The old commercial blocks of the city are on the National Register, and this map prints them as the Cottonwood Commercial Historic District. The town’s other landmarks are here too: the Clemenceau Heritage Museum, Mingus Union High School, Cottonwood Community School, the Cottonwood Community Clubhouse and the Cottonwood Bridge. Evil Hill, Blowout Creek and Oak Wash are printed too.
Cottonwood is in Yavapai County, on the Verde River.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded relief of Evil Hill comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. The city covers 10.7 square miles. The Cottonwood Commercial Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places, and we checked it against National Park Service records. Cottonwood had 12,029 people at the 2020 census.
A ring of cottonwoods
When settlers came into the valley, a stand of cottonwood trees near the Verde River became a meeting place for travelers, who camped there and rested their horses before heading up into the mountains. That spot became the center of town. By 1879 families from the Midwest were arriving, among them Charles D. Willard, who named the place for a circle of sixteen large cottonwoods about a quarter mile from the river and is remembered as the “Father of Cottonwood.” A post office opened in 1885. Main Street was made in 1908, when two settlers, in the town page’s words, “used a mule team to pull and drag through brush.”
The Cottonwood Commercial Historic District, listed on the National Register in 2000, takes in the buildings from 712 to 1124 North Main Street. The Cottonwood Hotel, built in 1917, hosted Mae West, and John Wayne and Gail Russell stayed there in 1946 while filming Angel and the Badman. After the hotel was rebuilt in 1925, the town fire bell sat on its roof, and fire chief Joe Hall rang it whenever a fire broke out. Farther along North Main Street, the Mary Willard House is listed as the oldest house in Cottonwood, and its bricks were the first known to be made in the upper Verde Valley.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
Names on this map
These names are printed on this map.
Streets and roads: Verde St, W Yuma St, Mescal Spur Rd, W Cochise St, Geary Heights Dr, Groseta Ranch Rd, Crystal Peak Dr, Skyline Ave, Airport Rd, N Willard Rd, Kindra Heights Rd, Alamos Dr.
More street names, A to Z
Boban Ln, Boulder Ln, Brook Hollow Dr, Calvary Way, Camp Verde-Bridgeport Hwy, Cecilias Ln, Cherry Hills Way, Chuckwalla Rd, Dead Horse Ranch State Park, E Busich Ln, E Cherry St, E Diamondback Dr, E Elm St, Elementary School Rd, E Villa, E Willard St, Fourth Ave, Fr 493, Franquero Ln, Gold Rush Ln, Hobo Cir, Jack Way, Jewel Dr, Kelli Ln, Mabery Ranch Rd, Melody Ln, Mingus Ave, Mongini Dr, Ogden Ranch Rd, Quail Springs Ranch Rd, Rainbow Rd, Ranch Rd, River Rd, Rocky Knolls Rd, Saguaro Dr, S Cottonwood, Sky Dr, Skyline Dr, S Paula St, S Rocking Chair Rd, S Tanager Ln, Uvx Rd, Verde Dr, W Cottonwood St, Willow Tree Ln, W Mingus Ave, Yavapai St, Yorba Ln, Zalesky Rd.
Clemenceau
In 1917 James Douglas Jr. built a company town nearby for the new smelter of his United Verde Extension mine in Jerome. It was first called Verde, after the mine, and in 1920 it was renamed for Georges Clemenceau, France’s premier in World War I and a personal friend of Douglas, partly to avoid confusion with Camp Verde. Clemenceau later left the town a vase by the French potter Ernest Chaplet. The town had workers’ homes, a school, a bank and a clubhouse, and between 1,000 and 5,000 people. The smelter closed in the 1930s, and when Cottonwood incorporated in 1960, Clemenceau became part of it.
The Clemenceau Heritage Museum fills most of the old Clemenceau School, which taught children from 1924 to 1986, along with the 1918 bank and post office building. It has displays on mining, ranching and farming in the Verde Valley, and a working model railroad shows the nine railroads that once ran in the region.
Around the valley
Mingus Union High School brought together the valley’s three old high schools: Jerome and Clarkdale merged first, Cottonwood High School joined in 1958, and the school moved to Cottonwood in 1972. The Cottonwood Public Library serves the city and the towns around it, from Clarkdale and Jerome to Camp Verde and Rimrock, and the Verde Valley Fair is held in Cottonwood every year. Near the city, Dead Horse Ranch State Park covers 423 acres on the Verde River, with 10 miles of hiking trails, and each April it’s headquarters for the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival. Cottonwood was also one of the Arizona cities to approve civil unions for same-sex partners. Snow is rare here, though December 1967 brought 45.5 inches.
This Cottonwood map is a good addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of the area. It’s made for anyone who calls Cottonwood home, from Main Street to Evil Hill, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the city as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Cottonwood map.
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