Chandler Looking Northeast, 1956

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Aerial photograph of Chandler looking towards the northeast

The Chandler of 1956 was very different from today’s rapidly expanding, modern city. For starters, the city’s boundaries barely reached Ray Road to the north or McQueen Road to the east. Farm fields started just a few blocks from Downtown Chandler, and stretched all the way to Mesa, nearly 8 miles to the north.

Several features are identifiable to people familiar with Chandler’s modern city center. The downtown park, known today as A.J. Chandler Park, is easily identified as a large, dark grassy area, sliced through by Arizona Avenue.  Just to the left of the park is the San Marcos Hotel, and stretching out behind it is a row of palm trees which still line the Commonwealth Canal today.

Other features are not so familiar to modern residents. In the top left of the photo there is a large white square. That square is the screen for the Mustang Drive-In Theater, which stood at Ray and Arizona on the edge of town. Just to the right of the park is the first Bashas’ supermarket, which was on the southwest corner of Arizona Place and Commonwealth Avenue. In the distance at the top left, across the farm fields, the buildings of Mesa are barely visible. At the top right the town of Gilbert is visible.