By Jeff Jackson | Casa Grande Dispatch
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series.
CASA GRANDE – Way back in 1891, a few developers paid the U.S. government 10 bits per acre for an area southeast of Casa Grande and received a patent for the desert tract that was home to cactus and rattlesnakes.
The following year the group incorporated and garnered water rights from the Florence Canal Company with visions of commercial and residential lots and even a railroad stop. But the people needed a name for their new $1.25-an-acre venture.
The man listed as president, David S. Thomas, and his associates wanted to play off of the territorial title Arizona but needed more. Thomas’s daughter Ola inspired the missing piece, and the burg that survives 130 years hence was christened Arizola.
