Until recently, Chandler was primarily agricultural. You can still drive around Chandler and see dairy farms, corn fields, cotton fields, and grazing sheep. In recent years, however, Chandler, Arizona has attracted many high-tech businesses, and has been nicknamed the "Oasis of the Silicon Desert."

Chandler is one of the major suburbs of Phoenix and is the 5th largest city in Arizona. Chandler is an example of modern urban sprawl (its population boomed from a 1980 figure of 30,000 to a 2007 figure of over 240,000). The city contains a large amount of modest tract home developments. Computer chip manufacturer Intel has a major presence in Chandler with four locations within the city. Other technology firms also have operations within the city. In 2001, a 1.3 million square-foot shopping mall, the Chandler Fashion Center, opened in Chandler.

As one of the fastest growing communities in the nation, Chandler has transformed from a small agricultural town at the turn of the 20th Century to the High Tech Oasis in the Silicon Desert of today. Chandler has reached its physical limits save for some remaining county islands and cannot expand outward anymore due to being bound in by the Gila River Indian Community, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, and Phoenix.

History

In 1891, Dr. Alexander John Chandler, the first veterinary surgeon in Arizona Territory, settled on a ranch south of Mesa, studying irrigation engineering. By 1900, he had acquired 18,000 acres of land, and began drawing up plans for a townsite on what was then known as the Chandler Ranch. The townsite office opened on May 17, 1912, the same year that Chandler High School was established. By 1913, a town center had become established, featuring the luxurious Hotel San Marcos, the first golf resort in the state.

Chandler mostly sustained the Great Depression (a second San Marcos hotel was canceled due to the Depression however), but the cotton crash a few years later had a much deeper impact on the city's residents. Later, the founding of Williams Air Force Base in 1941 led to a small surge in population, but Chandler still only held 3,800 people by 1950. By 1980, it had grown to 30,000, and it has since paced the Phoenix metropolitan area's high rate of growth, with vast suburban residential areas swallowing former agricultural plots. Some of this growth was fueled by the establishment of manufacturing plants for communications and computing firms such as Motorola and Intel, but despite the inclusion of many large businesses, Chandler is often considered a bedroom community for the greater Phoenix metropolitan area.

Culture

Chandler is noted for its annual Ostrich Festival. Initially, agriculture was the primary business in Chandler, based on cotton, corn, and alfalfa. During the 1910s, there were ostrich farms in the area, catering to the demand for plumes used in women's hats of the era. This demand ebbed with the increasing popularity of the automobile, but the legacy of the ostrich farms would be commemorated by the Ostrich Festival. The Chandler Center for the Arts, a 1500-seat regional performing arts venue, and the Arizona Railway Museum are both located downtown.

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