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The Legends of Superior Trails: Pinal to the Arizona Trail

The Town of Pinal
In 1876 the Silver King mine was discovered in the mountains north of present day Superior. As the mine was developed and its production grew, a mill town called Picketpost was developed on the site of an old short-lived Army road construction camp along Queen Creek at one of the few places in the area with a reliable water supply. In 1878 its name was changed to Pinal and it began to grow. By the mid 1880s it boasted one of the largest stamp mills in the state and had an official population of over 800 people with all the attendant businesses and services needed for a town expecting to become a city – hotels, newspapers, banks, restaurants, breweries, saloons, dry goods and drug stores, shoe stores, blacksmiths, and tinsmiths. However, the silver market crashed, production at the mine plummeted, and the town was abandoned; the Post Office was closed in 1891. Some people moved over to the smaller town of Hastings a few miles away, where a larger deposit of copper allowed it to continue to develop and and eventually become Superior.

 

Future Forward Foundation (or 3F for short) is a non-profit organization founded in 2011. We want to reduce poverty, improve the standard of living and promote the betterment of our community in Pinal County. We summarize this simply as “Caring for our neighbors.”

Gardening to Improve our Community

Much of Pinal County is in a food desert, meaning residents must drive over 10 miles to obtain fresh produce. For those that can't drive or find regular rides, that means relying on convenience stores for nutrition.

Future Forward Foundation's (3F) "Seed the Future" program is addressing the problems of food insecurity, poor diets and sustainable vegetable production. Through the program, residents can get their very own garden, complete with a watering system, so they can grow and eat (and sell) vegetables year-round. Plus, 3F educates each resident on how to best garden in our desert climate.

The gardens are installed at no cost to the property owners, although donations are encouraged.

So far, we've planted 10 backyard gardens in Florence with a goal of 60 total gardens by the end of 2017.

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