Museum Exhibits

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Museum Entrance

Before entering the Museum, visitors can access the kiosk that contains the personalities who forged and shaped our historical development.

 This wall shares the lobby with our Library. The texture of the wall is similar to the exhibits within.

Orientation Room

The first room you enter to begin your tour of our Museum. There the vistor will view a short film inviting them to understand our mission and how the Verde River Valley was formed and developed as well as the contributions made by early inhabitants to the present day. There is also a wall exhibit showing the timeline of such development.

Our area is remarkable for its diversity of rocks and the multitude of geologic processes that created the Lower Verde River Valley and surrounding mountains.

Also on display are specimens of pottery found in the Fountain Hills metro area.

Long ago people living here moved seasonally searching for food and shelter. They communicated orally and by "writing" on the rocks. We call the images they carved on the rocks "Petroglyphs"

Mountain Spirit Dancers

The spiritual keepers for the Yavapai Tribe. According to Yavapai stories told only in the winter months the five Mountain Spirits inhabited Four Peaks, the Superstitions, Red Mountain and Granite Mountain long before other people came. "They are always there helping us; they never die." Singing and dancing are ways people expressed themselves, and prayed to the Creator. The dance itself was like a prayer.

The Mt. Spirit Dancers wear headdresses called Crowns. The sacred colors of yellow, black, red, blue and white create symbols on the crowns. During the 25 years that the Yavapai were forced to live on the San Carlos Reservation, the Apaches and Yavapis learned from each other. Some aspects of their cultures were shared. The Apache Crown Dance is not the same as the Yavapai Mt. Spirit Dance. " Spirits as the Yavapai Mt. Spirit Dance. "Spirits still live in sacred places at Fort McDowell."

Ancient Yavapai Ramada