St. Johns grew up at a useful crossing of the Little Colorado River, and the Spanish name for it was El Vadito, “the little crossing.” This map of St Johns prints the Isaacson Building, the Apache County Annex Building, the Apache County Historical Society Museum, Coronado Elementary School, the St Johns Learning Center and the St. Johns Industrial Air Park, with Little Reservoir and Patterson Pond giving shape to the land.
St. Johns is a city in Apache County, and it’s the county seat.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave modern data the look of a vintage 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 Isaacson Building was confirmed against the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places. In Navajo the place is called Tsézhin Deezʼáhí, a name that refers to its rock formations, and the 2020 census counted 3,417 people in the city.
From El Vadito to San Juan
Starting in 1864 a trader named Solomon Barth crossed here regularly, hauling salt from a salt lake in Zuni territory to Prescott, and in 1873 he won enough money in a poker game to buy cattle and land at the crossing and start a ranch with his brothers, Nathan and Morris. Barth changed the name from El Vadito to San Juan. There’s some disagreement over why: the name may honor Maria San Juan Baca de Padilla, the first woman to live here, or the feast of San Juan. By 1872 a Spanish-American farming community had grown up, and Juan Sedilla put up a stone cabin in 1874. In 1880 David King Udall was called to be the Latter-day Saint bishop of St. Johns, then a small and mostly Hispanic Catholic community, and a church settlement named Salem was set up just north of the town on March 29, 1880, then moved to higher ground that September. Udall went on to lead the stake for 35 years, served Apache County in the territorial senate and died in St. Johns in 1938, and his grandsons included Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969, and Congressman Morris Udall.
St. Johns has been the seat of Apache County for almost all of its history. When the county was created on February 24, 1879, Snowflake was named the seat, but after the first election that fall the county government was set up in St. Johns. It moved to Springerville in 1880, came back to St. Johns in 1882 and has stayed ever since. The Isaacson Building’s page notes that of the small towns along the Little Colorado River in the 1870s, St. Johns is the only one still standing.
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: Ac 6345, Park Plaza Dr, Airport St, Second W, N Water St, W Cleveland St, Redskin Dr, Seventh St, Sacramento Ln, Mountain Dr, St John and Apache County Rd.
A granite storefront
Isaac Isaacson came to Brigham City, near present-day Winslow, in 1876, and when that town failed he moved north of St. Johns in 1882, then into town around the turn of the century. In 1918 he built the Isaacson Building on Commercial Street, using local materials his own companies supplied, and a local builder, Genaro Acosta, put it up. It’s a two-story block 30 feet wide and 80 feet deep, faced with rough granite quarried nearby, and the year 1918 is carved just below its stepped parapet. The National Park Service report on the building singles out the varied colors of the stone, which, with its rough texture, give a plain front a lot to look at. Inside are hardwood floors, plaster walls and a pressed metal ceiling.
Around the map
The Apache County Historical Society Museum is in St. Johns, and the city’s other National Register listings are the Lower Zuni River Archeological District, the Lyman Lake Rock Art Site and Rattlesnake Point Pueblo. Lyman Lake State Park, dedicated on July 1, 1961, was Arizona’s first recreational state park. Near the city is the Placerias Quarry, where Charles Camp and Samuel Welles of the University of California, Berkeley found dozens of Placerias fossils in 1930. The year brings Pioneer Days, the San Juan Fiesta of St. Johns Catholic Church, the Apache County Fair and a Christmas Light Parade. Coronado Elementary School is part of the St. Johns Unified School District, the city is home to the St. Johns Center of Northland Pioneer College, and the Apache County Library District keeps its headquarters here. The Apache County Annex Building, the St Johns Learning Center, the St. Johns Industrial Air Park, Little Reservoir and Patterson Pond have their places on the sheet as well.
This St. Johns map makes 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 St Johns home, at the old crossing of the Little Colorado, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the city as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the St. Johns map.
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