Surprise (Surprise)
The city has a 10562 sqft Aquatics Center and Maricopa County's northwest regional library, a $5.5 million, 20000 sqft library, along with a 100.3 cost of living index.
The city was founded in 1938 by Flora Mae Statler, who named it Surprise as she "would be surprised if the town ever amounted to much." Surprise officials previously thought the city was founded by Statler's husband, real estate developer and state legislator Homer C. Ludden, but in 2010 property records were discovered which listed Statler owning the land before she met Ludden.
When Surprise was subdivided to build inexpensive houses for agricultural workers, there were only a few houses and a gas station on the one-square-mile (1.6 km) parcel of land. Since then, the town has experienced tremendous growth. It incorporated as a city in 1960. The townsite is bounded by Greenway Road on the south, El Mirage Road on the east, Bell Road on the north, and Dysart Road on the west. City Hall is located on the site of one of Luke Air Force Base's former auxiliary airfields.
Tens of thousands of retirees moved to the city in the 1990s and early 2000s to live in Sun City Grand, an age-restricted resort-like community with homes built by the property development firm Del Webb. Surprise is about 5 mi northwest of Del Webb's original Sun City development and adjacent to Sun City West.
Sun City Grand has become a large contributor to the city's population, which more than septupled from 10,187 to about 75,000 in 2004.
Map - Surprise (Surprise)
Map
Country - United_States
Flag of the United States |
Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Americas for thousands of years. Beginning in 1607, British colonization led to the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies in what is now the Eastern United States. They quarreled with the British Crown over taxation and political representation, leading to the American Revolution and proceeding Revolutionary War. The United States declared independence on July 4, 1776, becoming the first nation-state founded on Enlightenment principles of unalienable natural rights, consent of the governed, and liberal democracy. The country began expanding across North America, spanning the continent by 1848. Sectional division surrounding slavery in the Southern United States led to the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining states of the Union during the American Civil War (1861–1865). With the Union's victory and preservation, slavery was abolished nationally by the Thirteenth Amendment.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
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USD | United States dollar | $ | 2 |
ISO | Language |
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EN | English language |
FR | French language |
ES | Spanish language |