Fort Verde Days

At Fort Verde State Historic Park, on Hollamon Street in Camp Verde, the flag goes up in the morning and comes down in the afternoon. Between those two ceremonies the cannon are fired. On the two days of Fort Verde Days, the second weekend in October, the fort opens without charge from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Re-enactors drill as soldiers, give living history presentations, and cook in Dutch ovens, and there are games for children.

The ground they work covers 11.25 acres at an elevation of 3,100 feet. It holds four historic buildings, two ruins, and a portion of the old parade ground. Arizona State Parks calls it the best surviving assemblage of Indian Wars era military architecture in the state. The former Military Headquarters building is the museum, with exhibits on soldiers, Indian Scouts, settlers, doctors, and Native Americans. Along Officers’ Row stand the Commanding Officer’s Quarters, the Bachelors’ Quarters, and the Doctor’s and Surgeons Quarters, all furnished in the period of the 1880s.

In 2023 the newspaper JournalAZ reported a fuller roster for the fort program. It included an 1800s fashion show, military camp displays, and a talk by local author T.C. Noble on Camp Verde’s first 50 years. Percy Warcloud Edwards performed American Indian dancing. Sheila Stubler, park manager for the past 20 years at that time, gave her reason for the work: “I think it’s important for anybody to know the history of the area that they live in. Things do evolve. We know a lot more now than we did back then and it’s important to keep teaching the history so that we don’t make the same mistakes that we made back then.” By September 2026 the town’s visitor office was introducing Jennifer Steffen as park manager over Fort Verde and Rockin’ River Ranch State Park.

Main Street, the chili cook-off, and five bands

The town’s half of the weekend begins Saturday at 10 a.m. with a parade on Main Street. Camp Verde Parks & Recreation runs the downtown festivities, from 11 to 7 on Saturday and 11 to 4 on Sunday. There are food and craft vendors, a chili cook-off, and live music, and admission is free. Only service animals are allowed. Visit Camp Verde posted the 2026 music lineup:

• Saturday: Berger, Stokes & McKee in the late morning, then the CC Chiles Revue from 2 to 6.
• Sunday: the Sandoval/Minx Duo, Dave Rentz’s Ton of Feathers, and Well Dressed Wolves, who close the weekend at 4.

The local calendar also lists a rodeo at the Camp Verde Equestrian Center among the related events.

At 11 on Sunday morning, children aged two to twelve gather at the Seating Tent on the Community Field for the Little Britches and Little Petticoats contest. The categories are Historic Frontier Boy and Historic Frontier Girl. Judges mark score sheets for headwear, clothing, accessories, footwear, and overall appearance, and all entrants are invited to ride a float in the parade.

A captain’s novel and the Colonel’s Daughter

According to the 2023 report, the children’s contest is held in conjunction with an older one, the Colonel’s Daughter competition, whose winner is announced after the parade. The title goes to a teenage girl who shows both equestrian skill and poise. The tradition dates to the 1960s, when Wanda Jo Fuller Dickens was named Camp Verde’s first Colonel’s Daughter.

The name comes from a book. The Colonel’s Daughter is an 1882 novel by Capt. Charles E. King, who had come to Camp Verde in 1874 to join the 5th Cavalry Regiment. The novel is believed to have been inspired by Carrie Wilkins, daughter of Lt. Col. John D. Wilkins of the 8th Cavalry Regiment.

The parade has its own honors. In 2023 its theme was “Verde Gras: Fun in the Verde Valley.” The grand marshal was Steve Ayers, a 30-year resident, president of the Kiwanis Club of Camp Verde, and a founding board member of the Verde Valley Archaeology Center. Stubler named the 2017 event, when she was grand marshal, as the one she remembered best. Her father, John Stubler, rode in that parade on a mule named Jenny. “Whenever we do these events, everybody pitches in,” she said. “It’s all connected.”

From Camp Lincoln to Fort Verde

The town page calls Camp Verde the oldest community in the valley. Its history goes back to the early 1860s, when mining drew settlers into the Verde Valley. The first military establishment was a temporary post overlooking the farms at West Clear Creek. Camp Lincoln followed in 1865 and was renamed Camp Verde the same year. A malaria outbreak moved the post to its present site in 1871, and in 1878 it became Fort Verde, a name meant to signify permanence.

The two official accounts differ in detail. Arizona State Parks says troops occupied the site in the summer of 1870 and that construction ran from 1871 to 1873. It describes the fort as an active primary base during the Central Arizona Indian Wars, abandoned in April 1891 and then divided into small parcels sold at auction. The Town of Camp Verde gives the years of occupation as 1871 to 1891 and says the post officially closed in April 1890.

Officers’ Row bought back

Fort Verde Days began in the first year the community opened the Fort Verde Museum to the public. The administration building held the museum then, and private residents still lived in the homes on Officers’ Row. Early festivities ran more to pioneer themes, with beard-growing contests and locals in period dress for the entire week. The celebration reached its 67th edition in 2023 and its 70th in 2026.

The rescue of the buildings started earlier. From the mid-1950s until 1961 the Camp Verde Improvement Association worked to save what remained of the fort, strongly supported by Harold and Margaret Hallett. In 1961 the group became the Fort Verde Museum Association, and in the late 1960s it began working with the State Parks Board toward a state park.

After lengthy negotiations, the first three parcels passed to the state on July 21, 1970. They included the museum, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters, and a large collection of artifacts. Governor Jack Williams dedicated Fort Verde State Historic Park on October 10, 1970, during Fort Verde Days, and Hollis Cook was selected as park manager. Over the next seven years the state added more land through purchases and bargain sales.

Recent Town Council proclamations of October as Fort Verde State Historic Park Month began to mark the park’s expansion from five to seven days a week. The last gap in the grounds was a county road. In 1977 the State Parks Board asked Yavapai County to abandon Coppinger Road, which ran between the Parade Ground and Officers’ Row. Mr. Coppinger, then a member of the Board of Supervisors, helped see it through, and the Abandonment Resolution was approved on July 25, 1977.