A history of Mesa,
since 1878
Postcards, papers and photographs of Mesa from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The history of Mesa dates back at least 2,000 years to the arrival of the Hohokam culture. The Hohokam built the original canal system. The canals were the largest and most sophisticated in the prehistoric New World. Some were up to 90 feet (27 m) wide and 10 feet (3.0 m) deep at their head gates, extending for as far as 16 miles (26 km) across the desert. By 1100 CE, water could be delivered to an area over 110,000 acres (450 km2), transforming the Sonoran Desert into an agricultural oasis. By 1450, the Hohokam had constructed hundreds of miles of canals, many of which are still in use.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Mesa’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewBird's eye Chandler's Ranch, 1908: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Mesa
See all 50 →Mesa, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Bird's eye Chandler's Ranch (1908) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (2) and the Library of Congress (3). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.