Ten Things Worth Knowing About Scottsdale

Scottsdale turns 75 this year, counting from the day it incorporated in 1951, and the city has spent 2026 retelling its own story through library talks, a history booklet and a 75-stop picture scavenger hunt. In that spirit, here are ten things about Scottsdale that are worth knowing, and worth passing on the next time a visitor asks.

1. It is named for an Army chaplain

Winfield Scott, a U.S. Army chaplain, and his wife, Helen, bought 640 acres here in 1888, in the area now bounded by Indian School, Scottsdale, Chaparral and Hayden roads. The city's timeline puts the price at $2.50 an acre. Scott died in 1910, but the farming settlement kept his name.

2. It was almost called Orangedale

In 1894, Albert G. Utley, a banker from Rhode Island, laid out a 40-acre townsite south of the Scott property and called it Orangedale. The Scottsdale Historical Society says the townsite was renamed Scottsdale soon afterward, and nobody is quite sure why.

3. The town started very small

When Scottsdale incorporated on June 25, 1951, it had 2,032 residents living on about half a square mile, and Malcolm White became its first mayor. Today the city covers 184.5 square miles and stretches 31 miles from south to north.

4. The slogan came from the chamber of commerce

"The West's Most Western Town" began as a marketing idea. The Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce, formed in 1947, played up the town's ranching roots to bring in visitors and gave downtown its Western look. The town adopted the phrase as its official motto when it incorporated, and it still shows up on city pages today.

5. Its official food is chili

A 1994 mayoral proclamation made chili Scottsdale's official food. If you want to honor it, Carlsbad Tavern on Hayden Road has been cooking New Mexican food built around green chile since 1995, first at Scottsdale Road and Earll Drive and, since 1998, at its current spot.

6. The city climbs more than 3,700 feet

Scottsdale's lowest point sits at about 1,150 feet, and its highest reaches 4,877 feet in the mountains of the north. Scottsdale Airport, by comparison, is at 1,510 feet. The city also counts an average of 314 sunny days and 7.66 inches of rain a year, which is why locals plan summer hikes for sunrise.

7. Residents taxed themselves to save the desert

The McDowell Sonoran Preserve began in 1994, when the City Council set aside three parcels totaling 2,860 acres. After voters approved a sales tax to buy more land, it grew to more than 30,500 acres, with over 230 miles of trails for hikers, cyclists and riders. In the far north, the Brown's Ranch Trailhead reopened on October 30 after improvements that rerouted five trails and added a new dispersal area.

8. The city's biggest park is also a flood channel

In the 1960s, Scottsdale turned down federal plans for a concrete ditch along Indian Bend Wash. Instead, starting in 1973 after voters approved a bond, it built a greenbelt of parks, lakes, paths and golf courses that was finished in 1985. The design still works as intended: after storms over Halloween weekend 2026, the city asked people to stay out of the greenbelt for several days while stormwater flowed through it.

9. Thursday night belongs to the galleries

Scottsdale ArtWalk has opened the galleries along Main Street and Marshall Way every Thursday evening since 1975. That is more than half a century of free gallery strolls, and the city still lists it each week, with themed Gold Palette ArtWalks about once a month.

10. A soda fountain made the funny pages

The pink Sugar Bowl on Scottsdale Road has served sundaes, floats and sandwiches in Old Town since 1958. Cartoonist Bil Keane featured it many times in his Family Circus comic strip, and the shop still sells Family Circus artwork. The building itself is on the Scottsdale Historic Register.

Worth one more

If ten is not enough, the city's Celebrate 75 pages are full of others: the Thunderbird Field No. 2 airfield, where about 5,500 cadets learned to fly during World War II and which became Scottsdale Airport in 1967, or the San Francisco Giants, who have held spring training at Scottsdale Stadium since 1982. The Scottsdale Historical Museum in the Little Red Schoolhouse and the library's Scottsdale Heritage Connection are good places to find your own favorite.