Emory Falls, Lower Grand Canyon

Wild western badman in 1899. The thick adobe walls and the heavy roof beams of the original store, founded in 1871 by Hugo Richards, are still standing.

But mostly Camp Verde folks are living in the present with an eye cocked toward the future. One of the few formal organizations for community betterment they have formed is the Black Canyon Highway Association. Even this, which concerns Camp Verde's future so intimately, is suffused with neighborliness. The organization was formed at Camp Verde, but its officers and directors are drawn from every section and community of the Verde Valley, for the entire section stands to benefit greatly from the highway.

Camp Verde used to be reached from Phoenix either by traveling U.S. 89 via Prescott, a route of approximately 175 miles. Or one may travel via the Apache Trail, cut off to Payson, through Pine and into Camp Verde, an all dirt road route measuring about 194 miles.

However, when the new highway is completed, it will constitute a principal link in the north-south route from Canada to Mexico. It will make Camp Verde only a short and easy 86 miles from Phoenix and perhaps 35 miles from U.S. 66 (depending upon the final route of the Black Canyon Highway). Camp Verde suddenly is again a main line town. It will have attractions enough to capitalize on the tourist traffic: Montezuma Castle, Montezuma Well, Verde Hot Springs, hunting, fishing, riding, swimming, camping and so on. Its ideal climate (paralleling very closely day in and day out the year around that of Tucson) and elevation (3100 feet) will make it a natural spot for the building of new guest ranches to extend the accommodations offered by the excellent resorts already in the area. And these same factors will attract new residents who want either to live quietly in retirement, to go into farming or ranching or else to build new businesses catering to the tourist trade.

All of which Camp Verdians are glad to see with that eye they have cocked on the future. But they seem to be in almost universal agreement that now is the time to do your living, and now their best and basic industry is agriculture. When tourist trade comes, fine. If Camp Verde someday becomes the distribution point for goods brought into and shipped out of the Verde Valley, fine again. And if access to good new markets makes it more profitable to change emphasis from the present concentration upon livestock and livestock feed, why, Camp Verde will be ready. In the meantime, Camp Verde is a town built, standing and growing on hard work, sound exploitation of its natural resources and upon the application of the principle of the Golden Rule.