"Phoenix's founder, a saloon brawler and drug addict named Jack Swilling, re-excavated a network of prehistoric Hohokam Indian canals that irrigated thousands of acres of farmland along the Salt River. His efforts also helped give birth to Southeast Valley Settlements that became the cities of Tempe and Mesa.

Unfortunately, for the northern and western portions of the Salt River Valley, no Indian Canals were there to restore. So the lands that make up Northwest Phoenix, Glendale and Peoria today remained raw desert more than 15 years after the East Valley cities had already been settled. For the baren Northwest Valley to come to life, it, too, needed that all-powerful
resource--water."

The idea was soon born to build a canal 44 miles long from its headingon the Salt River westward across the northern part of the Valley to the Agua Fria River. Thus, the Arizona Canal Co. was incorporated on December 20, 1882, by M.W. Kales, William A. Hancock and Clarck Churchill, three prime builders of pioneer Arizona... After conquering giganitic engineering problems, (William James Murphy) watched triumphantly as the first water flowed through the newly-constructed Arizona Canal in May 1885."