Patricia Brock - Maricopa

Great freight trains that had 3 or 4 wagons, with 8 to 20 mules on each, were often camped at the Wells. Starting to the north of Maricopa Wells, these trains carried goods from east to west and stopped at most key points in northern Arizona. Immigrants and military troops used the area for camping grounds, wagon repairs, and supplies.

The town of Maricopa Wells was a fort-like structure that consisted of one building, but this building was able to contain the entire town, which totaled about 2 acres. The store, saloon, office space, and living quarters faced the road, and the right side contained the hotel and restaurant that served meals for $1. On the opposite side were stables, a blacksmith, and a shop. Around the station was a green grassy valley that was covered with considerable mesquite timber.

In 1873, a military telegraph line connected Yuma to Maricopa Wells, Tucson, and up north to Phoenix. This instant communication over vast distances opened up lines of telecommunications and closed the distance between communities, states, and the nation. It not only allowed and facilitated the coordination of military and law enforcement but also aided in the economy of the territory through faster and more efficient communication. (Arizona Historical Foundation.)

The Maricopas and Pimas farmed the lands adjacent to the Gila River and raised beans, corn, pumpkins, watermelons, muskmelons, cotton, and their principal crop, wheat, in the 1800s. Fr. Bonaventure Oblasser described the Pima fields from Florence to the Estrella Mountains as a continuous agricultural scene with one field following another. He stated that it presents the appearance of one immense garden... and all under irrigation.

Before the dams diverted its waters, the Gila River was one of only three rivers in Arizona that had a continuing east-west flow of water. The Colorado and the Salt Rivers are the other two. The Gila River is 630 miles in length and rises in Western New Mexico, flowing westward into Arizona through the town of Safford and along the southern edge of the Gila Mountains. Then it crosses the Gila Indian Reservation, which is just north of Maricopa Wells, and makes a great curve around the northern end of the Estrella Mountains, at which point the Salt River joins it. Next it dips sharply southward and turns west near Gila Bend, paralleling the railroad tracks, where it eventually empties into the Colorado River. The Santa Cruz River and Santa Rosa and Vekol Washes take on waters from the south and empty into the Gila River near Maricopa Wells.