PICTURE 1 - Verde River Valley This is what it looked like, when scouts selected a site for the new 'Camp Lincoln' in honor of the recently fallen president. The river is among the darker green trees in the distance. The cliffs high overhead are to the north and the century's old home of the mountain Apache! Summer time temperatures smolder in the high 90s, and malarial mosquitoes abound!


PICTURE 2 - Commanding Officer's Quarters But when the 'locals' didn't stop 'the thievin', Camp Verde and later Fort Verde was built. Completed in 1873, it was designed for two companies of cavalry and two of infantry. Until its closure in 1891, it never held more than a company of each. Here, you're leading your horse down toward General Crook's quarters, and the ma'am don't like the droppin's.


PICTURE 3 - the Parlor If you like touring old 1800s forts, you can always tell when they were built by their style and appointments. The above photo shows the curved 2nd-story roofs common to the 1870s forts (none of that 'cutsie' in Texas forts!). Here, we have the parlor, next to the dining room through the door. The main bedroom (next) is behind us, on the other side of the foyer.


PICTURE 4 - the General's Bedroom Bedrooms in those days had high ceilings to deal with the heat, large windows for ventilation, no closets (an armour instead), and fireplaces if you had the rank. Once you moved on to the lower officers' quarters and then the enlisted, things went 'downhill' real fast. Since housing was assigned by rank, if a higher ranking family than you arrived, yes, you kicked out the family with a lower rank than you. Unfortunately promotions were slow, after the Civil War.


PICTURE 5 - Upstairs Bedroom I I REALLY wonder if they lifted that piano up the steep stairway (or rope through the window?). Normally, it would be downstairs. Notice how the wall slopes inwardly, thus causing problems placing the bed and other furniture. But you know, style counts!!


PICTURE 6 - Upstairs Bedroom II Chances are, during the day, this room got pretty hot. Imagine, if you will, being a mother in a frontier fort, and your husband is out on patrol with the troops. In the evening, you put your children to bed, and blew out the lamp. You were safe for now, but only if your sweetheart returned.


PICTURE 7 - Kitchen / Pantry As with most homes on the frontier, life surrounded eating! As the Commanding Officer's wife, you likely had a cook and possibly a stryker (enlisted man paid extra). And from early morning into the late evening, the kitchen was busy either preparing meals or cleaning up. Ah, to be the one sitting in the rocker and enjoying the pot-belly stove in the winter!


PICTURE 8 - Apache Lean-To Apaches generally were always on the move, largely due to eating off the land. And so, their living quarters could be built quickly and conveniently. Here, we have a summer lean-to for shade, north of the fort. In the winter, hides would provide more protection. The early 1873 reservation was up-river from here, with irrigation for farming. Unfortunately gold, silver and copper were soon discovered, and the natives were moved further south (hot!). But today they're back, with a casino just up the interstate, and the 'miners' serving tea to the tourists.