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Gila Bend (; O'odham: Hila Wi:n), founded in 1872, is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. The town is named for an approximately 90-degree bend in the Gila River, which is close to but not precisely at the community's current location. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 1,922.〔 Just outside the town is the San Lucy district (O'odham: Weco Cekṣanĭ) of the Tohono O'odham Nation, with a tiny settlement, San Lucy (O'odham: Si:l Mek) bordering the town itself. ==History== The town of Gila Bend is situated near an ancient Hohokam village. When Father Eusebio Francisco Kino visited in 1699, the older site along fertile banks of the Gila River had been abandoned and other tribes, lived in the vicinity. 132 Pima people lived in a rancheria called Oyadaibuc or as Kino named it San Felipe y Santiago del Oyadaibuc, near the modern town, and other Pima lived in three rancherias up river to the north mixed with the Cocomaricopa or Opa. Kino's expedition counted 960 Opas living in their own rancherias down river to the west of Oyadaibuc as far as a few miles beyond Agua Caliente.〔John P. Wilson, Peoples of the Middle Gila: A Documentary History of the Pimas and Maricopas, 1500's - 1945, Researched and Written for the Gila River Indian Community, Sacaton, Arizona, 1999〕 The Opa and Pima used the flood waters of the river to irrigate their crops. Oyadaibuc was also visited by Juan Bautista de Anza, commander of the Presidio at Tubac and founder of the city of San Francisco, and by Father Francisco Tomas Garces in 1774.〔 As late as the 1820s Maricopa were living at Gila Bend. After the 1820s, the Maricopa, under relentless pressure from the Yuma and other tribes, and population loss from epidemics, had been compelled to leave the Gila Bend and join the Pima in the Middle Gila region. By the time of the California Gold Rush the Maricopa villages, were all located east of the Sierra Estrella, on the Gila River, below the Pima Villages.〔 During the Mexican American War, the expeditions of Kearny (1846), Cooke (1847) and Graham (1847) passed through the area but found no village, only Graham found corn stubble on the riverside with which to graze his cattle.〔PAUL H. EZELL, THE MARICOPAS, An Identification From Documentary Sources, NUMBER 6, ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS, TUCSON, 1963.〕 At that time what became the Southern Emigrant Trail passed through the area which now had acquired the name Tezotal or Tesotal.〔William H. Emory, Report on the United States and Mexican boundary survey: made under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior, Volume 1, United States. Dept. of the Interior, A. O. P. Nicholson, Washington, 1857]〕 From 1857, the place was named Gila Ranch and was a stagecoach stop on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line and the later more famous Butterfield Overland Mail route to California located 17 miles from Murderer's Grave Station to the west and 40 miles east of Maricopa Wells Station. After the American Civil War, other stage and freight routes converged here especially after the railroad arrived in 1879. The nickname the "Crossroads of the Southwest" stems from the area having been part of an important transportation route in the settling, development and growth of the Great Southwest. Gila Bend was the "center of a wheel", with spokes leading in many directions throughout the region.〔 A more recent event in the area was the October 1995 sabotage of the Amtrak ''Sunset Limited'' train. On December 14, 2006, Volkswagen of America, Inc., leased of land at a cost of $55 million for 25 years, ten miles (16 km) west of Gila Bend, on which they plan to develop a new automobile proving ground. Gila Bend enjoys a minor notability among tourists and aficionados of roadside attractions. Besides the quirky welcome sign (shown at right), the town boasts several roadside sculptures and the Space Age Lodge motel and restaurant (opened in 1963), named for its "Space Age" themed architecture and decor. The band Los Lobos wrote a song called "The Road To Gila Bend", which appears on their 2006 release ''The Town and the City''. In 2010 Abengoa Solar secured a $1.45 BUSD loan guarantee to build a large 280 megawatt Concentrated Solar Power Plant in Gila Bend. It is estimated that the project will employ a peak of 1,500 workers with an operational permanent employment of approximately 85 workers. The Solana Generating Station is scheduled to start providing power for Arizona Public Service in 2013. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gila Bend, Arizona」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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