The first recorded use of the name Tortilla Flat occurs in Arizona Republican newspapers in 1904. Some old-timers have said 1867, an unlikely time since the area was then under strong Apache control.Īnother more likely date is 1886, at the end of the Apache wars.
Tucked into a remote, rugged area, it is hard to identify the first settlement at Tortilla Flat. No one knows exactly when Tortilla Flat got its name, or for sure who named it. Where there were valleys, road-building camps sprung up – Government Wells, Fish Creek and Tortilla Flat. The new road to the dam site wound around and hugged the slopes of the Superstitions. Just a shaded oasis with a supply of fresh water. Before then, in the time before the barrier changed the landscape, there was an unnamed little glen along Fish Creek that prospectors and cattle drivers used as a campsite.
Tortilla Flat didn’t come into existence until after the road to Roosevelt Dam began construction in 1903. The stories of how Tortilla Flat came to be and got its name are as varied as the stories of Jacob Walz, the infamous Lost Dutchman, and his treasure cached deep in the Superstition Mountains. Then there are the places with food-inspired names – Cornville, Strawberry, Cherry, Turkey Flat, Dateland, Mexican Water, and of course Tortilla Flat.Īnyone who has traveled about 38 miles up the adventurous Apache Trail leading to Roosevelt Dam has passed by, or probably stopped, at the remote, colorful outpost of Tortilla Flat.
One thing Arizona is not short of is odd and strange town names – Nothing, Santa Claus, Why, Bumble Bee, Valentine, Cowlic, Humbug and Big Bug. Watch Video: Tortilla Flat is Old West Arizona
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