Tempe's History, Told Through the Places You Can Still Visit

Tempe's history is unusually close at hand. A 60-foot letter on a butte, a restored adobe at the foot of Mill Avenue and a Victorian ranch house on Southern Avenue all tell parts of the same story, and most of them can be visited for free. Here is that story, told through places you can still walk into and traditions people still keep.

The first people and the canals

Long before Tempe had a name, the Hohokam farmed this stretch of the Salt River. Between about A.D. 500 and 1450 they built an extensive canal system, and many of the Valley's modern canals follow their routes. A large Hohokam settlement known as La Plaza stood at the base of Hayden Butte; archaeologists found remnants of it while preparing the site of the light rail line and the transportation center on Fifth Street. The butte itself holds about 500 Hohokam petroglyphs.

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community considers Hayden Butte a sacred place and a link to its ancestors, and the city recognizes the butte's significance to the Four Southern Tribes of Arizona: the Ak-Chin Indian Community, the Gila River Indian Community, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Two settlements become one town

The first settlers of the modern era were Hispanic families from southern Arizona, who helped dig the Kirkland-McKinney Ditch and the San Francisco Canal and farmed on both sides of the butte. In 1872 some of them founded San Pablo east of it. To the west, Charles Trumbull Hayden homesteaded in 1870 and soon had a store, a flour mill, warehouses, blacksmith shops and a ferry. The two communities grew together, and in 1879 the town took the name Tempe, credited to Darrell Duppa, who saw the Vale of Tempe of ancient Greece in the butte, the river and the fields.

Two decisions set the town's course. In 1885 the territorial legislature chose Tempe for the Territorial Normal School, which became Arizona State University in 1958. In 1887 the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad crossed the river here, making Tempe a shipping center for wheat, barley, dates and citrus.

Landmarks you can visit

Hayden Butte Preserve. The city made the butte a park in 1973 and a preserve in 2002. The Leonard Monti Trail, dedicated in 1994, winds up the butte, and the city asks hikers to stay on the trail to protect the petroglyphs. The A on top carries its own history: students placed an N there with the class of 1918, a T in 1925 and the first A in 1938, and today's concrete A dates to 1955.

Hayden House. Built in 1874, Charles Hayden's adobe at Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway is the oldest continuously occupied building in Maricopa County. Locals knew it as La Casa Vieja, the old house, as early as the 1920s, and later as Monti's steakhouse until 2014. Restored to its 1924 appearance, it now houses the Downtown Tempe Authority, and the museum opens it for free self-guided visits; its spring 2027 date has not been announced. Across the street, the 1918 Hayden Flour Mill still stands, with redevelopment plans approved by the city in 2023.

Petersen House. Danish immigrant Niels Petersen, who came to Tempe in 1871, built this house on West Southern Avenue in 1892. The city calls it the oldest Queen Anne style brick residence in the Salt River Valley. It was donated to the city in 1979 and is open during the museum's free Saturday open houses.

Elias-Rodriguez House. This small adobe at 927 E. Eighth St. dates to the 1890s Sotelo Addition, a Hispanic neighborhood carved from land owned by Manuela Sotelo. Vicente and Ynes Elias built along an old Hohokam canal and kept olive and fruit trees there. The museum added a new exhibit this fall, and the house's dates are still harvested: the city's Urban Forestry team plans to give them away at the Farm to Fork Neighborhood Market on November 14.

Traditions that carry the story

Some traditions are old enough to have their own history. The Tempe Festival of the Arts, which the Downtown Tempe Authority says has a legacy of more than 50 years, fills Mill Avenue each spring and fall; this season's edition runs December 4 to 6. On December 12, the Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade comes to Tempe Beach Park, the city's oldest park, beside the river where Tempe has gathered for generations.

Old Tempe also lives on at its restaurants. The Chuckbox has been grilling burgers over a mesquite fire on University Drive since 1972, across from campus. Downtown, Caffe Boa Bistro and Wine Bar occupies the ground floor of the 1899 Casa Loma, once the hotel where President William McKinley stayed in 1901.

Where to learn more

Start at the Tempe History Museum, 809 E. Southern Ave., next to the main library. Admission is free, and its featured exhibit, Ranfla Vida: Local Lowrider History, runs through December 31. The museum's Tempe History Society lunch talks continue through the 2026-2027 season, and its eMuseum puts thousands of photographs and artifacts online. The city's Historic Preservation Office keeps a searchable directory of more than 200 historic buildings, plus maps and a story map of its historic districts. One note for planning: the Eisendrath House near Papago Park is closed for adobe restoration until April 2027.

Tempe began where Hayden's ferry crossed the river. A walk from the museum's displays to the butte and the old adobe takes an afternoon and shows how much of that beginning is still here.