Road Trip: Casa Grande National Monument

Onward and upward! As I left Tucson, I was beginning my trip home. I had made arrangements to visit with Jeanne and Hal Elliott that evening and was squeezing in a few sights on my way north. My first stop was Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Coolidge, Arizona.

Next stop!

This rather unusual national monument preserves the ruins of multiple structures surrounded by a compound wall constructed by the ancient people of the Hohokam period, who farmed the Gila Valley from around 1100 to 1450.

Protected ruins

"Casa Grande" is Spanish for "big house," which refers to the largest structure on the site -- the remains of a four-story caliche building consisting of outer rooms surrounding an inner structure. The outer rooms are three stories and the the inner room is four stories high. The building was constructed using traditional adobe processes in which the base is thicker than the top. It is the largest known structure of the ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert.

Adobe wall

Its walls face the four cardinal points of the compass and a hole in the upper west wall aligns with the setting sun on the summer solstice. Other openings align with the sun and the moon.

Small openings in a big wall

To protect the structure, which was probably some sort of public building, a unique metal roof was erected in the 1930s.

The roof

It is evidently needed, based on the eroded state of some of the walls and other structures.

Eroded wall

There is a lovely museum with a number of artifacts and its a relatively quick tour of to walk around the ruins.

Just a quick look at a short stop

Trip date: March 7-14, 2015