A Brief History of Glendale, AZ

Phoenix's founder, Jack Swilling, had re-excavated a network of prehistoric Hohokan Indian canals that irrigated thousands of acres of farmland along the Salt River. This, in turn, managed to assist in the creation of the Southeast Valley Settlements that would later become the cities of Tempe and Mesa. Unfortunately, the northern and western areas of the Salt River Valley didn't contain these Indian Canals, thus resulting in the lands that make up Northwest Phoenix, Glendale and Peoria today remained as desert.

However, there came an idea to create a canal 44 miles long from its heading on Salt River, westward across the northern part of the Valley to the Agua Fria River. Thus making the land prosperous and livable.