Winfield Scott Memorial

Scottsdale takes its name not from the famous general but from Winfield Scott, an Army chaplain who homesteaded here in 1888 and spent his last years promoting the dusty desert east of Phoenix as farmland. A Civil War veteran, territorial legislator, and university chancellor, the man they called the fighting Parson believed the land could bloom with irrigation. This memorial shows him welcoming newcomers while his wife Helen rides their mule, Old Maud. The town he talked into existence kept his name, though for decades few residents knew the chaplain behind it.

What the plaque says

Scottsdale's founder, a minister, Civil War veteran, member of the Territorial House of Representatives, and Chancellor of the University of Arizona, is honored here for promoting the dusty desert east of Phoenix. This memorial depicts Chaplain Scott welcoming newcomers and Helen Scott seated on their beloved mule, Old Maud. Known as the fighting Parson, Winfield Scott was born February 26, 1837 in West Novi, Michigan; his wife Helen Louise Brown was born in New York in 1838. They married on December 13, 1861, the day he graduated from Rochester Seminary.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Museum — 8.7 mi
  The Native Southwest, told in the first person
• Taliesin West — 9.0 mi
  Frank Lloyd Wright's desert masterwork, grown from the ground it stands on
• Phoenix — 9.2 mi
  The fifth-largest US city, built on the canals of a thousand-year-old one

More markers nearby

• The Little Red Schoolhouse — steps away
• Sterling Drug Store — steps away
• Our Lady of Perpetual Help — steps away
• Herb Drinkwater — steps away