Fort Valley

Fort Valley, northwest of Flagstaff, has a fascinating history. Rock art panels indicate this area has a long history of human occupation. These springs were visited by several military expeditions and the Beale Wagon Road passed nearby. Some of the few Flagstaff area permanent springs are located on the north end of the valley. The Rio de Flag begins here.

The first Forest Service Experimental Forest was established here in 1908. Important research on ponderosa pine ecology continues there to this day. I’ve been fortunate to have spent many summers remeasuring Forest Service plots that were originally established in 1909.

The valley got its name from the Mormon fort (Ft. Moroni) that was constructed here in 1881 by John Young, the son of Brigham Young.  The Arizona Cattle Company took over ownership of the fort in 1884. The Babbitt family took over ownership in 1902 and used the fort as it’s headquarters until 1904. The Babbitts still ranch in the Flagstaff area and at one time their ranch was one of the largest in the entire United States. Bruce Babbitt, a former Secretary of the Interior, is a descendent of the Babbitts that settled the area.

The area has seen considerable development in just the 23 years I’ve been in the area. The views here are the best in the state with the San Francisco Peaks being just a couple miles away but the extreme cold temperatures here aren’t for everybody. The valley gets considerably colder and often gets much more snow than Flagstaff which is just a half dozen miles away.

Susan Olberding’s wonderful “Fort Valley Then and Now, A Look at an Arizona Settlement” is a great history of the area and is the source of much of this information.I’ve been lucky to work with Susan on a few projects over the years.

The image shows the 1889 Government Land Office map, which I georeferenced, overlaid on 2017  National Agriculture Imagery Program photography.