Goodyear's history, in places you can still visit

Goodyear can look brand new, with fresh stucco, young trees and a downtown that opened in 2022. But its story runs from ancient canals along the Gila River to a wartime airfield and a cotton farm owned by a tire company, and much of it can still be found on the map if you know where to look.

The river and its first farmers

Long before Goodyear, the Gila River shaped life across this part of Arizona. The Gila River Indian Community traces its ancestry to the Huhugam, who, beginning more than 2,000 years ago, became skilled farmers and built some 500 miles of canals fed by the river to grow cotton, corn and beans. The Akimel O'odham, whom the Spanish called Pima, later farmed the same river and gave refuge to the Pee Posh, or Maricopa; the two peoples still share the Gila River lands. The community's own history mentions the Estrellas near Komatke.

Goodyear's ties to that landscape are easy to see. Estrella Mountain Regional Park, inside the city, lies near the meeting of the Gila and Agua Fria rivers, and the Sierra Estrella above it remained part of Mexico until the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.

Cotton, aircraft and a company town

Cotton returned on a new scale in 1917, when Paul Litchfield of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company bought 16,000 acres here. Cotton was used in airplane tires, and World War I had made it scarce. In 1941, as the country neared another war, the Defense Department built an aircraft plant on land leased from the Southwest Cotton Company, and Goodyear Aircraft ran it. Del Webb built homes nearby, and a small business district appeared on Western Avenue with a drugstore, a market, a barbershop and a beauty salon.

Residents chose the name Goodyear in May 1944, a post office opened that November, and the town incorporated on November 19, 1946. A Navy airfield built alongside the plant tested and delivered aircraft during the war and later stored more than 5,000 planes. The city's historical timeline records that the Blue Angels trained there from 1963 to 1966. In 1986 the last 13,000 acres of Goodyear Farms were sold for development, and the master-planned communities that define much of today's city followed.

Landmarks you can visit

Estrella Mountain Regional Park became the first park in Maricopa County's regional system in 1954. Its 19,840 acres look much as the desert did to early travelers, and its nature center makes a good first stop.

Phoenix Goodyear Airport, on Litchfield Road, is the old Navy field. The City of Phoenix bought it in 1968 and still runs it as a working airport with hangars and a terminal, a living link to the aviation history that brought the town into being.

Goodyear Ballpark carries that history in sculpture. Outside its home plate entrance, The Ziz by Donald Lipski, a soaring bird form inspired by Goodyear's connection to flight, stands exactly 60 feet 6 inches tall with its pedestal, the distance from the mound to home plate.

Goodyear Civic Square, at McDowell Road and 150th Drive, answers a wish the city's leaders first voiced in 1984: a true center for festivals, concerts and parades. It opened in August 2022 on what had been a scallion farm. For a meal after a visit, Copper & Sage on Globe Drive serves Southern-influenced dishes and weekend brunch a short walk from City Hall.

Even the land under Goodyear High School has a story. The school opened in 2025 on part of the old Phoenix Trotting Park property, a harness-racing track that opened in 1965, closed after 23 months and stood empty until its concrete grandstand was torn down in 2017.

Traditions that carry the story

Goodyear's military roots show up every November, when the city marks Veterans Week at Goodyear Civic Square. In 2026 it brought a Tribute Flag Garden, patriotic murals and banners honoring service members, a West Valley Veterans Day ceremony and 5K with Estrella Mountain Community College, and a closing festival on November 7.

December brings Holidays on the Square to Civic Square Park, with a different theme each night, and The Rinq, the city's free synthetic skating rink. Each summer the Star Spangled 4th, one of the city's signature events, fills Goodyear Ballpark, and in June 2026 Juneteenth Family Day moved to Goodyear High School, on that old racetrack ground, with an HBCU homecoming theme. Jazz in the Park, part of the city's Vision & Sound: An African American Experience, is set for Civic Square on February 20, 2027.

Where to learn more

The city's Goodyear Historical Project keeps an interactive timeline of photos and milestones and invites families to lend their own pictures, which the city scans, returns and credits. The Georgia T. Lord Library at Civic Square, named for Goodyear's first woman mayor, is a comfortable place to dig further. The Gila River Indian Community's own history pages tell the river's story in its people's words. And on Litchfield Road, the street the first shops faced, Waffletto serves waffles and coffee for anyone who wants to start a self-guided tour where the company town began.