Casa Grande Ruins TrailSouthwest Parks and Monuments Association
History
Casa Grande Ruins Trail
Southwest Parks and Monuments Association
Casa Grande National Monument (Ariz.)
The wall around this village originally stood 7 to 11 feet high. There
were no doorways in it. This wall and building of this village are of
caliche, a limy subsoil found 2 to 5 feet below the surface of this
region. To get in or out of the village the Indians used ladders to
climb over the wall. The foundations, all that remain of the wall, are
covered with wire reinforced, tinted-cement stucco to protect them.
Stepping or sitting on the walls may damage them. Help us to protect the
walls.
3. Living Room.
This room is one of approximately 60 rooms inside the compound wall.
Walls and floors were made of caliche, and ceilings were layers of
poles, saguaro ribs, and reeds capped with a covering of caliche. Some
rooms, like this one, had doorways; other rooms had hatchways in the
roof centers. A small clay fire pit, about 1 foot in diameter, was in
the center of each room. During hot weather, cooking was done out of
doors. (_See_ next page).
4. The Casa Grande—Northeast Corner.
The Casa Grande was first seen by a European on November 27, 1694, when
Father Kino, a Jesuit missionary and explorer, visited the area. He
called the building the Casa Grande, or Big House, because it was the
biggest structure he had seen in southern Arizona.
The large steel canopy was erected in 1932 to protect the Casa Grande
from rain. This building has not been restored, but to keep it from
crumbling further, the ruin was stabilized in 1891. The undercut base of
the ruin was filled with bricks and cement, two-by-fours were placed
over the doorways, and two steel rods were inserted to brace the south
wall.
[Illustration: _Living Room_]
[Illustration: _The Casa Grande, Northeast Corner_]
5. The North Side.
The wood over the doorway is not original. There is no original wood
remaining in the Casa Grande. Father Kino reported it as burned out
prior to his 1694 visit.
Though four stories high, only the upper three stories of the Casa
Grande were used. The five ground-story rooms were filled with earth to
form a platform foundation, and a ladder was used to gain access to the
second story through the doorway seen here.
To the right of the doorway and about shoulder high are a line of holes
in the wall. These show where a roof, probably for shade, was socketed
into the wall.
6. West Side.
Notice the series of horizontal cracks along the west wall of the Casa
Grande. The cracks show that the walls were built with layers of caliche
mud. Each layer was about 26 inches thick. Bricks were not used. The
Indians did not make adobe bricks until taught by the Spanish priests
centuries later.
Above the enlarged open doorway is a blocked one. The upper doorway was
sealed by the Indians, but they left a small opening for ventilation at
the bottom of the block. The large hole above the blocked doorway is
where the original wooden lintel poles rotted away, causing part of the
wall to fall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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