Discover Gilbert 2024 Official Guide

100 Years

And Still Going Strong

Celebrate the town’s past and future for the 2020 centennial

By Teresa Bitler
Photo Courtesy of HD South–Gilbert Historical Museum
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ilbert turned 100 on July 6, 2020. While reflecting on its past, the town also has an eye toward the future, with plans to make Gilbert an even better place to work, play, and live for generations to come. Here’s a look at where the town has been, where it is today, and where it is headed in the next century.

FROM FARMING &

RAILROAD ROOTS

Photo courtesy of HD South–Gilbert Historical Museum
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lthough other parts of what is now metropolitan Phoenix attracted settlers earlier, Gilbert traces its beginning to homesteaders who arrived in 1891. They found alfalfa grew easily in the fertile soil and had so much success with it that, in the early 1900s, the new community was known as the “Hay Capital of the World.” Eventually, cotton replaced alfalfa as the dominant crop, and dairy farms dotted the landscape.

The town actually owes its name to the railroad, though. In 1902, the Phoenix and Eastern Railroad Company purchased land from William “Bobby” Gilbert for a line that would run from Phoenix to Florence. Locals began to refer to the town that took shape around the rail spur used for loading and unloading by the name of the former landowner, Gilbert.

This black-and-white photograph shows the wood-clad exterior of Gilbert, Arizona’s first post office.
Gilbert’s first post office
Courtesy of HD South–Gilbert Historical Museum
In this historic photograph, a farmer in Gilbert, Arizona, stands atop a tall stack of hay bales in a wooden horse-drawn cart stopped beside a freight railcar.
An early hay farmer in Gilbert
Courtesy of HD South–Gilbert Historical Museum
In this historic photograph, early residents of Gilbert, Arizona, dressed in pioneer-era clothing, tand in front of the brick facade of the Gilbert Depot.
Gilbert Depot
Courtesy of HD South–Gilbert Historical Museum

Gilbert grew slowly but steadily. In 1905, the town’s railroad depot was completed. Five years later, A. W. Ayers opened the first store in Gilbert, and two years after that, the first post office began operating inside that store. The town became official when it was incorporated in 1920, but even 50 years later, its population was still less than 2,000.

However, in the 1970s, the town council noted the growth in nearby communities, like Tempe, and annexed 53 square miles of land so Gilbert would have room for new residents. By 1980, Gilbert more than doubled its population to 5,700, which exploded to 110,000 just 20 years later. Today, more than 250,000 people call Gilbert home.

Today:

Gastronomy & Gatherings

Photo by SOCIAL HITCH MARKETING
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s the population grew, Gilbert evolved from solely an agricultural community to a dining and cultural destination. Beginning in the late 1990s, visionary entrepreneurs saw the potential of downtown Gilbert’s quaint storefronts. Soon contemporary restaurant concepts began to transform downtown’s historic buildings into welcoming places to join friends for a meal.

Today, downtown Gilbert’s Heritage District holds dozens of restaurants as well as a brewery and speakeasy-style bar. On Saturday mornings, vendors sell locally grown produce and other products at the Gilbert Farmers Market, and live music can be heard in the evenings at venues like Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row. Hale Centre Theatre offers productions of popular musicals and plays year-round.

Longtime resident Joe Johnston—one of the early restaurateurs involved in the redevelopment of the Heritage District—is also the driving force behind Agritopia, one of Gilbert’s most popular neighborhoods. Built on the land of his family’s cotton farm, the planned community features residences with low fences, more than 11 acres of organic farmland, and U-pick orchards. Many of the original farm structures have been converted into unique spaces, including Barnone, a barn-turned-artisan-space with woodworkers, winemakers, and other craftsmen. Similarly, Johnston’s boyhood home is now Joe’s Farm Grill, a “modern burger joint” that has been featured on the Food Network.

A young girl and a young boy fish from a concrete berm at one of the lakes in the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch in Gilbert, Arizona.
Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch
@Princely Nesadurai/Instagram
A white picket fence surrounds green trees of a citrus orchard at Agritopia in Gilbert, Arizona.
Agritopia
Gregg Mastorakos
Draped orange fabric shades the outdoor dining patio in front of Barnone at Agritopia, a steel quason hut converted into a makers’ space, in Gilbert, Arizona.
Barnone
Gregg Mastorakos

With more than 300 days of sunshine a year, Gilbert is also a destination for nature lovers. Roughly 300 species of birds have been identified at the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch, earning it the National Audubon Society’s Important Bird Area designation. Visitors to the 110-acre preserve can stroll past seven aquifer recharge basins on 4.5 miles of trails, fish in an urban lake, or, on select nights, peer into the depths of space at the in-park observatory managed by the East Valley Astronomy Club.

Gilbert today is a community like no other. It is consistently recognized as one of the safest cities and best places to live in the United States. The National Council for Home Safety and Security named Gilbert Unified School District the “4th Best School District in America,” and media have dubbed the town “Phoenix’s coolest suburb” and one of the “top five foodie neighborhoods in metro Phoenix.”

Great

Plans Ahead

Photo by Discover Gilbert
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he town of Gilbert has come a long way in the last 100 years, but it has plans for an even brighter future. As it continues to grow, Gilbert strives to become one of the smartest and most sustainable towns in the nation. It is updating infrastructure and focusing on bringing in even more high-pay, STEM-related jobs.

Meanwhile, town officials, business owners, and community leaders continue to look even further forward. With a new mission that challenges the community to anticipate change, create solutions, and continue to help their fellow citizens and businesses, Gilbert plans to hold true to its award-winning reputation as it becomes the City of the Future.

Two young children swing on a swing set on a sunny afternoon at Gilbert Regional Park in Gilbert, Arizona.
Gilbert Regional Park
Social Hitch Marketing
The large, figure-eight-shaped pool and rectangular hot tub glow with blue light in the courtyard of the DoubleTree by Hilton Phoenix-Gilbert hotel in Gilbert, Arizona.
DoubleTree by Hilton Phoenix-Gilbert
Social Hitch Marketing
A family of our, with two young girls, post in front of a mural that reads, “You had me at Gilbert,” in Gilbert, Arizona’s historic downtown Heritage District.
Heritage District
Courtesy of Discover Gilbert

Even as it bounds forward, Gilbert hasn’t lost sight of what makes it such a great community. The Strand @ Gilbert—a 25-acre, resort-like water park with a sand beach and surf lagoon—will open in 2022, providing families yet another recreational opportunity at Gilbert Regional Park. (Did we mention that Gilbert has been recognized as one of the best places in the US to raise a family?) The new 272-acre Gilbert Regional Park could also add a resort and conference center space.

Gilbert is a town unlike any other. Come experience what has made it great in the past 100 years and be a part of its future.

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Did You Know?

Much of the hay fed to the U.S. Cavalry’s horses during World War I came from Gilbert.

From 1946 to 1959, Gilbert had its own airport. It was used mostly by crop-dusting aircraft.

The town’s iconic water tower was erected in 1925. What once supplied water to the town is now filled with sand.

Gilbert’s current nickname is “Kindness, USA.” (Learn why by reading “Kindness Practiced Here.”)

Gilbert was named after Bobby Gilbert who never actually lived in Gilbert.

The University of Arizona and Missouri’s Park University have campuses in the Heritage District.

Cosmo Dog Park was named for Gilbert’s first police dog, Cosmo.

Gilbert’s population is expected to reach 330,000 in the next decade.

A young girl paints wooden flowers with blue paint with her mom’s assistance at a Ben’s Bells charity event on the patio of Bergies Coffee Roast House in Gilbert, Arizona.
Courtesy of Bergies Coffee Roast House
Ben’s Bells
A yellow labrador pants happily at Gilbert, Arizona’s Cosmo Dog Park.
@Sandy_TheLab/Instagram
Cosmo Dog Park
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