Founded in 1896 and originally known as Coldwater, the town of Avondale was settled along the banks of the Agua Fria River under the leadership of William Billy Graham Moore, a former blacksmith who supposedly ran with the Civil War's infamous Cantrell's Raiders. Moore operated a freight station on the west bank of the river, but after an argument with a postal inspector who proclaimed that homemade hooch was not to be sold in an enterprise that handled government mail, the post office was moved to the Avondale Ranch and took on the ranch's name as the Avondale Post Office. Since that time, Avondale has grown tremendously to become a thoroughly modern city, near the heart of the Phoenix metropolitan area.