If These Walls Could Talk

2020 and 2021 marked historic years for the Northwest Valley community. The City of Surprise turned 60 years old, the City of El Mirage turned 70 years old, and the Dysart Unified School District turned 100 years old. The City of Surprise has close to 150,000 residents, up from less than 2,000 when it was incorporated. The City of El Mirage is more than 35,000 strong after starting out at around 1,000, and the Dysart Unified School District began with less than 10 students and now boasts 24,000. As the area continues to grow, the community looked back at its past as a pathway to the future.

The City of Surprise created a visual representation of it’s past with a History Wall commissioned by the Surprise Arts & Cultural Advisory Commission. It was designed and curated by city staff and created by artist Muriel Sawicki. The mix of words, photos and artifacts begins in 1938 with the story of Flora Mae Statler founding the city and continues through 1991 when Surprise officially became a city (it was incorporated in 1960), and through the 2010s.

The Dysart Unified School District marked their centennial with a variety of activities including time capsules, school events, and more digital celebrations because of the pandemic.

The district highlighted its beginnings in 1920, when local farmer Nathaniel Martin Dysart wanted his daughter to attend a school. He didn’t want her to walk the five miles though, as it required crossing the Agua Fria River, which was known to flood at times. So he donated a piece of his own land, convened a three-person governing board, and officially established Dysart Public Schools on July 16, 1920.

What started out as a one-room schoolhouse, serving first through eighth grade, quickly became a growing part of the community. Enrollment increased to more than 200 by 1937, when the district hired it’s seventh teacher. In 1951 the original one room schoolhouse was tragically destroyed by a fire. Despite the loss, Dysart continued to focus on educating local students, and two new elementary schools, El Mirage and Luke were built by the end of the decade.

As the Northwest Valley looks to the future full of growth and prosperity, the area continues to highlight its small, community-focused birth as a pathway to the future. As famous American poet Robert Penn Warren once wrote, “History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.” The cities, schools, and people of the Northwest Valley have faced historic challenges over the past year, but the future looks bright as we chart a path forward together.

Surprise Mayor Skip Hall (left) and Dysart Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Quinn Kellis pose with a proclamation honoring the Centennial Celebration for Dysart Schools.

A historic view of downtown El Mirage.

Image courtesy City of El Mirage