Every hour on the hour, from 9 in the morning to 9 at night, the fountain that gave Fountain Hills its name sends a plume of water into the sky for about 15 minutes. The Fountain Hills Library, Fountain Hills High School, McDowell Mountain Elementary School, the Fountain Hills Community Center, the Fountain Hills Theater and the Fountain Hills Veterans Memorial are printed on this map, from Adero Canyon out to Eagle Mountain, with Ashbrook Wash, Bristol Wash and Caliente Wash.
Fountain Hills is a town in eastern Maricopa County, 31 miles northeast of downtown Phoenix.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded relief of the landscape comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. The town covers 20.4 square miles on the east side of the south end of the McDowell Mountains, and it borders the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and Scottsdale. At the fountain the elevation is 1,520 feet, 500 feet higher than Phoenix, and 23,820 people lived here at the 2020 census.
From P-Bar Ranch to a planned town
Before the town, this was Yavapai land, and petroglyphs can still be found near the Dixie Mine in the town’s northwest corner, along the mountains. In the early 20th century the land that became Fountain Hills and McDowell Mountain Regional Park was part of the Pemberton Ranch, later renamed the P-Bar Ranch. Fountain Hills High School stands on the site of one of the ranch’s buildings, and a plaque in the parking lot marks the spot.
Fountain Hills was developed by C. V. Wood, president of McCulloch Oil. Wood had been the first employee and general manager of the Disneyland project in the 1950s, and he went on to plan Lake Havasu City for Robert P. McCulloch and to tell him the London Bridge was for sale. The town incorporated in 1989.
The fountain
The fountain was built in 1970, the year before the London Bridge was rebuilt at Lake Havasu, another McCulloch project. When it was built it was the tallest fountain in the world, a record it held for more than a decade, and the town’s page now calls it the world’s fourth-tallest fountain and the tallest still operating in the United States. Its plume rises from a concrete water-lily sculpture in the middle of a large man-made lake. Three turbine pumps of 600 horsepower each can push 7,000 gallons a minute through an 18-inch nozzle, and with all three running under ideal conditions the water reaches 560 feet. In normal operation only two pumps run, and the plume reaches about 300 feet. Every St. Patrick’s Day since 1979 the town has dyed the fountain green, and for its 50th year it got new LED lights that still meet the town’s dark-sky rules.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
Names on this map
These names are printed on this map.
Streets and roads: Coyote Way, Prairie Dog, Bighorn Pkwy, Eagles Nest, Cholula Dr, Sunridge Dr, Centipede Dr, E McDowell, Mountain Rd, Su Ruma Rd, McDowell Mountain Rd, E Rhoads Ct.
More street names, A to Z
Beeline Hwy, Club Dr, Coral Dr, Cove Ave, Crestview Dr, Dancing Bears Ct, E Desert Ct, E Kingstree Blvd, E Mohave Rd, E Shea Blvd, E Via Linda, N Crestview Dr, N Eagle Ridge Dr, N Powderhorn, Palisades Blvd, Palomino Blvd, Summer Hill Blvd, Vista Dr, Wood Dr, W Vista Dr.
Dark skies and public art
In January 2018 the International Dark Sky Association named Fountain Hills an International Dark Sky Community, one of only two near a large metropolitan area. As of 2021, 34 communities in the world had earned that designation. The McDowell Mountains shield the town from the lights of the bigger cities to the west, and its neighbors, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and McDowell Mountain Regional Park, help keep the sky dark. The astronomer Charles W. Juels ran the Fountain Hills Observatory here, where 475 asteroids were discovered between 1999 and 2003, one of them named 20898 Fountainhills.
The town’s page says Fountain Hills has one of the largest public art collections in Arizona, more than 150 pieces in all. It began with the eight fountains along the Avenue of the Fountains, and bronze sculptures now stand along the streets and at public buildings, plazas and parks. The Fountain Hills Theater puts on more than 16 productions a year and teaches the arts to young people all year round.
Washes and schools
The Verde River lies east of town, and many washes run through Fountain Hills on their way to it, among them Ashbrook Wash. In heavy rain the washes can flood and block traffic, and signs mark several of the places where they cross major streets. The Fountain Hills Unified School District runs McDowell Mountain Elementary School, Fountain Hills Middle School and Fountain Hills High School, and it also serves the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation and parts of Scottsdale. Bristol Wash and Caliente Wash give the land its shape too, and Adero Canyon and Eagle Mountain mark the ends of the map’s reach.
This Fountain Hills map is a good addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of the area. It’s made for anyone who calls Fountain Hills home, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the town as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Fountain Hills map.
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