BY STEPHEN AYERS
Staff Reporter / Verde Valley Independent

After more than two years of construction, traffic delays and, and curiosity about the final product, the portion of main street from Circle K to Camp Verde Feeds is, for the most part, finished. And to celebrate, the downtown, Uptown, Main Street merchants, the Chamber of Commerce and the Camp Verde Parks and Recreation Department are having a coming out party on Jan. 22. Billed as the Uptown Main Street Extravaganza, the affair is a family oriented celebration with plenty of events for everyone.

Part of the reason for the celebration is to create an identity for the main street community. It is for that reason that the town and the merchants have chosen to start calling the area Uptown.

"When I grew up here, everybody said that if they were going into town that they were going uptown," Mayor Mitch Dickinson said.

It is a fitting name in that it also describes the historical and geographical reason the town is where it is today.

In the 1870s the U.S. Cavalry soldiers stationed at Fort Lincoln abandoned their mosquito-infested malarial-swamp location next to the Verde River in favor of the high ground where the fort currently sits.

The town of Camp Verde grew around the fort and the current uptown area now resides on that same high ground.

The other reason for the celebration is to bring awareness to both the old and the new businesses on Main Street.

Along with all of the adjoining road and landscape improvements, a number of new businesses have set up shop, and a number of old businesses have remodeled.

That should be reason enough to come to Uptown and check it out. The Extravaganza is slated to begin at 11 a.m. and continue until 5 p.m.

And it's free.

The celebration is scheduled to kick off with a State of the Town Address by Mayor Dickinson at the Cam Verde Community Center. Dickinson is expected to say a few words about the new Uptown and give a brief outlook on the many changes expected in the town over the coming year.

Following Dickinson's address the festivities will begin. Every participant in the event will receive an Extravaganza Card. As they visit each of the participating Uptown merchants they will have the card stamped.

Once the card is filled they will return it to the Camp Verde Chamber of Commerce and be entered in a raffle with the opportunity to win $300.

Throughout the event, individual merchants will also hold a free BINGO game at their establishment. Participants will have an additional opportunity to win prizes at each one.