; view of Post Office and other buildings on Terrace Street. In 1855, then-Edward Fitzgerald BealeLieutenant Beale, surveyed a road from the Rio Grande in New Mexico to Fort Tejon in California. He passed over the spot where Flagstaff now stands, and camped out at the eastern extremity of the present town. The lieutenant had his men cut the limbs from a straight Ponderosa Pinepine tree in order to fly the United States flag. Flagstaff’s first recognized permanent settler was Thomas F. McMillan, who arrived in 1876 and built a cabin at the base of Mars Hill. During the 1880s, Flagstaff began to grow, opening its first post office and attracting the booming railroad industry. The town's economy largely consisted of timber, sheep and cattle, and by 1886, Flagstaff was the biggest city on the main line between Albuquerque and the West Coast. In 1894, astronomyastronomer Percival Lowell chose Flagstaff as the site for the now famous Lowell Observatory, primarily due to its high altitude and good astronomical seeing conditions. Thirty-six years later, Pluto was discovered using one of the observatory’s telescopes. The Northern Arizona Normal School was established in 1899, an institution that later became Northern Arizona University in 1966. During the 1920s, Route 66 was built and passed through the city making Flagstaff a popular tourist stop. Flagstaff was incorporated as a city in 1928. Today, Flagstaff is a community rich with cultural diversity, beauty and history, as well as educational, recreational and scientific opportunities. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagstaff%2C_Arizona