Celeste Crouch has lived in Litchfield Park for almost 40 years and my three children grew up here and attended local schools. Litchfield Park has a very special history and Mr. Paul Litchfield, the Founder, was a very special man. After reading the Thesis from 1948 written by Susan Smith on the early History of this area I was hooked.

Celeste founded the Litchfield Park Historical Society in the Fall of 2000 and the first Organizational Meeting was held in March of 2001. With the help of Ruth Byrnes, early resident of Litchfield Park, and now an active member of the Glendale Historical Society, we wrote a Mission Statement and By-Laws. Local residents, Peggy & Dick Vasiloff, are from Akron, Ohio where the Goodyear Tire Rubber Company has its headquarters. While there they visited the University of Akron where our early archives are stored and brought back pictures and copies of our early history. With this great information we were able to get started with the history we needed as Goodyear Corp. was very good at taking pictures and keeping history. Since this time we have added many pictures and more history through the years.

In November of 2013 a Book on the early history of Litchfield Park was published by Arcadia Publishers in their Images of America series. It is now available in local area stores.

Litchfield Elementary School History

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Mrs. Mabel Padgett, wife of John Padgett a surveyor for Goodyear, was the first teacher. Mr. Rayner arranged for seats, equipment and free textbooks. The school’s enrollment increased daily and by January 1, 1918 enrollment had reached 80 children. Plans were made to select a permanent school site.

The Development of Litchfield Park, AZ

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Cotton was planted in 1917 and by 1918 the downtown area of Litchfield Park was developed. Try to visualize Litchfield Park in 1918, when the town site was under development!

Development of Goodyear Farms

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Practically all of the idle land was converted into pasture for grazing several thousand head of sheep and cattle. Citrus trees were planted and as cotton prices rose, cotton was planted again. Pima cotton was no longer needed for tires as Goodyear was turning to rayon for tire production.

Paul Weeks Litchfield

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Mr. Litchfield’s job was to develop a superior pneumatic automobile tire and improve bicycle and carriage tire production. In 1901, he designed the straight side tire and by 1905, he had improved the tire enough that Goodyear was selling tires as original equipment for automobiles.

Arrival of GOODYEAR TIRE and RUBBER CO

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Mr. Paul Litchfield, the founder, worked for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Paul Litchfield a Chemical Engineer, who graduated from MIT, went to work for Goodyear in 1900
Goodyear Blimp

Litchfield Park – On the Move

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Litchfield Park - On the Move The downtown area of Litchfield Park became Tierra Verde Village in the mid -1960s.  A great change had taken place within Goodyear Farms as they no longer concentrated on farming, but turned their farmland…

Get to Know Litchfield Park, Arizona

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The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio founded this beautiful community in 1917 during WWI and because of the boll weevil infestation in the south. Mr. Litchfield was looking to grow long-staple cotton
Goodyear Blimp

The Goodyear Blimp Super Bowl XLIX

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First Airship In 1910, Mr. Paul Litchfield attended an air meet in Europe and saw his first airship. Mr. Litchfield liked the fact that it depended on lifting gas