Sedona, Arizona

Sedona ( /sɨˈdoʊnə/) is a city that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2010 census the population was 10,031.^[1]

Sedona's main attraction is its stunning array of red sandstone formations, the Red Rocks of Sedona. The formations appear to glow in brilliant orange and red when illuminated by the rising or setting sun. The Red Rocks form a breathtaking backdrop for everything from spiritual pursuits to the hundreds of hiking and mountain biking trails.

Sedona is named after Sedona Arabelle Miller Schnebly (1877–1950), the wife of the city's first postmaster, who was celebrated for her hospitality and industriousness.^[2]

Geography and geology

Sedona is located at ,^[3] which is in the Upper Sonoran Desert of northern Arizona. At an elevation of 4,500 feet (1,372 m), Sedona has mild winters and summers.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.0 square miles (47 km²), nearly all of it land.

The famous red rocks of Sedona are formed by a layer of rock known as the Schnebly Hill Formation. The Schnebly Hill Formation is a thick layer of red to orange-colored sandstone found only in the Sedona vicinity. The sandstone, a member of the Supai Group, was deposited during the Permian Period.

Climate

Sedona has a temperate high desert climate. In January, the average high temperature is 57°F (14°C) with a low of 31°F (-1°C). In July, the average high temperature is 97°F (34°C) with a low of 64°F (17°C). Annual precipitation is just over 19 inches.^[4]

Demographics

As of the census^[7] of 2000, there were 10,192 people, 4,928 households, and 2,863 families residing in the city. The population density was 548.0 people per square mile (211.6/km²). There were 5,684 housing units at an average density of 305.6 per square mile (118.0/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 92.17% White, 0.49% Black or African American, 0.45% Native American, 0.94% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 4.29% from other races, and 1.57% from two or more races. 8.90% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

At the 2000 census there were 7,229 people living in the Yavapai County (western) portion of the city (70.9% of its population) and 2,963 living in the Coconino County (eastern) portion (29.1%). By land area Yavapai had 66.2% of its area, versus 33.8% for Coconino.^[8]

There were 4,928 households out of which 15.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.6% were married couples living together, 6.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.9% were non-families. 32.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.06 and the average family size was 2.52.

In the city the population was spread out with 13.7% under the age of 18, 4.5% from 18 to 24, 21.2% from 25 to 44, 35.0% from 45 to 64, and 25.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 50 years. For every 100 females there were 88.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.9 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $44,042, and the median income for a family was $52,659. Males had a median income of $32,067 versus $24,453 for females. The per capita income for the city was $31,350. About 4.7% of families and 9.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.1% of those under age 18 and 5.0% of those age 65 or over.

History

Native American

The Yavapai and Apache tribes were forcibly removed from the Verde Valley in 1876, to the San Carlos Indian Reservation, 180 miles southeast. 1500 people were marched, in midwinter, to San Carlos. Several hundred lost their lives. The survivors were interned for 25 years. About 200 Yavapai and Apache people returned to the Verde Valley in 1900 and have since intermingled as a single political entity although culturally distinct.^[9]

Anglo-American settlement

The first Anglo settler, John J. Thompson, moved into Oak Creek Canyon in 1876. The early settlers were farmers and ranchers. Oak Creek Canyon was well-known for its peach and apple orchards. In 1902, when the Sedona post office was established, there were 55 residents. In the mid-1950s, the first telephone directory listed 155 names. Parts of the Sedona area weren't electrified until the 1960s.

Sedona began to develop as a tourist destination, vacation-home and retirement center in the 1950s. Most of the development seen today was constructed in the 1980s and 1990s. As of 2007, there are no large tracts of undeveloped land remaining.^[10]

Chapel of the Holy Cross

In 1956, work on a new chapel, the Chapel of the Holy Cross, was completed. Inspired by the architecture of the Empire State Building, this chapel appears to rise 250 feet out of a thousand foot red rock formation characteristic of Sedona. The sunset strikes the chapel from the front, naturally lighting the chapel in the evening.^[11]

Political structure

Politically, Uptown Sedona, the Gallery District and the Chapel area (all in Coconino County) and West Sedona (in Yavapai County) form the City of Sedona. Originally founded in 1902, the town was incorporated into a city in January 1988. The unincorporated Village of Oak Creek, seven miles (11 km) to the south and well outside the Sedona city limits, is a significant part of the Sedona community.

Cinematic legacy

Sedona played host to more than sixty Hollywood productions from the first years of movies into the 1970s. The small town, which served as a kind of microcosm of Hollywood history, sits about 120 miles north of Phoenix, nestled between thousand-foot-high walls of stone in lushly forested Oak Creek Canyon and the wide open space of the Verde Valley, and it was the diversity of this unspoiled landscape that made it such an ideal location to shoot outdoor scenes. Stretching as far back as 1923, Sedona’s signature red rocks were a fixture in major Hollywood productions—including enduring favorites such as Johnny Guitar, Angel and the Badman, Desert Fury, Blood on the Moon, and 3:10 to Yuma—but typically were identified to audiences as the terrain of Texas, California, Nevada, and even Canadian border territory. For fifty years, this picturesque desert outpost quietly played host to Hollywood legends in the making, yet the town is rarely found in standard histories of the movies.

Sedona’s Hollywood legacy offers nothing less than a timeline of history—of moviemaking in America and the popular culture of the years that shaped it. The story begins in the silent era, when Zane Grey’s The Call of the Canyon and Kit Carson, with Joseph P. Kennedy’s doomed movie superstar Fred Thomson, were filmed in the Oak Creek Canyon area just outside Sedona proper. The 1930s saw the arrival of a dozen B westerns, including four visits from silent film idol turned talkie cowboy star George O’Brien and the only Hopalong Cassidy film ever shot outside California. The decade also saw Sedona cast in her most historically significant movie role, as the promised land of milk and honey in Der Kaiser von Kalifornien, a Nazi western designed to validate Adolf Hitler’s schemes of territorial expansion to the people of Germany.

When John Ford’s production of Stagecoach pulled into town in 1938 (a Sedona connection that has eluded historians since the film was made), it set off three solid decades of A-picture activity—forty-four features through 1973, helped along by the construction of Sedona Lodge, the only permanent boarding and production facility ever built specifically for movie crews on remote location in the United States. During those years, many of Hollywood’s biggest names were photographed in front of Sedona’s signature landscape, from Errol Flynn to Gene Tierney, John Wayne to Joan Crawford, James Stewart to Lizabeth Scott, Robert Mitchum to Elvis Presley.

Sedona (which promoted itself as "Arizona's Little Hollywood") wasn’t only a cinematic romping ground for cowboys. In the years that followed World War II, shadows darkened the scenery to add psychological complexity to a number of early film noir dramas, like Leave Her to Heaven, while at the same time a secret battle involving blacklisted Broken Arrow screenwriter Albert Maltz, a prominent member of the “Hollywood Ten”—the victims of the anti-communist witch hunts that came to symbolize America’s Cold War paranoia—was being fought on the same dusty ground.^[12]

Fire

On June 18, 2006, a wildfire, reportedly started by campers, began about one mile (1.6 km) north of Sedona.^[13] The so-called "Brins Fire" covered 4,317 acres (17 km²) on Brins Mesa, Wilson Mountain and in Oak Creek Canyon before the USDA Forest Service declared it 100% contained on June 28. Containment cost was estimated at $6,400,000.^[14]

Arts and special events

Numerous events are hosted annually in the Sedona area, including:

• Sedona International Film Festival
• Sedona Jazz on the Rocks Festival [1]
• Sedona Marathon [2]
• The Sedona Miracle Annual Charity Fundraiser [3]

Sedona is home to several notable arts organizations in Northern Arizona.

• The Sedona Arts Center, founded in 1958, is the oldest arts center in northern Arizona.
• The Sedona Jazz on the Rocks festival, founded in 1982, takes place annually at Poco Diablo Resort and other locations over four days in late September. According to its Web site, the festival was canceled in 2009 due to the nationwide economic slump but returned in 2011.
• Chamber Music Sedona sponsors a chamber music program annually from October to May. The 2007-2008 season was the 25th anniversary for the organization.
• Sedona International Film Festival & Workshop was established in 1995. The week-long annual festival takes place in late February and early March at Harkins Theatres while supplemental events take place at area resorts and restaurants. The festival also hosts monthly events.
• GumptionFest, established in 2006, is one of the largest free music and arts festivals in Northern Arizona, according to the Sedona Red Rock News.[4]
• NORAZ Poets, extant from 2003 to 2007, was a nonprofit poetry network based in Sedona.

Education

Sedona is served by the Sedona-Oak Creek Unified School District.

Verde Valley School, a boarding International Baccalaureate high school with many international students, is located between the Village of Oak Creek and Red Rock Crossing. It hosts numerous 'traditions' and performances open to the community. The mascot is the coyote. Total attendance measures about 120 students per year, grades 9-12, Monday through Friday.

Sedona Red Rock High School (SRRHS), built in 1994, is located on the western edge of town in West Sedona. The school's mascot is the Scorpion. The high school's new campus, a series of single story buildings, is located opposite the Sedona campus of Yavapai College.

Sedona Charter School (SCS) is located behind the Sedona Public Library, serving as a Montessori-based school for grades K-8.

Yavapai College's Sedona Center for Arts & Technology includes the Zaki Gordon Institute for Independent Filmmaking, the Business Partnership Program, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and the University of Arizona Mini Med School.

University of Sedona, a non-traditional institute providing ministerial training and education in metaphysics.

Vortices

There is a specialized New Age tourist industry in Sedona, where the "Harmonic Convergence" was organized by Jose Arguelles in 1987. Some purport that "spiritual vortices" (local vernacular is "vortexes") are concentrated in the Sedona area at Bell Rock, Airport Mesa, Cathedral Rock, and Boynton Canyon.^[15][16]

Photos

See also

• Chapel of the Holy Cross
• Village of Oak Creek
• Oak Creek Canyon
• Mogollon Rim
• Sedona Airport

References

External links

• City website
• Sedona Chamber of Commerce
• Sedona Public Library
• Sedona travel guide from Wikitravel
• Red Rock Ranger District of the Coconino National Forest
• Oak Creek Canyon information