Casa Grande (O'odham: Wainom Wo:g) is a city in Pinal County, approximately halfway between Phoenix and Tucson, in the U.S. state of Arizona. The population was 53,658 at the 2020 census, and was estimated to be 68,927 in 2024. As of 2025 the population of Casa Grande is 70,156.
History
Casa Grande was founded in 1879 during the Arizona mining boom due to the presence of the Southern Pacific Railroad. In January 1880, the community of Terminus, meaning "end-of-the-line," was established with just five residents and three buildings. In September 1880, railroad executives renamed the settlement Casa Grande after nearby Hohokam ruins with the same name. Casa Grande grew slowly and suffered several setbacks both in 1886 and 1893 when fires ravaged the town, destroying all wooden housing structures within.
Casa Grande is home to the Francisco Grande Hotel & Golf Resort, a former spring training location for the San Francisco Giants. The Giants' then owner, Horace Stoneham, began developing the property in 1959. The first exhibition game was played in Casa Grande in 1961 with Willie Mays hitting a home run. The Giants no longer play at Francisco Grande, but the baseball bat and ball shaped pool remains in memory of the past ballgames.
During the Cold War, Casa Grande was the location of the Casa Grande Photogrammetric Test Range. These targets consisted of concrete arrows located in and to the south of the city which calibrated aerial cartographic cameras.
Casa Grande has also played a prominent role in semi-professional and collegiate baseball. The Casa Grande Cotton Kings, founded in 1948, qualified to play in the National Baseball Congress World Series ten straight times by winning Arizona state championships in the 1940s and 1950s and were reactivated in the 2000s. They are now members of the Pacific Southwest Baseball League.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land.
|source 2=National Weather Service