What was Paradise Park?
Before WestWorld, the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, now the biggest Arabian show in the world, had a home of its own. It was built by Anne McCormick, who with her husband Fowler owned the ranch that became McCormick Ranch, and who bred some of the country’s best Arabians.
After the early shows at the Arizona Biltmore and the Casa Blanca Inn, Anne built a permanent arena on the north end of her ranch, near Pima Road south of Shea Boulevard, and called it Paradise Park. It had masonry walls, a wooden floor, a black-and-gold judges’ tent and four palm trees planted in the ring. The show moved there in 1957 and, except for two years on Kemper Marley’s land at Bell and Tatum, stayed until 1978.
Then the ranch’s developer, Kaiser-Aetna, served notice to vacate on the last day of the 1978 show. The club didn’t leave everything behind. It dug up the three palms that had survived and trucked them to Paradise Park II, about 90 acres leased from the state at Bell Road and 64th Street, where the show ran for ten more years. In 1989 it moved to the city’s new HorseWorld, now WestWorld. Both Paradise Parks are houses now.
Two Paradise Parks
The first, 1957–1978. The Arabian Horse Association of Arizona’s history describes Anne’s arena in detail: the masonry walls, the four palms (three survived), the wooden floor and the judges’ tent among the palms. Entries grew from about 200 to more than 1,000. The show spent 1969 and 1970 on Kemper Marley’s property at Bell and Tatum, after Anne died in May 1969. Her will, the association says, asked that the show be allowed to stay at Paradise Park for ten years, and it came back in 1971. By 1971 the land belonged to Kaiser-Aetna, which was building McCormick Ranch. On March 1, 1978, at the end of the 24th show, with 790 horses, it served notice. The McCormick Ranch Property Owners Association says the developers “decided to build single family homes,” and the streets laid out where Paradise Park stood were named after horse breeds, beginning with Arabian Trail.
The second, 1979–1988. The association leased 89.9 acres from the Arizona State Land Department at Bell Road and 64th Street, backing onto the new CAP canal, and moved the palms there on a flatbed. The 1979 show drew 810 horses. In 1983 rain was so bad that helicopters were brought in to dry the arenas. In 1985 entries peaked at 2,460. After the 1988 show the land was sold for housing, and the show moved to the city’s equestrian center at Pima Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, which had been renamed HorseWorld that year and later became WestWorld.
Other uses. This site’s Sun Circuit guide says the Arizona Quarter Horse Association held its first Sun Circuit partly at Paradise Park in 1973. We haven’t found a source for that; if it’s right, it was the McCormick Ranch site.
What’s left
Only street names. The horse-breed streets of McCormick Ranch (Arabian, Appaloosa, Mustang) sit just southwest of the Shea and Loop 101 interchange, on the first Paradise Park. The Bell Road site has nothing to mark it.
The sources, and the disagreements
The best source is the Arabian Horse Association of Arizona’s own history, which has a year-by-year table of venues, horse counts, the eviction and the palms. A second page from the association, the McCormick Ranch Property Owners Association’s community history, Joan Fudala’s columns on Indian Bend Road (2022) and WestWorld (2022), and a City Lifestyle feature fill in the rest.
Where they disagree:
- The start. The association’s table lists Casa Blanca exhibitions in 1952, 1953 and 1955, the Biltmore in 1954 and 1956, and McCormick Ranch from 1957. Its other page and Fudala say the first show was in 1955 near the Biltmore and that it came to Anne’s ranch-house ring in 1956, with Paradise Park proper built two years later. The popular “1955 at the Biltmore” comes from that second version. Our Arabian show guide uses 1955.
- The end of the first site. Several sources, including Wikipedia, say the show used Paradise Park “through 1968,” or until Anne’s death in 1969. The association’s table and the Railroad Park’s archive put it there until 1978, apart from 1969–70. We follow the table.
- Size. 80 acres (the homeowners’ association) or 150 (Wikipedia and Cowboys & Indians); 89.9 or 85 acres for the Bell Road lease.
- “A donation.” Several accounts, including this site’s own until now, said Anne donated the land. No source says that, and the 1978 eviction suggests otherwise.
Corrections on this site. The Arabian show, Fowler and Anne McCormick, McCormick Ranch lakes and McCormick Ranch pages said the show used a 150-acre Paradise Park “through 1968,” that Anne “donated” it, or that it went straight from Paradise Park to WestWorld. They’ve been updated to match this page.
Where the answers are. The association’s program books and minutes; Kaiser-Aetna’s 1978 notice and the McCormick Ranch plats; the Arizona State Land Department’s lease file for the Bell Road parcel; and the Arizona Republic’s coverage of each February show.
Why it matters
Scottsdale’s Western image is mostly costume, but the horses were real, and the Arabian show is the clearest proof. It needed a home before the city could build one, and a rancher’s wife built it in her own field. When the ranch became McCormick Ranch, developers took the field. The show moved twice before settling at WestWorld, the second time taking its palm trees with it.