Tortilla Flat Arizona
Tortilla Flat is a small grassy valley in the Superstition Mountains. The Flat was naturally located between mountain passes which came to be used by the early Indians back and forth from the central Arizona Mountains and the Salt River valley. This trail later became known as Yavapai or the Tonto Trail.
In the archives of Tortilla Flat, a story was documented saying that a certain Tonto Basin pioneer, Mr. John Cline, named the area Tortilla Flat because after being stranded in the area for quite sometime due to flash floods, they ran out of food supplies and what was left was only flour which they made into tortillas. In honor of their victuals, Cline christened the flat, Tortilla Flat. Though it was not documented what year Mr. Cline named the area.
In 1904, Tortilla Flat got its start because of the road construction to Roosevelt Dam. After being established as a freight camp, a number of people were accounted to be living in the area. According to the Arizona State Data Center which keeps tracks of population statistics, in its guidelines for recording a community outside of a major urban area in official books, there should be at least 100 persons. Tortilla Flat has never appeared on its records, this means the area’s population did not remain there long enough to be accounted for.
