Stapley Road Station

Tempe-Mesa Highway For most of the city’s history, Mesa’s historic Main Street was the main highway that connected the town to its neighbors and to the rest of the United States. From the early 1930s to 1969, this highway actually consisted of four U.S. highways. These were the 60, 70, 80, and 89. The first three all ran east-west connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. U.S. 89 was known as the “National Park Highway” for connecting seven major national parks in the Mountain West. The survivor of these highways is U.S. 60, which left Main Street in 1992 for its current route as the “Superstition Freeway.” Date: 2016

Named in honor of pioneer businessman and community leader O. S. Stapley, the road that bears this name today was known as Powerhouse Road prior to 1960. The intersection around Powerhouse and Main was home to numerous pioneers who helped to shape and grow Mesa. Dr. E. W. Wilbur owned a ranch at the southeast corner of the intersection. In 1892 local Methodists began to meet in his barn for Sunday school, prior to the construction of Mesa's Methodist Church (of which the doctor was a founder). Nearby neighbors included ranchers Warren Leroy Sirrine and John James Fraser. Orley S. Stapley also owned land nearby, but it was his hardware and farm supply business that made him a household name for decades around Arizona's farm country. From a single store on Main Street opened in 1895, Stapley's hardware empire expanded to nine stores by the early 1960s. Also a leader in the Mormon church and a longtime fixture in state politics, it's no surprise that a pioneer as active as Stapley for so many decades had a street named after him at one of Mesa's busiest, fast-growing intersections.