Kearny is a town in

Pinal County Pinal County is a county in the central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. According to the 2020 census, the population of the county was 425,264, making it Arizona's third-most populous county. The county seat is Florence. The county was est ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, United States. The town was named after General

Stephen Watts Kearny Stephen Watts Kearny (sometimes spelled Kearney) ( ) (August 30, 1794October 31, 1848) was one of the foremost antebellum frontier officers of the United States Army. He is remembered for his significant contributions in the Mexican–American Wa ...

, who passed through the area on November 7, 1846, while leading 100

dragoons Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat wi ...

to California. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 1,950. The economic base of Kearny and nearby towns is the

Ray mine The Ray mine is a large copper mine in Pinal County, Arizona, near the town of Kearny, in the southwestern United States. ASARCO, a subsidiary of Grupo México, currently owns the mine, which it acquired from Kennecott Copper in 1986. The Ray ...

and

Hayden Smelter Hayden Smelter is a copper smelter at Hayden, Arizona, owned and operated by ASARCO. It has a tall chimney, which is the tallest free-standing structure of Arizona. It processes copper from the Ray mine. In 2011, the Environmental Protection A ...

, both owned and operated by

ASARCO ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999. Its three largest ...

History

Kearny was built by the

Kennecott Mining Company Kennecott Utah Copper LLC (KUC), a division of Rio Tinto Group, is a mining, smelting, and refining company. Its corporate headquarters are located in South Jordan, Utah. Kennecott operates the Bingham Canyon Mine, one of the largest open-pit c ...

in 1958 as a

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

to accommodate the populations of nearby

Ray Ray or RAY may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), the bony or horny spine on ray-finned fish Science and mathematics * Half-line (geometry) or ray, half of a line split at an ...

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

and Barcelona, which were about to be swallowed by Kennecott's expanding open-pit

copper mine Copper extraction is the multi-stage process of obtaining copper from its ores. The conversion of copper ores consists of a series of physical, chemical, and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ...

. While many houses in the town were newly built, some mine employees had their homes moved down the road. Kearny was officially incorporated in 1959.

Geography

Kearny is located at (33.054160, -110.908857). The town sits near the Gila River in the Copper Basin area along with its sister cities,

Hayden Hayden may refer to: Places Inhabited places in the United States * Hayden, Alabama *Hayden, Arizona *Hayden's Ferry, former name of Tempe, Arizona *Hayden, California, former name of Hayden Hill, California *Hayden, Colorado *Hayden, Idaho *Hayde ...

and Winkelman. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the town has a total area of , all land.

Climate

According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Kearny has a

warm-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...

, abbreviated "Csa" on climate maps.Climate Summary for Kearny, Arizona
/ref>

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 2,249 people, 791 households, and 616 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 873 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 77.3%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.3%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.8% Native American, 0.1% Asian, 18.4% from other races, and 3.2% from two or more races. 38.4% of the population were

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race. There were 791 households, out of which 34.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 65.0% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 9.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.1% were non-families. 19.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.84 and the average family size was 3.25. In the town, the population was spread out, with 29.9% under the age of 18, 7.6% from 18 to 24, 21.7% from 25 to 44, 26.7% from 45 to 64, and 14.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.5 males. The median income for a household in the town was $39,906, and the median income for a family was $42,313. Males had a median income of $40,056 versus $23,684 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the town was $16,797. About 12.1% of families and 13.2% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 16.0% of those under age 18 and 19.9% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Kearny is part of the Ray Unified School District, made up of two schools: Ray Junior-Senior High School, and Ray Elementary School.

Transportation

Kearny Airport is a

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

airport located in the southern section of the town. In 2003 it received the

Arizona Department of Transportation The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT, ) is an Arizona state government agency charged with facilitating mobility within the state. In addition to managing the state's state highways, highway system, the agency is also involved with pu ...

's Airport of the Year award. The airport has a single asphalt runway, in length and in width, with a field

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

.. Federal Aviation Administration. Effective July 29, 2010.

Gallery

References

External links

*
Ray Unified School District

Copper Basin Chamber of Commerce

How Kearny got its history
{{authority control Towns in Pinal County, Arizona Company towns in Arizona Populated places established in 1958 1958 establishments in Arizona Mining communities in Arizona