Higley, AZ Real Estate

According to the San Tan Historical Society, the unincorporated community of Higley is named for S.W. Higley who moved to Arizona while working on the railroad in 1900 and purchased 8,000 acres. He gifted 49 acres to the community and by 1910, a post office was established in the general store of the little business strip at Higley and Williams Field roads. Higley was still not a town, but it was now a postal district, so the local farmers, who were not a part of Gilbert or Queen Creek could get their mail using their name in care of Higley 85236.  The General Store owner's daughter would deliver the farmers mail by horseback in the early days. The rural farming neighborhood was beginning to establish a sense of community and its own distinct identity.

The dairy farmers along with the cooperation of their farming neighbors who raised corn, cotton, and alfalfa developed a strong sense of community and came together and built roads and the little school and established their own electric and irrigation districts. Farmers on tractors out in the fields taking in the beauty of the San Tan Mountains to the south and the Superstitions to the east it, neighbors helping neighbors, it was a good life. Higley remained relatively unchanged for decades.

Early in 2000 that all changed, and the east valley’s population exploded. Soon the farms were giving way to new housing developments and Higley’s population grew 110% within a decade. That prompted Gilbert to attempt to annex Higley. Higley residents declined preferring to retain their own identity. Higley residents even tried to incorporate but failed to get enough votes. It seems many were content to remain a postal district and a school district. In order to better serve the new population they built a new post office and schools. Gilbert Memorial Hospital also built a state of the art facility in the unincorporated community.

In the peak of the housing boom, people stood in long lines hours before subdivision sales offices opened and the ensuing bid wars drove the median home price to well over $300,000. Today the median home price in Higley is far more moderate at about $155,000--slightly below comparable homes in Gilbert, but higher than those homes in Queen Creek.

As the feud between Higley residents and the Town of Gilbert over the widening of Higley Road through the historic intersection of Williams Field Road continues, many Higley residents are beginning to realize their population explosion and their failure to formalize as an incorporated community will eventually lead to their absorption by the ever encroaching Town of Gilbert.