Mesa is the Spanish word for “table top” which means a flat-topped, raised area.  The first inhabitants of the area, the Hohokam Indians, lived in that region 2,000 years ago.

Mesa is Arizona’s third largest city.  From a population of 7,000 in 1940, Mesa expanded to almost 400,000 by 2000.  It is among America’s fastest growing cities.

Mesa started out as several separate Mormon settlements.  In 1877, the first Mormon settlers arrived in the Salt River Valley via the old road from Fort McDowell.  Maryville was the first settlement near what is now Mesa.  The early Mormon settlers were called the Lehi Pioneers.  They built their colony near the site of Maryville and called their settlement Utahville, then Jonesville, and finally Lehi.  The following year, another group of Mormon settlers from Utah, known as the Mesa Pioneers, arrived at Lehi.  They built a new colony south of Lehi and called it Mesa.