Pinal County

Eloy is located along old Arizona Highway 84, just
off of Interstate 10, about 15 miles southeast of Casa Grande.
Eloy lies in the Santa Cruz River Valley and is served by
Interstate 10 with two exits, Toltec Road and Sunshine Boulevard.

No one really knows how Eloy came by its name. Will C. Barnes
says in his book "Arizona Place Names" that "Why the railroad
named a section Eloy has not yet been ascertained. Locally a
tall tale has come into existence. According to the legend,
the railroad came through and someone connected with it took
one look at the surrounding barren waste and named the location
"Eloi," supposedly the Spanish name pronunciation of the Biblical
quotation, 'Eli, Eli lama sabachthani?' The meaning of this is,
of course, 'My God, My god, why hast thou forsaken me?' "

In the mid 1940’s cotton was king in Eloy. Large numbers of
migrant workers followed the cotton harvest and were needed
to hand pick the cotton. Main Street in Eloy on Saturday night
in the 1940’s was sometimes a wild place. Where most towns in
the southwest had their lawless phase in the late 1800’s or
early 1900’s, Eloy was perhaps the last town in the west to
be “cleaned up”.

Due to the publicity from the murders of an ex-judge and
deputy sherrif in 1948, one Eastern newspaper labeled Eloy
“The Town Tougher Than Tombstone.” Of course, all that is in
the past now, making for colorful history. In fact Eloy has
matured into a nice, comfortable place to live.