The Niels Petersen House

Niels Petersen came from Denmark and made himself a Tempe founder. He homesteaded 160 acres here in 1872 and had a hand in nearly every early institution, helping organize the Methodist Episcopal church in 1888. In 1892 he commissioned the architect James Creighton to design this Queen Anne farmhouse for himself and his wife Susanna, a burst of ornamented Victorian style rising improbably from an Arizona farm. Listed on the National Register, the house survives as a record of the immigrant labor that built the Salt River Valley, and of the prosperity that labor could bring.

What the plaque says

Niels Petersen, a Danish immigrant, homesteaded 160 acres in Tempe in 1872 and was involved in almost every aspect of the area's development, helping organize the Tempe Methodist Episcopal Church in 1888. This Queen Anne style farmhouse was designed by James Creighton in 1892 and built on the homestead for Niels and Susanna Decker Petersen. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Phoenix — 7.5 mi
  The fifth-largest US city, built on the canals of a thousand-year-old one
• Heard Museum — 8.4 mi
  The Native Southwest, told in the first person
• Taliesin West — 16 mi
  Frank Lloyd Wright's desert masterwork, grown from the ground it stands on

More markers nearby

• Double Butte Cemetery — 1.0 mi
• Farmer-Goodwin Mansion — 2.2 mi
• Tempe Hardware Building — 2.5 mi
• The Old Church — 2.5 mi