Includes Willo Historic District.

Charming, quaint, quiet and vibrant all at once, Willo is seemingly a world away from the Midtown Central Avenue area that borders its eastern edge. Though the land that is now Willo (roughly from 7th Avenue to the west, Central Avenue to the east and Thomas Road to the north, McDowell Road to the south) wasn’t developed as residential tracts until the 1920s, the land was purchased beginning in the 1870s and used as farmland for nearly 50 years following.

It wasn’t until the Period Revival style of the 1930s that Willo began to bloom into one of Phoenix’s primary suburban districts. The results are wide varieties of architectural design: Greek Revival, Tudor Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival and Pueblo Revival among them. Development continued past World War II, and historic designation was achieved in the 1980s, preventing Midtown’s increasing urbanization from encroaching on this prized neighborhood.

Willo is known as one of the more fiercely stingy historic neighborhoods, and for good reason: it’s surrounded on all four sides by some of Central Phoenix’s busiest thoroughfares. Though development has continued to expand around Willo, it has maintained its appeal as one of Phoenix’s prized neighborhoods.

Check out Willo Historic District for more information.