WELCOME TO MILL AVE HISTORIC WALKING TOUR

Tempe, Arizona was officially founded by Charles Trumbull Hayden in October of 1871 when he initially began development on his large homestead along the Salt River. Hayden originally stumbled across the area that would become Mill Avenue at the base of Tempe Butte, now known as A-Mountain, when he climbed the butte in 1866 and thought the Salt River had potential to aid in farming to its south. It was at this moment that Hayden’s plan to move to Tempe, open a business, and develop a flour mill to be powered by the Salt River was formed. The name for Tempe came from one of its earliest pioneer-settlers, “Lord” Darrell Duppa in 1879, who drew a comparison of the view of the Salt River and the Tempe Butte to that of the Vale of Tempe near Mount Olympus in Greece. 

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Prior to the founding by Hayden in 1871, there had been other small Hispanic settlements in the area around Tempe Butte. Additionally, roughly two thousand years ago, the Hohokam, a Native American tribe, whose vastly impressive irrigation system made the area viable long before White or Spanish settlers had entered the Arizona territory, inhabited the Tempe area. These canals actually aided in the development of the irrigation system that Tempe’s earliest settlers used in aiding the town’s earliest farmstead development.

In 1874, C.T. Hayden and Mexican-American workers completed construction of the Hayden Flour Mill. Thus, the basis for the aptly named Mill Avenue was born. Mill Avenue has served a wide variety of Tempe residents throughout its storied history as the city’s downtown hub. Tempe developed around Hayden’s original settlement on Mill Avenue and grew outward from there. For the earliest settlers and developers of Tempe, Mill Avenue was a lively area full of all the necessary shops a pioneer town needed, such as a pharmacy, post office, and hardware store.

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Up until the mid-20th century, Tempe continually operated as a small farming town. When many post-World War II veterans moved to Tempe in the late 1940s and 1950s, the town began to shift closer to that of the mid-century suburbia. It was after this time, in the 1960s, that Mill Avenue and downtown Tempe became more of a low-rent district, than when it previously operated as the one-stop shop for the earlier farming community. Private developers would begin to replan Mill Avenue into an entertainment district at the turn of the 1980s.

The next iteration of Mill Avenue became a place for college students to flock to. Tempe’s Territorial Normal School officially became Arizona State University in 1958. Thus, Tempe’s growth into a college town truly began in the latter half of the 20th century. By the late 1980s the University at Tempe had grown into a major American college and Tempe’s population more than doubled from roughly 60,000 in 1970, to 140,000 in 1990. It was along with the growth of Arizona State that Mill Avenue slowly became more of a downtown bar scene, where young people and college students have frequented since.

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Today, and as it has for the past few decades, Arizona State University serves as the lifeblood of Tempe, with the university and its students driving the economy of the city forward rapidly. The University’s influence on the town continues to spread as its leaders invite more development from wealthy investors and corporations. Commercial developments in Tempe have exploded in recent years, especially as the town has begun to truly recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Corporatization of Mill Avenue and its surrounding streets has been a major trend of the early 2020s for Tempe. Recent developments such as Arizona State’s Mirabella legally combating a student-favorite local bar over noise complaints have been very emblematic of the ways Tempe and Mill have been changing. Many pre-pandemic era businesses on Mill Avenue have either gone under or fled Tempe because of the negative business impacts of the pandemic. Mill Avenue has slowly begun to lose some of the smaller-collegetown gem appeal that it held for many years to Tempe residents and ASU students. As the Tempe skyline continues to explode due to recent developments, the city’s identity continues to change. 

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Mill Avenue is a street that has mirrored the town of Tempe, in both its culture and purpose, throughout every era of its existence. From small pioneer settlement, to farming town, to small college downtown, all the way to what it is slowly becoming today, Mill Avenue has emulated the values of Tempe and its direction of change as the town has evolved. Today Mill Avenue and Tempe continue to rapidly change. However, as long as some of the old buildings that have stood the test of time on Mill still stand, those looking to experience history still have the opportunity to look towards Tempe’s past. This walking tour of Mill Avenue intends to provide that for those who seek it. Thankfully, despite consideration during the late 1970s for teardowns of Mill Avenue’s original structures, they have survived as historical buildings for the people of Tempe to enjoy.