No doubt the Pima and Maricopa heard about Jack Swilling’s arrival in East Phoenix, how he set up his namesake mill along the river. Were they nervous? Did they know about the Indian Removal Act, the Appropriation Act, the Trail of Tears? Did they hear tell of the great battles on the Plains, the burned pioneer wagons and night raids? In any case, as the Sioux War raged farther east, the Pimas and the settlers reached a much less bloody solution: to the northeast of Phoenix, just over fifty-two thousand acres were set aside for the tribes. A contraction, yes; an affront, agreed. But no one was walking to Kansas, they kept their good farmland, and Red Mountain still sat like a perfect, rose-colored cone along the eastern border.

The Pima were glad for their legal claim because, in 1888, the U.S. Army chaplain Winfield Scott bought the adjacent 640 acres. It took Scott’s new town six years to call itself Scottsdale, another twenty to top one thousand inhabitants. A school, a blacksmith, a general store … Then, like a rookie gunning, improbably, for the single-season home-run record, Scottsdale leapt ahead in the standings. The first luxury resort opened in 1910. Fashion models and movie stars followed, showing up for nose jobs and mud masks. Frank Lloyd Wright pitched a tent on a side of McDowell Peak in 1937. Baseball landed in 1955, the Orioles right downtown.

But baseball was just the tip of the iceberg: the area boom-boom-boomed, growing faster than nearly anywhere. Construction spread to the steep edges of the mountains and then seeped around their contours, up to the edge of the reservation. The historic downtown—Old Man Scott’s haunts and that first little red schoolhouse—got wrapped in luxury shops, open-air malls, and high-end condos. Growth stuttered in 2008, but nothing could keep Scottsdale down for long. Across the street, on Pima-Maricopa land, there was a casino to be built, and a stadium, too.

That brings us up to just about the present, the 2011 spring season and this shiny new stadium, which, after four weeks of sun-bake and heavy use, has lost only an ounce of its luster. That new grit and grime are imperceptible in the eyes of a six-year-old, one moony, baseball-loving Alex S. For him, the place just about glows with wonder, and there’re no imperfections or scuffs.