Eason, Watson, Miller and Dean.
No, it’s not a law firm — these are the roads Buckeye residents drive daily. But do you ever stop to wonder how they were named and what stories they tell?
To find those answers and get a glimpse into Buckeye history, we talked to sixth-generation Buckeye resident Steven Bales, a partner at Bales Farming Ranch. During the city’s centennial celebration in 1988, Bales was tasked with giving the Buckeye Valley bus tour, which he revived in an oral history for InBuckeye, giving a special nod to Verlyne Meck, a former high school librarian and teacher who documented much of the town’s history.
Dean Road
Back when it was still gravel and dirt and the freeway didn’t yet exist, Dean Road was supposed to swap names with Airport Road, now Verrado Way. However, Maricopa County accidentally put the signs in the wrong places and so the roads retained their names, said fourth-generation Buckeye resident Shawn Dean Wood whose family the road was originally named after.
Jackrabbit Trail
As he drove the tour bus during the centennial celebration, Bales said one of the passengers told him her brothers named Jackrabbit Trail back when it was just a “trek,” a narrow horse trail. It was so skinny, in fact, it “wasn’t big enough for two jackrabbits to go down.”
Watson Road
The road was named for Hugh M. Watson, Buckeye’s first mayor and founder of the Buckeye Valley Bank. He’s known simply as Banker Watson, said Bales, and his bank morphed into Valley National Bank where Chase Bank is today.
Perryville Road
Bales said he thinks of Perryville Road fondly as the site of his childhood home. It was named for the Perry family who settled in the area along that road. Perryville Road once was concrete, Bales said, and he recalls drawing pictures and playing tic-tac-toe with sidewalk chalk on the road with his brother when they were children. The road was paved to asphalt in the 1980s.
Monroe Avenue
Weaving through the southern portion of Buckeye, Monroe Avenue was named in honor of the man whose vision started it all. In 1855, Malin Monroe Jackson began building the Buckeye Canal with his partners Joshua L. Spain and Henry Mitchell, according to The History of the Buckeye Canal by I.H. Parkman. Jackson named the canal after his home state of Ohio, the Buckeye state, which led to the naming of the town itself.
stands on the corner
of Verrado Way, still
called Airport Road by
longtime residents, and Beloat Road, named after his grandparents. [Bryan Mordt]
Eason Avenue
North of Monroe Avenue and weaving east to west through the heart of Buckeye, Eason Avenue was named by Jackson in honor of his in-laws — the Easons.
Verrado Way
If you still call it Airport Road, that’s a sign you’ve lived in Buckeye a long time. The renaming of the road is still a sore point, Bales said. The original namesake was an old emergency crash landing area for Luke Air Force Base that was established sometime around World War I. However, when the actual airport was built, people got lost on their way to the Air Fair, thinking they needed to turn on Airport Road. So, the city changed the name to Verrado Way, though longtime residents still call it Airport Road out of habit.
Narramore and Beloat Roads
When it came time for the city to found its first high school, local farming families were asked to donate land for the building site. Several families, including the Narramores and Beloats, offered a pasture on the far edge of town. In thanks, two of the adjacent roads were named after them, said Bales, who is related to the Beloats.
One Response
Nice article, but there are a few inaccuracies contained in Mr. Bales’ oral history. (1) The original 10 acres of land for Buckeye Union High School was donated by Cora Kell, H M Watson, George W Drew and C N Towner with each donating 2.5 acres from the corners of their adjoining properties. (2) Only Kell St which runs between Eason and Narramore on the west side of the campus was named for one of the original donors. (3) Narramore and Eason came into existence with the 1928 filing of the Northern Addition to Buckeye by Hugh Miller Watson and Eason was named for his in-laws not Jackson’s. Hugh and Marjorie Eason both of Duncan, AZ were married there on Dec 24, 1910. (4) H M Watson was not the founder of the Buckeye Valley Bank which was incorporated in 1911 by T N Clanton, W B Long, L H Thayer and Riley Johnston with L H Thayer as President, George P Brown as Vice President and H M Watson as the cashier. By the late 1920’s however, H M Watson had risen to the become president of the bank, a position he retained until the bank was sold to Valley National Bank and was indeed the first mayor of the newly incorporated Buckeye.
An additional piece of information about Malie Monroe Jackson is he died in 1926 and there is no recorded deed showing he ever owned a single bit of land in what is now Historic Buckeye. Despite that, he must have been held in high regard by T N Clanton and Oscar L Mahoney the founders of Sidney (Buckeye’s name until 1910) as two streets – Monroe and Jackson were named for him, while Clanton and Mahoney only named one street apiece after themselves.