Casa Grande Ruin eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 43 pages of information about Casa Grande Ruin.

Casa Grande Ruin eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 43 pages of information about Casa Grande Ruin.

    [Footnote 1:  Berlin meeting, 1888; Compte-Rendu, Berlin, 1890,
    p. 150 et seq.]

The latest contribution to the literature of the Casa Grande is a report by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes,[1] also of the Hemenway expedition, under the title “On the present condition of a ruin in Arizona called Casa Grande.”  Two magnificent illustrations are presented, engravings from photographs, showing general views of the ruin, as well as a number of views depicting details, and the ground plan presented at the end of the report is the best so far published.  It is unfortunate that this author was not able to give more time to the study of the ruin; yet his report is a valuable contribution to our knowledge concerning the Casa Grande.

    [Footnote 1:  Jour. of Amer.  Ethn. and Arch., Cambridge, 1892, vol.
    ii, page 179 et seq.]

DESCRIPTION.

THE CASA GRANDE GROUP.

The Casa Grande has been variously placed at from 2 leagues to 2 miles south of Gila river.  The writer has never traversed the distance from the ruin to the river, but the ruin is about a mile from Walker ranch, which is well known in that neighborhood, and about half a mile from the river.  This question, however, is not of much importance, as the ruin is easily found by anyone looking for it, being located directly on one of the stage routes from Casa Grande station, on the Southern Pacific railroad, to Florence, Arizona, and about 9 miles below, or west of, the latter place.

The name Casa Grande has been usually applied to a single structure standing near the southwestern corner of a large area covered by mounds and other debris, but some writers have applied it to the southwestern portion of the area and even to the whole area.  The latter seems the proper application of the term, but to avoid confusion, where both the settlement as a whole and that portion which has formed the theme of so many writers are referred to, the settlement will be designated as the Casa Grande group, and the single structure with standing walls as the Casa Grande ruin.

Probably no two investigators would assign the same limits to the area covered by the group, as the margins of this area merge imperceptibly into the surrounding country.  The accompanying map (plate LI) shows this area as interpreted by the writer.  The surface covered by well defined remains, as there shown, extends about 1,800 feet north and south and 1,500 feet east and west, or a total area of about 65 acres.

[Illustration:  Pl.  LI:  Map of Casa Grande Group.]

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Casa Grande Ruin from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.