PCA Archives
Volunteer Spotlight: Meet Thomas Hayden!
Not all who rest in Pioneer & Military Memorial Park were early Phoenix settlers. Some earned their place through devotion. Thomas Albert Hayden (1880–1940) was one of them.
Originally from Nova Scotia, Hayden came to the Southwest for his health and worked as a civil engineer in New Mexico and later Phoenix. He loved to walk from his office near the State Capitol to his home on Palm Lane, and on those walks, he noticed a neglected cemetery at 14th Ave & Jefferson.
Instead of simply passing by, he took action:
• Surveyed and mapped all remaining graves
• Documented the names and histories
• Advocated for preservation
• Helped form the Pioneer Cemetery Association in 1939 with figures like Carl Hayden, Lindley Bell Orme, and Barry Goldwater
Though he passed in 1940, his cremains were not interred until 1988, finally resting in the very cemetery he fought to protect.
Today, we remember him as a guardian of Phoenix history: someone who saw value where others saw weeds.
Thank you, Thomas Albert Hayden.
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