Brian Childress
- May 24, 2022
- 1 min read

Fort Verde State Historic Park - Camp Verde, Arizona

(Photos by David Miller and Brian Childress)

Fort Verde State Historic Park in the town of Camp Verde, Arizona is a small park that attempts to preserve parts of the Apache Wars-era fort as it appeared in the 1880s. The park was established in 1970 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places a year later.

Fort Verde was established at its current location in 1871. It is significant as "the best preserved and least altered of any military post associated with General Crook’s 1872-73 campaign against the northern Apaches."

The fort was never enclosed by walls or stockades, and it never saw fighting on site. At its height, it consisted of twenty-two buildings, only four of which survived until 1956, when local citizens created a small museum in the administration building. They later donated the buildings and ten acres as a State Park.

Some of the buildings were built with pice, which is large adobe slabs cast within wooden frames, rather than assembled from the more familiar individual adobe bricks.

Conversations/Things we learned:

This small state park takes you back to a late 1800’s Union Soldier’s Fort which is often replicated in movies. The main fort building has been turned into a museum and the Arizona State Parks System has done a great job to maintain this fort in its original state. This is location you should stop by when in the Flagstaff Area and provides visitors with another glimpse of how the west was explored and won.

Contact Information:

125 E Hollamon Street

Camp Verde, Arizona 86322

Phone: (928) 567-3275

Website:

https://azstateparks.com/fort-verde/