Papago Park

Papago Park (/ˈpæpəɡoʊ/) is a municipal park of the cities of Phoenix and Tempe, Arizona, United States. It has been designated as a Phoenix Point of Pride. It includes Hunt's Tomb, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Papago Park is a hilly desert park covering 1200 acres in its Phoenix extent and 296 acres in its Tempe extent. Tempe refers to its section of the park specifically as Tempe Papago Park.

Papago Park is notable for its many distinctive geological formations and its wide variety of typical desert plants, including the giant saguaro cactus. The park also features the Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Zoo, the Arizona Heritage Center, picnic areas, several small lakes, hiking trails, bicycle paths, a fire museum, as well as Hunt's Tomb, the pyramidal tomb of Arizona's first governor, George W. P. Hunt. Tempe Papago Park includes baseball and softball fields, picnic ramadas, a small lake and other features. Rolling Hills Golf Course is within the park between its Phoenix and Tempe extremities.

The park includes the home baseball and softball stadium for North Pointe Preparatory.^{[citation needed]}

The distinctive red sandstone geological formations of Papago Park were formed some 6–15 million years ago. One such formation, Hole-in-the-Rock, is a major landmark, thanks to the openings (tafoni) eroded in the formation over time. There is some evidence that the Hohokam—a now-extinct aboriginal tribe that once lived in the Phoenix area—used the openings and sunlight to track the solstices.

There are also some signs of Precambrian granite in the park. The bedrock is concealed by only a thin layer of topsoil.

Papago Park was designated a reservation for the local Maricopa and Pima tribes of Native Americans in 1879. It became the Papago–Saguaro National Monument in 1914, but this status was recalled by Congress, April 7, 1930, because the area was not considered suitable for a national monument. It was divided amongst the state of Arizona, the city of Tempe and the Water Users Association, later known as the Salt River Project. The Federal government reserved all oil, coal or other mineral rights.

Following the onset of the Great Depression, Governor Hunt commissioned a bass fish hatchery to be established in Papago Park during 1932. The hatchery was built as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, and became successful, stocking largemouth bass and other fish for Arizona's waterways.