List 10 Arizona Cities That Have Weird funny Names
Early Arizona settlers were too busy to spend time concocting catchy names for their new towns. Or maybe they had way too much time on their hands and started pondering some crazy options. Either way, curiously named burgs are scattered across the state. Here are some of Arizona's weirdest place names.
Show Low may have initiated the strange place name trend in Arizona.
As the story goes, Marion Clark and Corydon Cooley homesteaded a swath of land in the White Mountains in 1870 but later had a falling out and decided to dissolve the partnership with a card game.
They played long into the night. A weary Clark finally told Cooley, "Show low and you take the ranch." Cooley turned over the two of clubs, winning the land and providing the name of the future town. This also explains why the main drag through Show Low is called Deuce of Clubs.
Ed Schieffelin was a down-on-his-luck prospector who landed at the newly established Camp Huachuca in 1877. When he began his search for ore in the hills across the San Pedro Valley he was warned that all he would find would be his tombstone. Yet Schieffelin soon discovered rich ledges of silver, making him a wealthy man. He named his first claim Tombstone. Today that would be known as a clapback.
While one might hope that Skull Valley got its moniker from some head-shaped rock, that's not the case. When Anglos first arrive they found a gruesome collection of skulls and other human bones scattered about the bucolic valley west of Prescott. The carnage was the result of warring Indian tribes.
Hyperbolic and over-hyphenated, Top-of-the-World seems to promise a little more than it delivers. It sounds like a place that would be teetering atop a high summit where a holy man sits cross-legged on pillows ready to reveal the meaning of life.
Instead, the small community is spread across shady benchland on U.S. 60 between Superior and Globe at an elevation of less than 4,600 feet. But it's a pretty drive and there is an antique shop or two if you'd like to browse and who's to say that road trips don't hold the meaning of life?
Speaking of Globe, local legend has it that the town is named for an orb of pure silver discovered in a nearby mine.
A tiny town just north of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southwestern Arizona is named Why. Such a great name for a burg, but it's hard to tell whether it sprang from a simple lack of imagination from town founders or maybe a sly sense of humor.
Ostensibly, Why was named for the old "Y" intersection formed by State Routes 85 and 86. Yet perhaps it was also their internal query as to why they chose to settle in such a remote spot. The junction was later converted into a "T" configuration. So far the town has resisted the urge to change the name to Tee.
Sadly, while there never was much of anything to Nothing, today it's a mere husk, a tiny ghost town. Located on U.S. 93 south of Wikieup, Nothing once had a gas station, garage and store, a population of four and, of course, the unusual name that brought it a measure of fame among seasoned road warriors.
There was a time when Nothing bustled. Well, bustled as much as a town of four residents ever does, but at least it was open for business. You could pull off the road, gas up and enjoy a cold drink in that desert outback with the sun setting beyond distant mountains. Nothing meant something in those days.
If the kids are misbehaving and you'd like to throw a good scare into them, take them to see Santa Claus. Not the jolly old elf but the crumbling ruins of the town in the northwestern corner of the state on U.S. 93.
A developer's plan for a Christmas-themed resort never really panned out on the edge of the Mohave Desert in northwestern Arizona and all that remains are a few abandoned buildings covered with graffiti. Pull up and say, "Gosh, kids, I guess Santa Claus went out of business. Too many naughty children undermined the system, I guess." Then see if they eat their vegetables the next time you ask.
The names of most Arizona State Parks are pretty straightforward, with a couple of notable exceptions. Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood is one.
In the late 1940s, the Ireys family was shopping for Verde Valley ranches. They looked at several, including one property with an equine carcass. When the father asked which ranch they should purchase, the kids said, "The one with the dead horse." The name stuck. In 1973, when the Ireys sold the land to Arizona State Parks, they made retaining the name a condition of the sale.
The other curiously named state park is Fool Hollow Lake Recreation Area. In 1879, the friends of Thomas Jefferson Adair warned him that only a fool would try farming a rocky thin-soiled basin outside of Show Low. Instead of being dissuaded, he leaned into it, christening the place Fool Hollow. In 1957, a dam was built and Fool Hollow Lake was born.
In an arid landscape, it's no wonder that so many variations of water loom large in how things are perceived. That helps explain the Arizona communities like Sweetwater, Burnt Water, Mexican Water, Bitter Springs and Golden Shores.
Tuba City was named to honor Tuuvi, Hopi leader of the village of Moenkopi. Happy Jack may or may not have had anything to do with a hard-drinking lumberjack. One story claims that Bumble Bee is a result of Indians being as thick as bumblebees, or maybe it was actual bees swarming the area.
And unlike Strawberry, named for an abundance of the red fruit growing wild along a creek, you won't find corn in Cornville. The name was supposed to be Coneville (or some variation), after an early settler but was simply misspelled.
The mining town of Mammoth is not nearly as large as the name implies, Bagdad has nothing to do with Iraq, and Three Way is not as sordid as it sounds, unless your idea of sordid involves a trio of highways coming together. Grasshopper Junction is a long jump from Chloride, a former mining burg north of Kingman.
And sadly, Fredonia has nothing whatsoever to do with the funniest Marx Brothers movie, "Duck Soup." Groucho Marx plays Rufus T. Firefly, leader of the small bankrupt country Freedonia. According to the Arizona city's website, "Fredonia" was a term coined by a New York politician shortly after 1800 to mean "place of freedom."
Find the reporter at www.rogernaylor.com. Or follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RogerNaylorinAZ or Twitter @AZRogerNaylor.
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Source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/arizona/2018/10/10/weird-arizona-place-names/1565426002/
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