Scottsdale was settled in 1888 but didn’t become a town until Monday, June 25, 1951. That morning the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved the incorporation petition and appointed a five-man council. The town has been throwing birthday parties on that date at round numbers ever since. They are small, civic, slightly corny occasions: cake, a band, a plaque, a speech by the mayor. Together they show what each generation of the city thought was worth celebrating about itself.
Most of what follows comes from two sources. The first is the City of Scottsdale’s 75th-anniversary booklet, Honor the Past, Imagine the Future, which includes a short list of past birthday parties. The second is city historian Joan Fudala’s 2026 “Remember When” column on the year’s milestones. Where they are thin, we say so.
How big was the baby?
Even the birth certificate is disputed. The sources give three different sizes for the new town:
- About one square mile. This is the figure on our own 1951 pages.
- “Approximately half a square mile.” This is the city’s own history copy.
- 0.34 square miles. This is Fudala’s 2026 column.
All three agree on the population: 2,032. The incorporation petition and the supervisors’ order, held by the Maricopa County Clerk of the Board, would settle the acreage. Until someone pulls them, treat any single figure with suspicion.
The 10th, 1961: a band at the high school
Mayor Mort Kimsey invited residents to a birthday party on June 25, 1961, at Scottsdale High School. The Ray Ludovici band played. Scottsdale pioneer Mae Mathis and Chamber of Commerce president Rollie Feltman spoke. Kimsey and other officials also dedicated the new $160,000 municipal building on Main Street, next door to the Little Red Schoolhouse, which was then City Hall. It was a practical way to mark a birthday: open a building you need.
The bigger change of 1961 came a few months later. Voters approved a charter on October 31, and the Town of Scottsdale became the City of Scottsdale that November. The 10th birthday was the last one Scottsdale celebrated as a town.
The 25th, 1976: sharing the cake with the Bicentennial
Scottsdale’s silver anniversary fell in the year the whole country was celebrating its 200th, so the city folded the two together. According to the city’s booklet:
- Mayor Bill Jenkins welcomed residents for cake and ice cream at the new Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, which had opened in 1975.
- A barbershop quartet sang.
- A display of historic memorabilia was on view at the Little Red Schoolhouse.
- Jenkins presented a plaque of appreciation to Gene Brown Pennington, who designed the city seal.
Fudala adds that the celebration continued on July 4, 1976. That year 200 donated trees were planted in city parks, and Jenkins and veterans groups dedicated a plaque at the Civic Center honoring the military.
The same year Scottsdale Parks & Recreation debuted the Shout It Out Decathlon. It was later renamed Mighty Mud Mania and ran every year through 2019. Of all the 1976 additions, it lasted longest.
What we don’t know: the date of the cake-and-ice-cream party; whether the 200 trees were planted as one event or across the year; and where the military plaque is now. The June and July 1976 issues of the Scottsdale Progress, on microfilm at Scottsdale Public Library’s Civic Center branch, would answer the first two. The city’s Facilities and public art staff would know the third.
The 35th, 1986: a street fair
Mayor Herb Drinkwater and the City Council hosted a street fair on the Civic Center. Dolan Ellis, Arizona’s Official Balladeer, performed, along with the Scottsdale Sizzlers and the Calico Cloggers. Historic plaques were dedicated on numerous buildings in Old Town. The booklet doesn’t say which buildings got plaques that year; that list would make a good walking tour.
The 50th, 2001: honoring the businesses that came first
The golden anniversary was the most varied party on record:
- Mayor Mary Manross hosted a breakfast recognizing businesses that were operating before the 1951 incorporation.
- Manross congratulated Rural Metro’s Karl Keierleber and its founder, Lou Witzeman, whose fire company had served Scottsdale since 1948 and was older than the town it protected.
- There were downtown walking tours.
- City employees held a cake-decorating contest.
- Birthday parties were held at City Hall and at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park.
The context was a city in transition. In 2001 the Loop 101 Pima Freeway was finished through Scottsdale, and the convention and visitors bureau split off from the Chamber of Commerce to become its own organization. Both changes would reshape the city more than any party.
What we don’t know: the dates of the individual events, and which businesses the breakfast honored. That guest list would effectively be a register of Scottsdale’s pre-1951 businesses. The City Clerk’s records and the Scottsdale Area Chamber of Commerce are the places to ask. The Scottsdale Historical Society may hold programs or photographs.
The 60th and 70th, 2011 and 2021
- 2011: “Singing Cowboy” Gary Sprague welcomed residents to the city’s 60th birthday party at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts.
- 2021: families braved the heat for a Legacy Quest scavenger hunt around Old Town and the Civic Center. Scottsdale Leadership sponsored the opening of a Milestones & Memories exhibit at Civic Center Library.
The 75th, 2026: the Diamond Jubilee
The city treated its 75th as a full year rather than a single day, and called it “Celebrate 75.” It is the best-documented of the birthdays:
- The logo. The logo is a spur with eight points, one for each decade since 1951, set in the typeface of the city seal.
- The party. The Birthday Bash was held on Thursday, June 25, 2026, at Scottsdale Stadium.
It was free, with registration requested. Doors opened at 9 a.m. and the program began at
9:30, with:
- a complimentary continental breakfast
- the unveiling of a documentary video on the city’s history
- speakers and a performance by the Pinnacle Peak Presbyterian Choir
- timeline exhibit boards and selfie stations with cowboys from each decade
- a 1976 Plymouth Fury patrol car that Scottsdale police drove from 1973 to 1978
- Sonora the Horse. Scottsdale Artists’ School built a wire horse 75 inches by 75 inches. Through the year, visitors to Old Town add pony-colored leather and cotton as they share memories in an activity called “Pony Expressions.” The bare frame fills in over the year.
- The scavenger hunt. The 75-stop photo hunt takes in public art, historic sites, businesses and parks. Players collect Western-themed stickers representing each decade since the 1950s. It echoes the 2021 Legacy Quest.
- The exhibit. Scottsdale Through the Decades, by artist Kayla Newnam, is a temporary show at the Civic Center with oversized figures modeled on the Old Town cowboy. Each figure marks milestones from a decade, the 1960s through the 2000s.
- The books. The city published the booklet Honor the Past, Imagine the Future and an anthology of resident reminiscences, Hands-On History: Residents Reflect on Scottsdale’s 75 Years. Both are posted as PDFs on the city’s site, and the anthology is also sold in print. Residents can add memories through the city’s Speak Up Scottsdale portal.
- The talks. History talks run through the end of 2026 at Civic Center and Appaloosa libraries. The fall lineup includes “Paving the Way Toward Incorporation: Scottsdale’s Origin Story” and, on November 18 at Appaloosa, “Before Silverstone: The History of Curry’s Corner and Rawhide in Scottsdale.” Monthly Heritage Connection Saturdays run at Civic Center Library.
- Other events joined in. Western Week was tied to the anniversary, and the 72nd Parada del Sol parade on January 31 ran under the theme “A Diamond in the Desert.” The 4th of July at WestWorld doubled as a 75th party and a 250th for the country.
Fudala’s January column called it the “Diamond Jubilee.” It opened with a reminder that Scottsdale’s birthday and the nation’s semiquincentennial fell in the same year, just as the 25th and the Bicentennial had fifty years earlier.
What the birthdays say
Read in order, the parties trace the city’s self-image:
- 1961: a farm town opens a municipal building.
- 1976: a young city plants trees and hands a plaque to the man who drew its seal.
- 1986: the city puts plaques on Old Town’s historic buildings.
- 2001: the city honors the businesses that existed before it did.
- 2026: the city builds a horse out of residents’ memories.
The parties got more historical as the city got larger. That is how a place with a short municipal history and a long settled one tends to celebrate.
Where the gaps can be filled
- Scottsdale Public Library, Civic Center: Scottsdale Progress microfilm for late June 1961, 1976, 1986 and 2001, plus July 1976.
- City Clerk: council minutes and any anniversary proclamations or resolutions.
- Scottsdale Historical Society: photographs, programs and commemorative items from past anniversaries.
- The 2026 collection: the city’s Speak Up Scottsdale memories project and the Hands-On History anthology amount to an oral-history archive built for a birthday. Read them now, while the links are live.