Alexander J. Chandler

Alexander J. Chandler (1859–1950) was a Canadian-American who was the first veterinary surgeon in the Arizona territory and the founder of the city of Chandler.

Early life Alexander John (A.J.) Chandler was born on July 15, 1859, in Coaticook, Quebec, Canada.

Chandler attended and graduated the Montreal Veterinary College. In 1882, he moved to Detroit, Michigan where he worked for the D.W. Ferry Seed Company. In 1887, he moved to Prescott in the Arizona Territory after being hired by the Arizona Livestock Sanitary Board and Governor C. Meyer Zulick to investigate cattle disease threatening the area's cattle. Soon after, he started his own practice and moved south to Phoenix.

Chandler, Arizona In 1891, Chandler bought eighty acres of land from the federal government located in the Salt River Valley south of Mesa. Chandler studied irrigation engineering which was relatively new at the time. He was instrumental in building an early system of canals in the dry and arid Arizona desert, which proved vital for agriculture in the area. Chandler entered into a contract with the city of Mesa to manage their canal and eventually was able to unite all the canals south of the Salt River, similar to what William John Murphy did with the Arizona Canal.

In 1912, Chandler, with the help of planners and architects, subdivided his ranch and drew up a map for his new townsite. He soon retired and lived on the grounds of the hotel in a small cottage. He also grew cotton, being the first known grower in the region to grow Egyptian cotton. In 1899, David Fairchild, with the United States Department of Agriculture, sent Chandler several bushels of long-staple cotton seeds from Egypt. That same year he began growing it on his land in Mesa.

A.J. Chandler married three times, but never had any children of his own. He married Julia Pope, Charlotte Boyd, and Rosa Bowling.

Death and legacy Chandler died on May 8, 1950, in his titular town.