Mesa is the third largest city in Arizona, and the 43rd largest in the U.S. In 1876 Daniel Webster Jones lead a colonizing party into Arizona and settled in the Lehi area, an area that is now north Mesa. He had been asked by Mormon Church leaders to lead the group.
Another group of Mormon settlers (First Mesa Company, 85 members), arrived and settled just south of Lehi area. In 1878 they registered the one square mile they called the Town Center. The town itself was called Mesa City. The first school opened in 1879, and in 1883 the 300 residents incorporated the town of Mesa. Falcon Field and Williams Air Force Base were built in 1941 to provide training for WWII pilots.
Up to 1960, over half of Mesa's residents earned their living through agriculture, but that changed during the 1960's and 1970's as more industry arrived. Mesa's population grew from 152,404 in 1980, to 288.091 in 1990, and by 2003 was over 440,000! Mesa is the spring training Home of the Chicago Cubs. Williams Air Force Base is now a commercial airport, the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport with scheduled airline service and plans for it to be a secondary airport to Sky Harbor.
