Sonoran Valley, also referred to as Mobile, is a community in the southern planning area of Goodyear, Maricopa County,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, United States. It is situated about 35 miles southwest of

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

, and has a population of less than 100. Sonoran Valley is also home to a number of

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding m ...

operates a private airport to the north of Sonoran Valley, used for pilot training by student pilots of

Lufthansa Flight Training Lufthansa Aviation Training GmbH is the flight academy subsidiary of Lufthansa, that trains Lufthansa Group pilots as well as cabin and technical staff. The company has about 500 employees and has been in business for around 50 years. Operat ...

All Nippon Airways , also known as ANA (''Ē-enu-ē'') or is an airline in Japan. Its headquarters are located in Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area of Minato ward of Tokyo. It operates services to both domestic and international destinations and had mo ...

and

KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...

being based in Goodyear. Its ICAO airport code is 1AZ0, and features ILS on runway 9. Phoenix Litchfield Airport - Ramp

History

Mobile was founded in the 1930s as an area for African-Americans to live. Notable African-American woman of Mobile, Rebecca Dallis, taught in Casa Grande 1939. Local lore has it that some of its early residents were African-Americans from

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...

. However, researchers have found that

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

companies referred to the area as "Mobile" almost a decade before the first permanent settler in the area in the 1920s. In the 1930s, two railroad cars were used for two separate schoolhouses (one black and one for whites), and the population of local

homesteaders The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of th ...

reached about 100. By the 1950s the town was booming with almost 400 inhabitants, but the lack of employment, running water and educational facilities (no education past 8th grade) led to the exodus of most of the original residents and their descendants. In 2007, Sonoran Valley was annexed into the city of Goodyear as part of a expansion, part of an agreement with Montage Holdings, a local developer, to develop a

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

in the area. The planned community, named Amaranth, envisioned as a self-sustaining community with a regional mall, employment centers and eventually home to over 50,000 people, has been placed on hold until at least 2010 due to economic slowdown. The delay, as well as the developer's inability to meet financial obligations to the city, has forced Goodyear to cut back on emergency services to the area.

Geography

Sonoran Valley is located at

geographical coordinates The geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or ellipsoidal coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on the Earth as latitude and longitude. It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the various ...

33° 3' 19" N 112° 16' 16" W (33.055301, -112.271102). The private airstrip is located at 33° 6'43.27"N 112°16'8.66"W (33.111720, -112.269517).

Transportation

Sonoran Valley is accessible by car from State Route 238.

References

{{Goodyear, Arizona Former census-designated places in Arizona