Sedona

The Sinagua people farmed the Verde Valley and built cliff dwellings in the red canyons west of today's town, at Honanki and Palatki, from about 1100 CE; their stone pueblos at Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot nearby were occupied into the 14th century. The Sinagua are counted among the ancestors of the Hopi, and Palatki's name comes from the Hopi for "red house".

The first European-American settler, John J. Thompson, moved into Oak Creek Canyon in 1876, an area well known for its peach and apple orchards; the early settlers were farmers and ranchers. When a post office opened in 1902 there were 55 residents. The place was named after Sedona Schnebly, wife of the first postmaster; her mother said she made the name up because it sounded pretty. Electricity reached some parts only in the 1960s, and the area, split between Coconino and Yavapai counties, had no local government at all.

Hollywood came first: from 1923 into the 1970s more than sixty productions were filmed among the rocks, usually standing in for Texas or California. From the 1950s Sedona grew as a tourist, holiday-home and retirement town; the Chapel of the Holy Cross was completed in 1956, and the surrealist Max Ernst drew attention from the art world when the town still had fewer than a hundred people. In 1987 José Argüelles organised the "Harmonic Convergence" there, and the town now has a New Age tourist industry. Most of today's town was built in the 1980s and 1990s, and Sedona was incorporated as a city in 1988. Wildfires burned in the surrounding forest in 2006 and 2014.

Sedona's identity is bound up with its setting. The rocks are made of the Schnebly Hill Formation, a pink Permian sandstone found only around Sedona, and they seem to glow at sunrise and sunset. In 1993 the city even refused to let McDonald's use its yellow arches, which it feared would clash with the scenery, and the restaurant uses a blue logo instead.

The town is an arts community. The Sedona Arts Center, founded in 1958, is the oldest in northern Arizona, there is a chamber music programme, and galleries line Highway 179 and Uptown. The Sedona International Film Festival, an eight-day event, has been held since the mid-1990s, and the town's role in film history is part of its story. The calendar also includes a St Patrick's Day parade, a marathon, food-truck and hummingbird festivals and solstice gatherings.

Sedona is also known for spiritual tourism. Some New Age believers hold that "spiritual vortices" are concentrated at Bell Rock, Airport Mesa, Cathedral Rock and Boynton Canyon, and many shops offer crystals, aura readings and vortex information. These are matters of belief rather than science, and the town's visitors range from hikers and mountain bikers to people on retreat. Shops also sell Native American arts and crafts from across the region.

About 9,700 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, with several thousand more in the Village of Oak Creek to the south. It is an old town in a demographic sense: the median age was 62.6, and more than two in five residents were 65 or over. A quarter of homes were counted as vacant, a sign of how many are second homes and holiday rentals. The city straddles two counties — Uptown, the gallery district and the chapel area in Coconino, West Sedona in Yavapai.

Tourism, retirement and second homes drive the economy. Hotels, restaurants, galleries, spas and tour companies provide much of the work. Hospital care is based in Cottonwood, with an outpatient campus and emergency services in Sedona.

The city lies within the Coconino National Forest, and by 2007 there was no large tract of undeveloped land left. Traffic on the two highways and crowding at the most popular trailheads are everyday concerns in the busy seasons. The rhythm of the day follows the light: trailheads fill at dawn, and crowds gather at viewpoints for the sunset.

Sedona has no cuisine of its own, but it eats as northern Arizona does, with Mexican and Southwestern cooking prominent: enchiladas, tamales and dishes flavoured with chile, alongside the steakhouses and modern American restaurants that cater to visitors. Many restaurants are chosen as much for their terraces facing the red cliffs as for their menus, and the Tlaquepaque courtyards, Hillside and Uptown hold most of them.

Farming history survives in a small way. Oak Creek Canyon was well known for its peach and apple orchards, and Slide Rock State Park still includes a working apple farm.

Wine has become the area's newest food story. The Verde Valley south-west of town was recognised as an American Viticultural Area in 2021, with vineyards in the basin of the Verde River supplying the area's wineries. Craft beer is brewed in town too, at a brewery and grill among the Tlaquepaque courtyards. Like the rest of the town's trade, its restaurants depend heavily on visitors, and most of them stand along the two highways.