It was originally El Mirage 2, where those who "made good" could move up to a nicer neighborhood, according to Ludden's daughter, Katherline Lieber, and stepdaughter, Virginia Fetterer. El Mirage - where a park is named after him - originally was established as a haven for the less affluent. "He believed everyone should have the opportunity to own a piece of land," Fetterer said.

Ludden, born Nov. 27, 1880, moved to Glendale in 1905 and went to work as a milkman. He started dating fellow Nebraskan transplant Emma Robinson, the daughter of a customer on his Glendale route, and they had "an understanding" under a lover's quarrel broke them up. Robinson married John Pritchett and had a child, Virginia.

Ludden remained a bachelor and from 1912 to about 1916 worked as a mail carrier on Glendale's first rural route. He opened a small real estate office on the northwest corner of Glendale and 59th Avenues adjoining the Ludden/Gillett service station. His partner was Glendale founder and Brethren minister Charles Gillett.

After Robinson was widowed the pair resumed their relationship and by the time they married on Sept. 27, 1922 Ludden was a prominent rancher and business man, a member of the Glendale Town Council, a charter member of the Glendale Masonic Lodge and a large property owner in Glendale. That same year, the Democrat was elected as a representative to the sixth State Legislature. He served three terms, eight years in all, including some special sessions in 1928 under Gov. George W.P. Hunt.

Robinson divorced Ludden in 1948 and to the surprise of friends and family Ludden married Flora Mae Statler, daughter of he former partner Gillett, in about 1950.

Statler started working for Ludden in the early 1920s pumping gas but gradually became more involved with the real estate office. It's Statler's name that appears on Surprise's first subdivision plat dated April 15, 1938 and until Ludden's family stepped forward with documentation in the late 1990s she was credited with the founding and naming of Surprise. The story was that Statler, upon subdividing a piece of land, remarked that if it ever became a town it would be a surprise.

No surprises when the city incorporated in 1960 with a population of about 1,000 and even when Del Webb's highly successful Sun City swelled westward, Surprise stayed a sleep square-mile stop on Grand Avenue. The boundaries stretched a little when Happy Trails and Sun Village opened in the early 1980s and Bell Road was widened to make way for development. But it was the slingshot growth of the 1990s that brought Surprise to 72 square miles.