Groom Creek Schoolhouse
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 15 nights read 16:32 UTC
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
Built in 1902, this historic schoolhouse and adjacent picnic area in Arizona's Prescott National Forest may be reserved for day use for groups of up to 60 people. The facility offers a picturesque, quiet setting with indoor and outdoor areas for weddings, reunions, luncheons and group meetings. The schoolhouse served about 10 to 15 children in the early 1900s. The building was an active school until 1952. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is used for administrative and training purposes. Keep reading
Recreation
Groups enjoy gathering in the outdoor picnic area during nice weather or heading indoors into the the two-room schoolhouse if the weather turns. A leisurely walk through the forest on the accessible, paved Groom Creek Nature Trail provides a nice afternoon respite, and visitors can camp nearby if desired. Prescott National Forest has miles of hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding trails for visitors wishing to explore the area.
Facilities
The schoolhouse building has two rooms with new furniture(tables and chairs) for indoor use. The outdoor picnic area is accessible and equipped with 10 picnic tables, vault toilets, an amphitheater (limited access) and parking for 12 vehicles or two buses. No drinking water is available at this site; guests must bring their own.
Natural Features
The group area is set in a ponderosa pine ecosystem, an area dominated by pines and mixed with juniper trees, Gambel oaks and native grasses. A multitude of colorful wildflowers bloom in the spring and during the summer monsoon season. Afternoon thunderstorms are possible from late June through mid-September. The forest is home to a wide variety of wildlife. Visitors may spot deer, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, rabbits, lizards, snakes and birds.
Nearby Attractions
Upper Wolf Creek Campground is just around the corner if you want to camp overnight. Restaurants, shopping, historic sites and many amenities are nearby in the historic town of Prescott.
What the agency tells you
This is a day use facility; no overnight camping allowed
Running water is not available at this site
Access to this facility is through a locked gate; use the gate combination provided on your reservation confirmation letter
Everything else this campground posts · 9
Pets are not permitted in the building. Pets outside but must be on a 6 foot leash or in a cage and never unattended.
If available the outside area can be used on a first-come, first-served basis.
Upper Wolf Creek Campground is nearby for visitors wishing to reserve group campsites
Off-highway vehicles only allowed on designated roads and trails
Smoking permitted within enclosed vehicles or developed fee recreation sites where the area is cleared of all flammable material
Fireworks, including sparklers, are prohibited at all times on National Forest Lands.
Click here for more information about Prescott National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
There are ten plastic tables, nine six foot wooden tables, sixty chairs and three fold up benchs on-site and ten concrete tables outside.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…and equipped with 10 picnic tables, vault toilets, an amphitheater (limited access) and parking for…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…parking for 12 vehicles or two buses. No drinking water is available at this site; guests must bring their…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Biking
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 11 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 16:32 UTC
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in. How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:32 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:32 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records · the site map
All 1 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| GROOM CREEK | 1 | day use | 1.1 mi | 100 ft | $150 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Groom Creek Horse CampPrescott National Forest · 0.5 mi
Upper Wolf Creek GroupPrescott National Forest · 1.5 mi
Lower Wolf Creek CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 1.8 mi
White Spar CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 3.4 mi
Eagle Ridge Group CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 3.9 mi
Hilltop Campground (AZ)Prescott National Forest · 4.0 miFrom Phoenix, Arizona, take I-17 north for 61.8 miles. Take exit 262 toward Cordes Junction/Prescott. Merge onto State Route 69 west and follow for 33.8 miles. At the split, take the ramp for Route 89 south. Turn slight left onto East Gurley Street/89 and follow for about 0.8-mile. Turn left at Mt. Vernon Street and continue for 6.1 miles. The turnoff for the schoolhouse and parking is on the left. Building address is Groom Creek Schoolhouse-64 Senator HWY, Prescott, AZ 86301
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Prescott, AZ
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Groom Creek Schoolhouse is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Groom Creek Schoolhouse, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Groom Creek Schoolhouse, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. Every site at Groom Creek Schoolhouse is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Groom Creek Schoolhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Groom Creek Schoolhouse. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Groom Creek Schoolhouse (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Groom Creek Schoolhouse, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Groom Creek Schoolhouse, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. Every site at Groom Creek Schoolhouse is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Groom Creek Schoolhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Groom Creek Schoolhouse. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Groom Creek Schoolhouse (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Groom Creek Schoolhouse, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Groom Creek Schoolhouse, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. Every site at Groom Creek Schoolhouse is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Groom Creek Schoolhouse keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Groom Creek Schoolhouse. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Groom Creek Schoolhouse (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com