Fort McDowell Indian Reservation Police
Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation is located within
Maricopa County about twenty-three miles northeast
of Phoenix. The desert landscape is contrasted by
the Verde River, which flows north to south through
the reservation. Thirty miles east of Fort McDowell,
the Four Peaks rise from the desert floor to an
elevation of more than 7,000 feet.
The community was created by Executive Order on
September 15, 1903. The 40-square mile reservation
is now home to 600 community members, while another
300 live off reservation. The reservation is a
small parcel of land that formerly was the ancestral
territory of the once nomadic Yavapai people, who
hunted and gathered food in a vast area of Arizona's
desert lowlands and mountainous Mogollon Rim country.