Historic sites in Camp Verde

Two sites, eight centuries apart, fifteen minutes from each other.

Montezuma Castle National Monument is a five-story cliff dwelling built into a limestone alcove by the Sinagua about 800 years ago, and it is one of the best preserved in North America. The visit is short and easy: a paved, flat loop from the visitor center, which works with a pushchair or a wheelchair. You view it from below; nobody has climbed up into it for a long time. Open 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. daily, $10 for adults 16 and over, free under 16, and that ticket also covers Tuzigoot near Clarkdale for seven days. Take I-17 exit 289. Leashed dogs are welcome on the trail, which is unusual for the Park Service and worth knowing.

Fort Verde State Historic Park is an 1870s Army post in the middle of town, and the best preserved Indian Wars period fort in Arizona. Several original buildings still stand, including three house museums furnished as they were in the 1880s, and the former administration building holds the visitor center. Open 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. $10 adults 14 and over, $5 ages 7 to 13, free under 7.

Doing both

They are very different visits and they sit either side of the same morning. The castle takes under an hour unless you linger; the fort takes longer if you read, and less if you do not.

Montezuma Well is the third piece and it is free. A huge spring-fed sinkhole with small dwellings around the rim, it is a detached unit of the same national monument, four miles further north at exit 293. No fee at all, and the same pet policy.

The uncomfortable history

Fort Verde exists because the US Army was removing Yavapai and Apache people from this valley, and in 1875 around 1,500 were marched from here to San Carlos in what is remembered as the Exodus. The Yavapai-Apache Nation is still here, based in Camp Verde, and marks that march each February. A visit that takes in the fort without knowing this has only had half of it.