History of Arizona

The history of Arizona spans Indigenous societies, Spanish and Mexican rule, U.S. territorial government, statehood in 1912, and subsequent economic and social change.

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Ancestral Puebloans: Ancestral Puebloans were Indigenous peoples who built settled communities across the American Southwest, including parts of present-day Arizona. Their settlements, architecture, and farming form a deep Indigenous history within Arizona.
Gadsden Purchase: The Gadsden Purchase was an 1854 agreement in which the United States acquired land from Mexico in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico. It established Arizona’s present southern boundary and enabled a southern transcontinental rail route.
Cochise: Cochise was a Chiricahua Apache leader who resisted U.S. expansion and negotiated a reservation agreement in the 1870s. His resistance and negotiations shaped the Apache Wars in southeastern Arizona.
Copper mining in Arizona: Copper mining in Arizona is the extraction of copper ore that made the state a leading U.S. producer. Mining revenues, labor, and company towns drove territorial and state-era development.
Navajo Nation: The Navajo Nation is a sovereign Indigenous nation spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Its history reflects enduring Navajo sovereignty amid shifting U.S. borders and policies.
Hohokam: Hohokam societies developed in the Salt and Gila river valleys, building extensive irrigation canals and settlements. Their canal networks transformed the Phoenix Basin centuries before U.S. settlement.
Arizona Territory: Arizona Territory was a U.S. territory established in 1863, preceding Arizona’s admission as a state. Its institutions and boundaries formed the immediate political predecessor to statehood.
Geronimo: Geronimo was a Bedonkohe Apache leader who resisted Mexican and U.S. military campaigns before surrendering in 1886. His final surrender in Arizona marked the end of major armed Apache resistance.
Central Arizona Project: The Central Arizona Project is a system of canals and pumping stations that transports Colorado River water to central and southern Arizona. Its construction enabled metropolitan growth while intensifying disputes over water allocation.
Hopi people: The Hopi are an Indigenous people whose ancestral homeland is centered on the Hopi mesas in northeastern Arizona. Hopi community history illuminates continuities of Indigenous life in the state.