Area developer talks importance of State Route 347, future

There was, however, a time without a SR 347 running through Maricopa.

And without that road, individuals like Mike Ingram knew it would be next to impossible to grow the then-unincorporated community into the large-scale city it is today as, before the 347 highway, the primary entrance into Maricopa was the two-lane Maricopa Road.

"Maricopa Road was just a country road at the time — it was really an old railroad bed where they actually had just pulled up the tracks and it had very steep sides on it," said Ingram. "In fact, it was very dangerous because if someone pulled over it was very easy to have a vehicle turnover."

Ingram, founder and chairman of the development company El Dorado Holdings, could see a potential future for Maricopa to become a thriving city, even though the area had less than 1,500 residents at the time. Creating that city, however, would require a better road.

And even before Maricopa had started its almost exponential growth, there was already a growing need for the road in the rural community.

Up until the highway's construction, there were a number of fatal accidents that happened on Maricopa Road. Among the people killed in a vehicle collision on that road was Jane Askew.

Askew, who had been heavily involved in getting Maricopa Road expanded into the four-lane divided highway, was killed in a rollover accident on Maricopa Road not long after plans for the highway were accepted by the state.

According to Ingram, Askew had held many community meetings at her home to discuss the safety and importance of creating SR 347.

The meetings were held by the Maricopa Road Association, which Ingram had formed and served on as chairman at the time. The board featured a combination of representatives from Maricopa and Pinal counties, including former Pinal County Board of Supervisors Chairman Dean Weatherly, as well as representatives from both the Gila River and Ak-Chin Indian Communities. 

Though Ingram had initially pictured the highway as six lanes, in the end, it was decided that SR 347 would be a four-lane divided highway. 

"I'd asked for a four-lane highway, I wanted enough right of way to do six lanes," Ingram said. "Although Gila River and Ak-Chin were not opposed to giving enough right of way for six lanes at the time, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was quick to point out to me that Interstate 10 was a federal highway and it was just four lanes divided. And they said, 'why in the world would you think you need more than four lanes?' and I told them that we were going to develop a city there and you would definitely need six lanes in the future."

Discussions about the road, as Ingram recalls, ended with the BIA telling him that if the region needed the additional lanes, they could put them in the middle division.

But despite local need for the road, some residents of the rural Hidden Valley area, south of Maricopa, weren't exactly thrilled about the idea of having a highway in the area, said Ingram. Another issue the highway faced was opposition due to circling misinformation about the tax burden associated with the highway. 

At the time, there was a common conception among some landowners within 15 miles of Maricopa Road that their taxes were going to up by about $2,000 to $3,000 per year. Their concerns were stemming from an improvement district that had been formed to allow for the issuance of $10 million in bonds to help fund the road expansion. 

The truth, however, was that the tax burden was a little over $30 per year for the average household, said Ingram, as approximately $26 million in funding for the road had come from the state. The highway had also been funded through a combination of monies the project received from the Federal Highway Administration, Maricopa County and Pinal County. 

When the roadway expansion finally was placed on the ballot in the late 1980s, voters narrowly approved it. Though 95% of landowners in the area voted in favor of the road, Ingram recalls the highway narrowly passed by 21 in the popular vote. 

But that was far from the end of the struggles to get the highway put in. 

Not long after voters approved the plans for SR 347, some residents in the Thunderbird Farms area, west of Maricopa, challenged the results in court. 

The issue went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, Ingram said, with the court ruling in favor of the voter-approved expansion. Shortly after, construction began on the road. 

More than three decades since Maricopa Road became an state route and was expanded, and well over 60,0000 residents later, Maricopa has seen a growing need to expand the road from four to six lanes.

Another big improvement the community needs, said Ingram, is an overpass where the highway meets Riggs Road. That adjustment would eliminate the lengthy wait times commuters on the highway typically experience at the intersection. 

Looking back, Ingram said that getting the road, and future developments that would come to Maricopa like Rancho El Dorado, would never have been possible if it had not been for the people who were already living in the area at the time.

People in the area, everyone from local farmers to the Ak-Chin and Gila River communities, were greatly supportive of each other, he noted, and worked together regularly to raise funding for whatever the community needed.

"John and Mary Lou Smith were huge supporters with the swimming pool that was (built) back in those days, and the Dunn family, the Farrell family — all those people that were there, they were the grassroots to really make things happen," said Ingram.