The Yavapai of Fort McDowell call themselves A’ba:ja, “The People,” and their land lies along the Verde River. The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Tribal Council, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Tribal Library, the Fort McDowell Recreation Center, the Fort McDowell Rodeo Grounds, We-Ko-Pa Golf Club and Eagle View RV Resort are printed on this map, with the Asher Hills, Lousley Hill and the Verde River.
The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation’s reservation is in Maricopa County, about 23 miles northeast of Phoenix.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded relief of the Asher Hills and Lousley Hill comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. The reservation covers 24,680 acres. The Nation has 950 enrolled citizens, about 600 of whom live on the reservation, and it’s governed by a democratically elected tribal council. Fountain Hills and Rio Verde lie next to the reservation, and the Salt River reservation of the Akimel O’odham and Maricopa peoples is nearby.
The Yavapai of Fort McDowell
The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Yavapai people, a name that comes from the Mojave words Enyaéva Pai, “People of the Sun.” The first residents of the reservation were Southeastern Yavapai, whose home country was the Mazatzal and Four Peaks area and the Superstition Mountains, and the Nation’s citizens today are of that group. In Yavapai tradition, Mountain Spirits dwell in Four Peaks, in the McDowell Mountains and on Red Mountain near Fort McDowell, and the masked Mountain Spirit Dance was danced for guidance or to heal someone who was sick. The Yavapai name for the Verde River is Haka’he:la. It’s one of the largest rivers in Arizona that runs all year, and it meets the Salt River on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.
The reservation was created by executive order on September 15, 1903, on a small piece of the Yavapai people’s ancestral land that had been the Fort McDowell Military Reserve, an Army outpost during the Apache Wars. By 1910 the Office of Indian Affairs was trying to move the people off it and open the land and its water rights to others. A Yavapai delegation went before a congressional committee to testify against the plan, and they won. The tribe was long known as the Fort McDowell Mohave-Apache Community before it took its present name.
Wassaja
Carlos Montezuma’s birth name was Wassaja, which means “Signaling” or “Beckoning.” He was born around 1866 near Four Peaks, the son of a chief, Cocuyevah, and was taken from his family as a small boy in 1871. An Italian photographer, Carlo Gentile, raised him and named him Carlos Montezuma. He was the first Native American student at both the University of Illinois and Northwestern University, and when he earned his medical degree in 1889, he was the second Native American to do so at an American university, after Susan La Flesche Picotte, and the first Native American man. In 1900 he came back to Arizona for the first time since childhood, as team doctor for the Carlisle Indian School football team, and the next year he returned on his own and found relatives he hadn’t seen since he was taken. He then joined the Yavapai struggle that led to the Fort McDowell reservation. In 1911 he helped found the Society of American Indians, the first Indian rights organization created by and for Indians. Ill with tuberculosis, he came home to his people’s land in 1922, and he’s buried at the Fort McDowell cemetery. In 1996 the Nation named its new health center the Dr. Carlos Montezuma, Wassaja Memorial Health Center.
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: Ci Hon Na Cir, Que Jan He Ma Rd, Dassa Cir, Homothyah Rd, Cidiya Dr, Mountain Rd, Homothyah Dr, Duthyanka Dr, Su Ruma Rd, Fort Loop Rd, Ba Hon Nah Rd, Heque Da Trl.
More street names, A to Z
Ah Sha Ln, Beeline Hwy, Bonita St, E Cactus Dr, E Gu Mah Rd, E Mohave Rd, E Oo Hula Rd, E Thirsty Earth Trl, E Yavapai Rd, E Zaharias Dr, Horseshoe Ct, Ironwood Rd, Mabel Rd, Magyoda Rd, Mohave Rd, N Fort McDowell Rd, N Harquahula Rd, N Lan Ya Ln, N Panorama Dr, N Saguaro Blvd, Oohula Rd, Rodeo Dr, Sha Hee Rd, Wasaja Rd, Yuma Frank Rd.
The dam that wasn’t built
In 1968 Congress approved the Central Arizona Project, and with it Orme Dam, planned for where the Salt and Verde Rivers meet. It would have flooded about 15,000 acres of the Nation, half of all its land. The community voted not to sell its land for the dam, and after more than ten years of struggle and court fights, the project was abandoned in 1981. Orme Dam was never built, and every November the reservation celebrates the victory with a rodeo and a pow wow.
In 1983 the tribe opened the state’s first bingo hall, and after the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 it built a casino. When federal agents tried to seize its gaming machines in 1992, tribal citizens blocked the way out with cars, trucks and heavy earth-moving equipment, and an agreement with Governor Fife Symington let the casino stay open. The tribe began building a new casino of 166,341 square feet in 2018, and it opened in 2020. The Nation also runs its own gas station, a large sand and gravel operation and a farm, and the reservation is home to the Wekopa Resort and Conference Center and the Wekopa Golf Course. Clinton Pattea, a president of the Nation, was an advocate for Indian gaming.
The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Tribal Council, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Tribal Library and the Fort McDowell Recreation Center all have their places on the sheet, along with the Fort McDowell Rodeo Grounds, We-Ko-Pa Golf Club and Eagle View RV Resort. The Asher Hills and Lousley Hill give the land its shape, with the Verde River running past.
This map of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation 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 Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation home, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the land as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation map.
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