Salome, AZ

Salome is a La Paz County CDP on U.S. 60 in western Arizona, where desert roads run between Wickenburg and the lower Colorado River communities. The 2020 census counted 1,162 residents. Dick Wick Hall, Ernest Hall, and Charles Pratt established the settlement in 1904, and Pratt named it for his wife, Grace Salome Pratt. The highway remains the community's spine, running east toward Wickenburg and west toward Brenda, Quartzsite, and Interstate 10.

ATTRMarine 69-71 / CC BY-SA 4.0

Salome's school district gives the place a recognizable center. Salome Elementary and Salome High School serve a rural area whose economy has long included agriculture, ranching, and highway services. The high school's story carries one of the town's best-known local phrases, "Salome—where she danced—Arizona," tied to the desert heat and the settlement's name. Salome Road leads southeast toward Hassayampa and Buckeye, while the open desert around the CDP keeps longer drives part of daily life. The community is a small high-desert stop with a school, a highway, and a history built around people making a town in a very spare landscape.