Eastern Arizona College has called Thatcher home since 1891, in the Upper Gila River Valley with Mount Graham to the south and the Gila River to the north. This map of Thatcher prints Eastern Arizona College, the EA Alumni Library, Thatcher High School, the Thatcher 4th Ward Meetinghouse, Daley Estates Park and the Thatcher Splash Park, with Halls Mesa and the Highline Canal giving shape to the land.
Thatcher is a town in Graham County, and it’s the home of Eastern Arizona College.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave modern data the look of a vintage atlas. The shaded relief of Halls Mesa comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. The 2020 census counted 5,231 people in the town.
Christopher Layton’s two thousand acres
Thatcher was settled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and its first settler, John M. Moody, arrived with his wife and children in 1881. The founding is credited to the pioneer Christopher Layton, a veteran of the Mormon Battalion who also founded Kaysville and Layton in Utah. Called to lead the church’s new St. Joseph Stake in southern Arizona, he bought two thousand acres, named the place Thatcher, divided it into lots and sold them to Latter-day Saint settlers, and he also bought a gristmill and built roads, canals and homes. He presided over the stake from Thatcher from 1883 until 1898. Thatcher was one of a string of settlements formed in the Gila Valley between 1881 and 1884, with Curtis, Graham, Central, Layton and McDonald, and the valley’s settlers dug 40 miles of new irrigation canals.
A college that kept its doors open
Eastern Arizona College is the oldest community college in Arizona and the only one in the state with a marching band, by its page’s account. The church chartered it in 1888, and classes began in a church room in nearby Central in 1890 with 17 students, as the St. Joseph Stake Academy. In 1891 the school moved to Thatcher, and its 21-room Old Main opened in December 1911. When the church said in 1932 that it could no longer support the college, the people of Graham County voted in 1933 to fund it, and the state took it over as Gila Junior College; it became Eastern Arizona College in 1966 and has changed its name nine times in all. The college keeps the Mills Collection, some 600 whole vessels gathered by the amateur archaeologists Jack and Vera Mills, on permanent public display, and its mascot is Gila Hank, a Gila monster. The actor Nick Nolte and the chemist Henry Eyring are among its alumni.
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: Powerline Ln, Barbara Ln, W First St, E Second St, W Main St, Fourth St, E Church St, W Eagle Dr, First Ave, N High School Ave, N Stadium Ave, Ball Park Dr.
More street names, A to Z
20th St, Arena Way, Bauer Ave, Brooke Ln, Dusty Trl, Fry Mesa Rd, Golf Course Rd, Hooper Ln, Kami Ln, Kimball St, Legacy Ln, Lucas Ln, Peacock Ln, Quail Rd, Ramblin Rd, Relation St, Rock Rd, S Alameda Ave, S Danica Ln, S Robinson Ranch Rd, S Tuscany Rd, Valley View Rd, W Eighth St, W Horseshoe Ln, W Ridgeview Cir, W Saddleview St, W Spencer Ln.
Thatcher’s people
Spencer W. Kimball moved to Thatcher at three, when his father was called to preside over the St. Joseph Stake, and grew up here as an honor student and a star basketball player; he worked at the Thatcher branch of the Arizona Trust and Savings Bank and in 1938 became the first president of the new Mount Graham Stake before going on to lead the church. Frank Wanlass, born in Thatcher in 1933, invented CMOS logic with Chih-Tang Sah in 1963, which has since become the standard process for making MOSFET transistors; he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2009. Jacque Mercer, born in Thatcher, was Miss America in 1949. Jess Mortensen, also born here, competed at Gila Junior College before setting a world record in the decathlon in 1931 and coaching USC’s track team to seven NCAA titles. Don Lancaster, the electronics author and print-on-demand pioneer, lived in Thatcher for 44 years and spent more than four decades mapping prehistoric irrigation networks in the Pinaleño Mountains.
Thatcher High School is the only high school in the Thatcher Unified School District, and its current building opened in 2000. The Gila Valley Arizona Temple of the church stands in nearby Central, between Pima and Thatcher. The EA Alumni Library, the Thatcher 4th Ward Meetinghouse, Daley Estates Park, the Thatcher Splash Park and the Highline Canal have their places on the sheet as well.
This Thatcher 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 Thatcher home, below Mount Graham, 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 Thatcher map.
Sources
- Thatcher, Arizona, Wikipedia
- Christopher Layton, Wikipedia
- Gila River Valley, Wikipedia
- Eastern Arizona College, Wikipedia
- Thatcher High School, Wikipedia
- Spencer W. Kimball, Wikipedia
- Frank Wanlass, Wikipedia
- Jacque Mercer, Wikipedia
- Jess Mortensen, Wikipedia
- Don Lancaster, Wikipedia
- Gila Valley Arizona Temple, Wikipedia
