Every Fourth of July at 4 a.m., Taylor wakes up to the bang of an anvil. This map of Taylor prints the Norman Brimhall House, the Standifird House, Freeman Park, Taylor Intermediate School and the Northern Arizona Academy, with Silver Creek, Show Low Creek and Big Dry Lake giving shape to the land.
Taylor is a town in Navajo County, straddling Silver Creek on Arizona’s Colorado Plateau.
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. Historic sites such as the A.Z. Palmer House, the Norman Brimhall House and the Standifird House were confirmed against the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places. The town sits at 5,640 feet in a broad valley, with the Mogollon Rim to the west and the White Mountains to the south, and the 2020 census counted 3,995 people.
Settled in 1878
Settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints founded Taylor in January 1878, several months before neighboring Snowflake, and the town’s own history credits James Pearce with settling it. It’s named for John Taylor, the third president of the church, and it was incorporated in 1966. Silver Creek, which runs through town, flows 45 miles from the White Mountains to the Little Colorado River. The Apache Railway once served Taylor: its tracks, built between 1917 and 1920, ran from the Santa Fe at Holbrook to Snowflake and on through Taylor to the forests at McNary, and the line south of Snowflake was abandoned in the 1980s. Taylor still has no home mail delivery; residents near the post office who show proof that they live in town get a small post office box free of charge, and the town has never levied a tax on property.
The drum and the anvil
The town’s logo, a drum and an anvil, stands for two traditions that grew to include all of Taylor. The first is a family tradition, the “Firing of the Anvil,” which goes off every Fourth of July at 4:00 a.m. with a loud bang, followed by patriotic music from the Jennings Band, and the anvil is fired again at different places around town. The custom began with Taylor’s pioneers, was revived in 1953 and still draws people home from across the country. The anvil was used by the Mormon Battalion in 1847, and Joseph S. Hancock later brought it to Taylor for his blacksmith shop; in the late 1800s the town’s forefathers took to firing it in place of a cannon and fireworks. The Jennings drum, made by Major Edward Duzette of cowhide, birch and hickory, was played in the Nauvoo Legion Band, crossed the plains on the back of Brigham Young’s carriage with the first company of pioneers in 1847, and was later given to Cyrus Jennings.
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: Malapai Rd, Paper Mill Rd, Gene Taylor Ranch Rd, Hereford Rd, Ranch Rd, Ramsey Rd, Freeman Hollow Rd, Trebil Blvd, Trebil Rd, Palomino Dr, Angus Rd, Echols Dr.
More street names, A to Z
Airport Ln, Airport Rd, Alamo Ln, Angela Ln, Arroyo Plata Dr, Blackies Rd, Blossom Ln, Bull Duck Ln, Bullduck Ln, Bull Hollow Rd, Clyde Rd, Del Rio Dr, Doc Bar Pl, E Button Ln, Farmhouse Dr, Freedom Ln, Fs 133, Fs 229, Harvest Cir, Harvest Ct, Hatch Ave, Haystack Rd, Highland Dr, Hillshire Dr, Kc Ranch Rd, Louis Ln, Maslanko Ln, Old School House Rd, Old Shumway Rd, Rocky Rd, Taylor Farms Dr, Weber Way, Well Rd, White Mountain Lake Rd.
Around the map
The town’s Heritage Foundation works with Taylor to run five historic sites, the Taylor Museum, the Pioneer Museum, the Hancock Cabin, the Standifird Home and the Shumway School, and on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day all of them open with special tours, beans, corn bread and wagon rides. Freeman Park, on Papermill Road, is one of the town’s parks, and the Snowflake-Taylor Recreation and Parks Department, run from Taylor Town Hall, fills the year with Trapper Days, the Taylor Night Rodeo, the Pioneer Day Parade and the Sweet Corn Festival. Taylor is part of the Snowflake Unified School District, with Taylor Elementary School and Taylor Intermediate School in town and the junior high and high school in Snowflake. The A.Z. Palmer House, the Northern Arizona Academy, Show Low Creek and Big Dry Lake have their places on the sheet as well.
This Taylor 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 Taylor home, along Silver Creek, 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 Taylor map.
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