A brief history of the community founded by Dr. A.J. Chandler on May 16, 1912 In 1891, Dr. Alexander John Chandler, the first veterinary surgeon for the territory of Arizona, bought 80 acres of land from the federal government south of Mesa in the Salt River Valley. Dr. Chandler studied the relatively new science of irrigation engineering and was instrumental in building an early system of canals in what was then an arid desert. By the turn of the century, Dr. Chandler owned an 18,000-acre