Casa Grande ruins |
Take, for example, the
Hohokams, a prehistoric people who lived in the Sonora Desert. Back in 300 BC, they built a canal system that
was considered an engineering marvel in its day. They used only primitive tools, digging a
220-mile canal system to bring water from the Gila and Salt rivers to their
crops. The canals were deep enough that fish sometimes swam up them, providing
another source of food. The remains of their canal system can be seen today at
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument at Coolidge, Arizona.
The Hohokams were a
self-sustaining people. They grew a variety of edible foods, including two corn
crops a year; tobacco, and cotton, which they spun into thread and wove into
clothes. They stored food and seeds in large decorative pottery containers.
They hunted and they fished. They made fine jewelry.
In the 14th
century, they built a huge adobe house that was 60 feet long and four stories
high. They surrounded it with lesser walls. .In the 15th century,
the Ancestral Sonora Desert People, as these Native Americans are known today,
simply began to disappear. There was no one there by 1694 when Father Eusebio
Kino came across this large house and compound. He called it “casa grande,”
which means “great house.” Father Kino, a Jesuit from Italy, came to the New
World with the Spanish in the 17th century, and explored the
southwest, founding churches t Tumacacori and San Xavier del Bac, both south of
Tucson.
The large house today is
under a roof to protect it as much as possible from the elements. The adobe is
cracked; support beams have been added to keep it standing as long as possible.
The ruins make a good day
trip from Phoenix or Tucson and can easily be combined with a visit to St.Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery.
The ruins are open from 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, though they are closed on Thanksgiving and
Christmas days. Operated by the National Park Service, the ruins are located on
Highway 87 just across from Safeway Plaza in Coolidge.
You can see more pictures of the ruins on my Youtube slideshow.
You can see more pictures of the ruins on my Youtube slideshow.