Find Other Surprise Businesses

City or Zip Code

The city was founded in 1937 by real estate developer and state legislator Homer C. Ludden, who named it after his hometown of Surprise, Nebraska. Although there were only a few houses and a gas station on the one-mile-square parcel of land when Ludden subdivided it to build inexpensive houses for agricultural workers, Surprise has experienced tremendous growth in the years since.

Tens of thousands of retirees moved to the city in the 1990s and early 2000s to live in Sun City Grand, an age-restricted resort-like community, with homes built by the property development firm Del Webb. (Surprise is about five miles northwest of Del Webb's original Sun City development.)

Since it opened in 1996, Sun City Grand has become a large contributor to the city's population, which more than quadrupled from 10,187 to about 75,000 in 2004.[1] (The city's population is now considerably larger than Ludden's hometown, which had a population of 44 in the 2000 United States Census.) With a new home completed about every three hours, the Arizona city's population is expected to reach 80,000 by the end of 2005, and to double in the next decade, according to the city. Thirty-two of the state's top 50 homebuilders cater to new homebuyers, who are attracted by the city's modestly-priced homes, its relative proximity to Phoenix, and by the property taxes, which the city claims are among the lowest in the state. - Wikipedia Article Surprise, Arizona

A2Z Computing Services and HometownUSA.com make no warranties as to the accuracy of any information posted on our history or trivia pages and discussions. We receive bits of trivia and history from all over the world and place it here for its entertainment value only. If you feel that information posted on this page is incorrect please let us know by joining the discussons.

A little about our History, Trivia and Facts pages, now our discussion forums.

These pages are populated with submissions from residents of the hometowns, so if some of them are a little light on the information side, it just simply means that people haven't sent much to us yet. Come back soon though, because we are constantly adding more to the site.

Types of history that you may find on these pages include items such as the local weather history, Native American history, history of education, history timeline, American history, African American history, United States history, world history, Halloween history, Thanksgiving history, Civil War history and Civil War pictures, women in the Civil War, and Civil War battles.

Trivia may include brain teasers, useless trivia, trivia questions, music trivia, Christmas trivia, Thanksgiving trivia, Easter trivia, Halloween trivia, free online games, trivia games, and more.

The facts listed on the pages can be useless facts, weird facts, strange facts, random facts, Christmas facts, Thanksgiving facts or just plain fun facts.

Genealogy is also welcome and posted on these pages as it plays an important role to the history of many of our communities. So if you are looking for free genealogy, family tree information, family quotes, death records, birth records, family search, or any type of family history or genealogy, this is a great place to start.