The History of North Central Phoenix: Orangewood, Evans' Addition and What Historic Designation Means

Most neighborhoods get their character by accident. This one got it on paper, in 1895, from a man who was selling land at the end of a canal and needed a reason for people to drive out and look at it.

This is the documented origin of the corridor, and it is worth knowing before you buy here, because almost everything people love about these blocks — the lot sizes, the tree canopy, the water, the road grid, the boundary the site is named after — traces back to two subdivision plats filed in the 1890s.

Orangewood, 1895

William J. Murphy began developing the area in 1895 by platting the Orangewood subdivision. It was a two-square-mile tract, bounded by Northern Avenue and Bethany Home Road north to south, and by 7th Avenue and 7th Street east to west. His stated aim was rural homes at an easy distance from the city, sitting on large estate lots with citrus groves.

Read that boundary description again, because it is the whole reason this site is called what it is. The 1895 plat ran from 7th Avenue to 7th Street. Between the Sevens is not an agent's coinage — it is the original survey line, and it has been the working definition of this place for well over a century. That argument is made at length in what Between the Sevens actually means.

Twenty-acre lots and a principal roadway

Orangewood was laid out primarily in 20-acre lots, with Central Avenue as its principal roadway. Twenty acres is an enormous parcel by any modern standard, and the corridor's current lot sizes are what is left after a century of that original fabric being subdivided down. It is why a buyer here still finds quarter-acre and third-acre lots inside a major American city, when the same money three miles away buys a patio home.

In the current sample of 22 recent closed North Central sales, the median lot is 0.31 acres and the range runs from 0.09 to 1.01 acres. Every figure here is computed from a sample of 22 North Central sales closed in the past 12 months, drawn from Trevor's ARMLS IDX feed. A 12-month sample is not the whole market — it is a read on what has actually traded, not a valuation of any particular house. The full breakdown is in the lot size guide.

The trees were part of the plan

Murphy planted olive and ash trees along Central Avenue, and citrus stock brought from Southern California on the interior parcels. The canopy people drive up Central to see in February was a development decision, not a happy accident — it was the amenity that made rural land at the end of a canal into something a buyer wanted.

That is also why the corridor's mature trees behave differently from ornamental landscaping elsewhere in the valley: they were planted alongside a water system built to keep them alive. See the flood irrigation guide for how that water still arrives.

Evans' Addition, 1897

In 1897, J.M. Evans platted Evans' Addition immediately south of Orangewood, bounded by Bethany Home Road and Camelback Road. It was organized as four large neighborhood blocks, subdivided into twenty smaller ones.

Between the two plats you get the modern corridor: Camelback Road at the south end, Northern Avenue at the north, and 7th Avenue and 7th Street on the sides. Two filings, two years apart, and the shape has held ever since. Everything the site covers sits inside that frame, and the practical version of it — which streets, which pockets, which zip codes — is mapped in the street guide and on the interactive corridor map.

Central Avenue becomes a road

Central Avenue became a public highway in 1910 and was paved in the 1920s as a 22-foot-wide concrete roadway. Twenty-two feet is narrow by modern arterial standards, and the reason the Central Avenue experience still feels residential rather than commercial through this stretch has a lot to do with how early and how modestly it was built.

The area was annexed into Phoenix in 1959. That is the moment the corridor stopped being rural land near a city and became part of it — while keeping a lot grid and a water system designed for citrus groves.

The 1963 pines and the 1972 replanting

The tree story has a documented misstep in it. Aleppo pines planted in 1963 proved unpopular, and ash trees were replanted in 1972. It is a small detail, and it tells you something useful: the canopy along Central has been actively managed, argued over and replaced by the people who live here for more than a century. It is maintained infrastructure, not scenery.

What historic designation actually means

Most of the North Central corridor is not inside a formal historic district. Several neighborhoods nearer downtown are, and buyers touring the wider area will run into designation questions quickly, so it is worth knowing the mechanics.

Designation places a property on a register and subjects exterior alterations visible from the street to review. It generally does not govern interior work. Arizona also offers a state historic property tax reclassification, which can reduce the assessment on a qualifying owner-occupied historic property.

The trade, plainly

• You gain a potential property tax reclassification and a neighborhood-wide guarantee that the block will not be torn down around you.
• You accept exterior review, which slows down window replacements, additions and front elevation changes.
• You are trading flexibility for permanence, so the trade favors owners who intend to preserve rather than expand.
• Whether a specific parcel is designated is an address-level question. Verify it with the City of Phoenix Historic Preservation Office before you write, the same way you verify a school boundary or an irrigation account.

Why this history is a buying tool, not trivia

Knowing the platting history changes what you notice on a tour. A very large lot in the middle of a block of smaller ones usually means an original parcel that never got fully split. A street that runs oddly relative to its neighbors usually predates something. A mature ash on the verge is likely part of a planting program with a paper trail. And an irrigated lot means the property is connected to a water system that has been running since Murphy's development.

It also frames the value argument honestly. The Corridor is not expensive because someone marketed it well recently. It is expensive because a finite number of large, treed, irrigated lots were platted inside what is now the middle of the fifth-largest city in the country, and nobody is making more of them.

Where to go next

• The Murphy Bridle Path guide — the trail that came out of this same development.
• The architecture field guide — what got built on these lots afterward.
• The homeowner's almanac — irrigation, trash, schools and the seasonal calendar, with official sources.
• Homes for sale between the sevens — what is currently on the market inside the 1895 frame.
• Talk to Trevor about a specific parcel's history, lot origin or designation status.