Grasshopper Flat

The area now known as West Sedona was originally said to have been called Copple Flat, named for B.F. Copple, an early settler in Oak Creek Canyon who arrived in 1875 but did not stay long. After he left, the flat became known for the grasshoppers that thrived there and were caught for bait by fishermen on their way to Oak Creek. Henry Elmer Cook arrived in Grasshopper Flat in 1922 and staked a claim to a 160 acre homestead, and in 1929 his son Jay homesteaded another 160 acres. The Cooks were builders and masons who built many of Sedona's native rock buildings. In the 1940s, they began selling their land to retirees and others discovering Sedona, and businesses for new residents and visitors appeared. Jay Cook built a small motel and grocery, and the Gibsons built a rock home and gas station that later became the famous Rainbow's End. Also in the 1940s, Fanny Gulick amassed considerable acreage on Grasshopper Flat. She had made her money with a gold strike in Nevada and a rooming house for miners, said by some to have actually been a bordello. Recognizing that the lack of water on her land devalued it, she hired Carl Williams in 1947 to sink a deep well, and the discovery of water opened Grasshopper Flat for development.

Sedona, Arizona · United States