commodities needed was cotton, whose prices soon soared.

The sleepy little village of Maricopa began to wake up. People came, seeking land, which was both available and affordable, as was the water supply. 

In Maricopa cotton became “king,” but other crops were also grown, including wheat, barley, alfalfa, milo, maize, corn, grapes, melons, citrus, flowers, potatoes and grass sod. Hundreds of acres of pecan groves flourished, as well as some pistachios. Cattle feedlots found a home in Maricopa after being forced out of more populated areas in the Valley.