The Wingfield Sutler District is a modern mini-mall in Camp Verde, with several shops that appeal to Camp Verde residents and visitors.
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.
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
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.
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.
Mail trail. The mercantile was the first stop on the pony express from 1884 to 1914. Sixty riders delivered mail from Camp Verde to Payson, Arizona. It took the riders 11 to 18 hours to make the 50-mile one way trip. They left the mercantile at 2 a.m.
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