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The
Wild West Heritage
of the Wingfield Plaza
The Wingfield Sutler
District is a modern mini-mall in Camp Verde, with several shops
that appeal to Camp Verde residents and visitors, including an
The stores are friendly
places to visit, with owners ready to chat, often over coffee.
It’s a hospitality tradition that goes back more than 100
years.
Although it isn’t
readily apparent (until you see the metal plaques on the
building), the Wingfield Plaza is a Camp Verde landmark with a
long Wild West history. It
has the distinction of being the oldest, continuously operating
business in Yavapai County and the first stop on the historic
pony express between Camp Verde and Payson, Arizona.
For more than a century
a general store was housed on the site of the current mall,
providing groceries and dry goods--from soda crackers to horse
shoe nails and medicines. The ladies of the town came to the
mercantile to buy bolts of fabric and to order fashions through
the store’s catalogs. Students
purchased their supplies, including slates and readers. Farmers
came for livestock feed. Everyone
needed something.
As the country changed,
so did the inventory. The mercantile did its best to keep up
with the times. In 1911 additional buildings were added to the
original 1860s structure. New services were offered. At various
times the mercantile housed a bank, a drug store, a barber shop,
a post office, a stage stop and stables where travelers left
their horses while they went about their business.
In 1915, when
automobiles became popular, the mercantile owners added a
gasoline pump in front of the store.
In 1917, they installed a telephone. In later years, the
site included a restaurant and a theater.
Wingfield Plaza Today
Throughout its history,
the Wingfield Plaza was always more than a store.
It was a busy social center, a gathering place for the
community to catch up on gossip and, during the two world wars,
on national and international news.
The Wingfields, who
owned the mercantile from the 1880s to the 1970s, were very much
a part of the farming and ranching town. Bartering was a way of
life in the frontier West and so was extending credit. The
Wingfields readily engaged in both activities.
According to Howard
Wingfield, who was the last in a line of Wingfields to own the
store, every spring customers would line up at the front door
with a bucket of eggs to trade for groceries, and that ranchers
settled up their tab once a year when they sold their cattle.
It’s often been said
that a great many people might have gone hungry had the
Wingfields not stood by them. In turn, the Wingfields may have
lost their store after a fire in the 1940s had the town not
pitched in to help. The mall is a reminder of that symbiotic,
small-town spirit of fellowship.
Historic
Highlights
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Supplies
for soldiers. The first
incarnation of the Wingfield Plaza was an adobe sutler store for
soldiers living at Fort Verde in the late 1860s. It sold
groceries and household goods and was the first business on what
would become Camp Verde’s Main Street
When the fort disbanded,
owner Hugh Richards sold the adobe to “Boss” Head, a member
of the first state assembly, who ran it until 1885, when he sold
the store to two young friends—Clint Wingfield and Mac
Rodgers.
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A
shocking murder. On the
night of July 2, 1899, while the young men were planning a
Fourth of July celebration, they were shot and killed on the
porch of their store. There was no apparent motive, and the
killer was never apprehended. Some years later outlaw Black Jack Ketchum was captured
in New Mexico during an attempted train robbery. Before he was hanged for the crime, he confessed to the
murders in Camp Verde.
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