Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near North Central Central, AZ

Central is an unincorporated census-designated place in Graham County, Arizona, in the upper Gila River valley between the towns of Thatcher and Pima, west of the county seat, Safford.

The settlement was first homesteaded by the Cluff family in 1880, one of the Mormon pioneer farming communities established along the Gila River.

Settlers extended the Central Canal to irrigate their lands, and by 1884 twenty families, including the Cluff, Norton, Shurtz, Bigler, and Webster households, resided in Central.

The Central Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in December 1883, with Joseph Cluff ordained as its first bishop.

A red brick meetinghouse built in 1885 was the first regular Latter-day Saint meeting house built in this part of Arizona, and it briefly served as the first home of the LDS Academy from December 1890 to May 1891.

That academy later moved to Thatcher and grew into Eastern Arizona College; a plaque on Central Road east of the highway commemorates its original Central home.

A railroad through Central was completed in 1896, and in 1978 the community named its streets after its early pioneer families.

The Gila Valley Arizona Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dedicated on May 23, 2010, stands in Central; it was the third LDS temple built in Arizona and the first announced by church president Thomas S. Monson.

The 2020 census counted 758 residents in Central, up from 645 in 2010; the community's population had been estimated at just 100 in the 1960 census.

U.S. Route 70 is Central's main thoroughfare, and the community has its own ZIP code, 85531.