Buckeye is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. It is Arizona’s largest city by area, and it is the westernmost suburb in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,502, up from 50,876 in 2010, and 6,537 in 2000. It was the fastest-growing city in the United States for 2017, 2018, and 2021.
In 1877, Thomas Newt Clanton led a group of six men, three women, and ten children from Creston, Iowa, to Arizona, where they settled in the Buckeye area.
Early settler Malie M. Jackson developed 10 miles (16 km) of the Buckeye Canal from 1884 to 1886, which he named after his home state of Ohio’s moniker, “The Buckeye State”. The town was founded in 1888 and originally named “Sidney”, after Jackson’s hometown in Ohio. However, because of the significance of the canal, the town became known as Buckeye. The name was legally changed to Buckeye in 1910. The town was incorporated in 1929, at which time it included 440 acres. The town’s first mayor was Hugh M. Watson (1956–1958), who founded the Buckeye Valley Bank. Today, Watson Road is the site of the city’s commercial center.
In 2008, Buckeye was featured on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as part of a week-long series entitled “Blueprint America”.
A vote to designate the town as the City of Buckeye became effective in 2014.
In May 2019, population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau placed Buckeye as the fastest growing city in the United States by percentage from 2017–2018, growing by 8.5%.
