Chandler, Arizona
Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area. Chandler is considered to be a part of the East Valley.
As of the 2020 census, the population of Chandler was 275,987,[2] up from 236,123 at the 2010 census.[4] Chandler is a commercial and tech hub for corporations like Intel, Northrop Grumman, Wells Fargo, PayPal and Boeing.
History[edit]
In 1891, Dr. Alexander John Chandler, a Canadian and the first veterinary surgeon in the Arizona Territory, settled on a ranch south of Mesa and studied irrigation engineering. By 1900, he had acquired 18,000 acres (73 km2) of land and began drawing up plans for a town-site on what was then known as the Chandler Ranch. The town-site office opened on May 16, 1912.
The original town-site was bounded by Galveston Street to the north, Frye Road to the south, Hartford Street to the west, and Hamilton Street to the east.[5] By 1913, a town center was established, featuring the Hotel San Marcos, which also had the first grass golf course in the state. Chandler High School was established in 1914. Chandler was officially incorporated on February 16, 1920, after 186 residents petitioned the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to approve incorporation.
Most of Chandler's economy was sustained during the Great Depression (though the Depression was to blame for the cancellation of a second San Marcos hotel), but the cotton crash a few years later had a much deeper impact on the city's residents. A.J. Chandler lost his San Marcos hotel to creditors as a result.[6] Later, the founding of Williams Air Force Base in 1941 led to a small surge in population, but Chandler still only held 3,800 people by 1950.
By 1980, the population had grown to 30,000, and it has since paced the Phoenix metropolitan area's high rate of growth, with suburban residential areas and commercial use areas swallowing former agricultural plots. The population has nearly doubled in the last twenty years. Some of this growth were fueled by the establishment of manufacturing plants for communications and computing firms such as Microchip, Motorola and Intel.
Chandler holds an annual Ostrich Festival at Tumbleweed Park[16] to commemorate when ostrich farms in the area produced plumes for women's hats during the 1910s.
Chandler also holds an annual ceremony to light a tree made from tumbleweeds; a ceremony founded in 1957 when Chandler sought an alternative way to decorate the city during the Christmas holidays.[17]
Venues, galleries and museums include:
Several sites in Chandler are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including the McCullough–Price House and the San Marcos Hotel.[19]
The Chandler Public Library serves Chandler and the greater East Valley. The main library is in Downtown Chandler, with two branches elsewhere in the city: Sunset, Basha (shared with Basha High School), and Hamilton (shared with Hamilton High School).
Government[edit]
City government[edit]
Chandler is represented by a mayor, a vice mayor and five city council members. The vice mayor is elected by the city council from among its members. The mayor, vice mayor and council members represent the entire city and are not elected from districts or wards.[25]
Kevin Hartke was elected mayor in 2017.[25]
Chandler has two sister cities:[31]