City/Town Snapshot: Town of Camp Verde, AZ

In 2012, as part of Arizona's Centennial celebration, the Arizona Professional Land Surveyors Association made the determination that Camp Verde was the municipality closest to the geographic center of Arizona. The actual center is very near the confluence of the Verde and East Verde Rivers, about 20 miles downstream, but the ALPA designation makes it clear that as far as Arizona is concerned, Camp Verde is the center of it all.

For travelers coming north from Phoenix or south from Flagstaff, Camp Verde serves as the gateway to the Verde Valley. The valley itself was once the home to ancient cultures; first to transient hunters 10,000 years ago, then to the Sinagua culture whose stone homes still mark the landscape, and eventually to the Yavapai and Apache people who occupied the area when Europeans first visited in 1583.

The community that would one day become Camp Verde was founded in 1865 by a group of farmers from the Prescott area, making Camp Verde one of the state's oldest settlements. During its 150-year history, it has served as the base of military operations during the Indian wars, hosted one of Arizona's first oil rushes (needless to say no oil was discovered), and nearly drowned beneath a proposed dam.

Originally called Lower Verde, Camp Verde grew up around a military fort, now a State Park, variously known as Camp Lincoln, Camp Verde and eventually Fort Verde. The early settlers developed a string of farms along the river and its tributaries, fed by irrigation canals. Along with the bounty from the farms and ranches, the canals produced a greenbelt, several miles wide in places, which still defines Camp Verde and makes it a very unique place in the surrounding high desert landscape.

The fort closed at the end of the 19th century, transforming the community from a collection of scattered farms into a proper town. Heading into the 21st Century, the "town" boasts several locally owned restaurants, vineyards, wineries, summertime produce stands, along with Fort Verde State Historic Park, Montezuma Castle National Monument, Out of Africa Wildlife Park and the Verde Valley Archaeology Center. Combine all those things with whitewater rafting on the Verde River, nearby Fossil Creek and nine surrounding wilderness areas and you have not only a spectacular place to visit but a great place to call home.

Recent economic development activity has seen the resurgence of home building, a $62 million road widening project that will open a six mile long commercial corridor, the construction of a new 17,000 square foot, two-story public library adjacent to the Verde River and the soon-to-open Camp Verde Campus of Verde Valley Medical Center. Future plans call for the development of a series of riverfront parks and a web of trails leading into the adjacent National Forest lands.

The residents of Camp Verde are proud of their home, value the 17 miles of Verde River that flow through their community and continue to seek balance between the desire to grow opportunities and the need to preserve those things that attracted them to the area to begin with.
 

League of Arizona Cities and Towns
1820 W. Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ  85007
Phone: 602-258-5786
Fax: 602-253-3874
http://www.azleague.org

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