Carl Chapman
Arizona Realtor
Pima was founded in 1879 by Mormon settlers seeking an attractive canal site in the Gila Valley. In addition to locating a canal line, the colonists laid out a town site and named it Smithville for Mormon leader Jesse Smith. The Gila River was one of the main waterways followed by American fur trappers and mountain men in their search for pelts in the 1820s and 1830s. The lands aside the river served as the Gila Trail along which General Stephen W. Kearny brought a part of his “Army of the West” in 1846. The town, at an elevation of 2,885 feet, originally was in Pima County, and when it got a post office in 1880, the name was changed to Pima after the Indian tribe of that name.
