Casa & Canopy: The Casa Grande, or great house, is the center piece of this compound at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. A shelter was constructed in 1932 to protect the structure from further decay. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Casa Grande: The Casa Grande is seen beyond walls of a nearby side structure. The Casa Grande is 60 feet by 40 feet and stands four stories high, one of the largest prehistoric buildings in North America. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
By GARY WARREN
Photographer
Formerly of Los Alamos
The Casa Grande Ruins are located in the Sonoran Desert about 20 miles from the town of Casa Grande, Ariz. and a short drive from the Phoenix metro area. However, ancestral Sonoran Desert people lived in the area around 1300-1450 long before these cities existed.
These ancient people of the Hohokam period were hunter-gatherers who built the Casa Grande and established irrigation canals to farm the area. The location of the settlement is near the Gila River which was a necessity for life and for crops in the desert heat. The Casa Grande, or great house, was surrounded by a compound consisting of several smaller structures.
The Casa Grande is one of the largest prehistoric buildings in North America. The structure is 60 feet long by 40 feet wide and was four stories tall. The walls were constructed with caliche soil found in the area. To add strength the walls were wider at the base, about four feet wide, and became narrower toward the top of the building.
The four outer walls of the Casa Grande point to the four directions on the compass and some windows align with the sun and moon at times throughout the year. It is thought that the purpose of this was to aid in timing of planting the crops.
The Casa Grande and surrounding compound were used until about 1450 before the people disappeared from the area. It is thought that severe drought conditions may have forced the move. Amazingly, the great house has survived for seven centuries.
After the area was vacated in the 1400s, the compound sat unoccupied for two centuries before being discovered by Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, a Spanish missionary who worked with the Pima Indians, in 1694.
It has been noted that various frontiersmen and military stopped at the Casa Grande at times in the 1700-1800s.
By the 1880s, extensive damage and vandalism had occurred to the Casa Grande and an effort to save the structure from additional damage and decay had begun. In 1892, the Casa Grande became the nation’s first archeological reserve, years before Arizona officially became a state in 1912.
The Casa Grande ruins became Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in 1918. In 1932, the Olmsted Shelter was constructed to further protect the great house from elements and decay. That canopy, named after the architect who designed the shelter, remains in use today. In 1966, Casa Grande was added to the nation’s Register of Historic Places.
The visitor center at Casa Grande has exhibits of artifacts from the Hohokam period as well as a gift shop and books on various subjects of local interests.
Visitors are allowed to walk amongst the various ruins in the compound which sits just a short walk from the visitor center. Visitors may enter any of the ruins except for the great house. The walls of the Casa Grande are very fragile and additional support has been installed to stabilize the crumbling walls.
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is a day use park open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. in the winter. The hours are shorter during the hot summer months. There is no charge for visitors to visit the park.
Editor’s note: Longtime Los Alamos photographer Gary Warren and his wife Marilyn are traveling around the country, and he shares his photographs, which appear in the “Posts from the Road” series published in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Daily Post.
Doorway: A doorway in the Casa Grande is seen from an exterior window. Visitors are not allowed to enter this structure because the walls are fragile. Additional support has been added to keep the walls upright. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Ruins and Visitor Center: The Casa Grande is surrounded by ruins of other buildings within the compound. The walls of surrounding structures are various heights ranging from a couple of feet to several feet high. Shown is the visitor center as seen from one of the ruins. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Exploring Ancient Ruins: A visitor ducks to enter one of the ruins at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. Walls reaching several feet stand in several of the structures surrounding the great house. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
If Walls Could Talk: Shown is another wall of a ruin near the great house. If walls could talk, a lot of history could be gained about the ancient people who walked these grounds hundreds of years ago. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Distant View: A view of the Casa Grande and the canopy over the structure are seen from the visitor center at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. In the foreground are ruins from other structures in the compound that are built around the Casa Grande. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
