The Beaver Creek Preserva-tion and Historical Society is planning a tour of one of the community’s historic ranch homes and the local airstrip.
The Rimrock Airport is the oldest continuously-operating airstrip in Arizona, said Judy McBride, historical society treasurer.
McBride also calls the Rimrock Ranch home, a popular spot with many over the decades, including movie stars and anyone looking for that Wild West experience.
Mobsters also ran the property for awhile, but they might have entertained a different sort of guest.
Regardless, mobsters and non-criminals alike certainly could appreciate the “matchless view across vast stretches of range and ranch land from the Mogollon Rim to Squaw Peak and Mingus Mountain,” as described in a brochure advertising the ranch in the late 1920s.
The society is a relatively new organization and its members are always looking for new ways to record and share the community’s history with the world.
The Rimrock Ranch tour is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 10.
Organizers are hoping to attract some of the crowds that will be in town that weekend for Fort Verde Days, Camp Verde’s biggest celebration of the year.
McBride said she lives at “what’s left of the ranch.”
McBride said it was was opened in 1928 as a “dude ranch,” designed to give guests a taste of the West.
The ranch was home to Romaine Lowdermilk and his wife, Virginia Finnie, who hailed from Camp Verde.
“He was the singing cowboy,” McBride said.
The airstrip was originally used to bring in those guests to the dude ranches around the area.
To read the full story, see the Wednesday, Aug. 19, edition of The Camp Verde Journal.
