Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

March 26, 2019

Visitor Center

You can view a film and browse the museum at the park visitor center and take guided or self-guided tours of the ruins, which rise starkly amid the saguaro cacti of the Sonoran Desert.

Self-Guided Tour

Built by the ancient Sonoran people around 1350, the structure was abandoned only a century afterward, and was already in ruins by the time Kino came upon it. Little is known about the people who built Casa Grande except for their agricultural practices, as they left no writing behind, but interest in the ruins increased as expansion in the West continued.

The ‘Great House’ can be seen from some distance away owing to the flatness of the terrain, and has a rather curious appearance from afar as the structure is protected from the harsh desert sun by a large metal roof supported by four great pillars, designed by architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. This is an impressive design, and is certainly necessary to help preserve the building but it is still rather incongruous.

The present cover replaced an earlier wooden construction in 1932. The scale of the ruin is best appreciated from close up – it is 60 feet by 40 feet wide at the base and has caliche walls over a meter thick.

Although visitors are not allowed into the building owing to its delicate state, much can be seen from outside including details of the construction with wooden beams supporting the clay walls, and various internal features such as stairways and windows. However, besides the protective canopy, the interior contains other modern items such as re-enforcing beams, metal ladders and measuring devices on the walls, all contributing to the slightly unnatural scene.

It is believed that the Casa Grande functioned partly as an astronomical observatory since the four walls face the points of the compass, and some of the windows are aligned to the positions of the sun and moon at specific times.

There are various smaller ruins in the complex, remains of a Hohokam farming village, and some are yet to be excavated. A second, similarly sized compound is located 850 feet northeast of the Casa Grande, though this is usually closed to the public. Nowadays, the roof and walls of the main building provide shelter for several species of small birds but the Hohokam themselves seem to have abandoned the complex around the 16th century, as part of a general decline in their civilization.

Apart from other Indian peoples and Spanish missionaries, the area was not revisited until the 1880s, when American settlers arrived and began to threaten the ruins by removing artifacts as souvenirs. On June 22, 1892, the Casa Grande became the first archaeological site in the United States to be protected as a national monument.

1100 W. Ruins Drive
Coolidge, AZ 85128
www.nps.gov/cagr

GPS: 32.995, -111.53

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