Arizona weekly miner., 1875-04-02
OLD ARIZONA RUINS WHO BUILT
 THEM?

Inc olu ruins scattered tnrougnout ATT
 zona have been a source of conjecture fo
 ages, and we can do no more towards eluci
 dating the mystery of their existence than [, join in the general wonderment
 Hundreds of years before the Jesuite Fath
 CTS came to establish the Nilsson of San Di
 ego in lI69, Coronado marched up the Gil;
 in search of the "Seven cities of Sibola,n anC
 at that early time, $50 years ago, there stood
 the Casa Grande, where it stands to day
 near the present town of Adamsville, then
 venerable ruin, but in better state of pres
 ervation than now. Coronado tells us that
 he found the building seven stories high
 while to-day it only shows two above ground
 Gov. Stafford, C. H. Brinley and John G
 Campbell in their pamphlet on Arizona, pub
 lished in 1871 by order of the Legislature, says: "The walls of the Casa Grande are
 still two stories above the ground. In size the structure is about 30x60 feet; the walls
 are thick and made of mud which was evil dently confined and dried as it was built IL Is divided into many small rooms and the partitions are also made of mud. The floors were made of sticks placed close together and covered with cement Around and near Casa Grande are Be ruins of many other buildings, but the lapse of time and decay of vegetation has formed earth and nearly cov- cred them, so that now all that marks the place where once a stately mansion stood is the elevation of the ground"
 It seems quite probable that tho same causes that have conspired to cover up and obliterate the smaller buildings may have hidden four or five stories of the Casa Grande since the days of Coronado's march.
 The same authority tells us that "Near the Ancha mountains are ruins not so extensive. but in far better state of preservation, and near these ruins are old arrastras for the re- duction of silver ores, which indicate that this old people were not unmindful of the root of all evil. On the Verde River are immense rooms dug in high perpendicular sandstone banks that can only be reached by ladders"
 Speculating upon the character of people who inhabited these ruins the same pamphlet continues
 'Very little information is obtained by ex cavating. Pottery of excellent quality and ornamented with paint is found everywhere and occasionally stone axe is unearthed but nothing to indicate that they were a warlike people. Scarcely an implement of defense can be found, though there are reasons to be- eve from the numerous lookouts, or places 1 Tor observation on tops of hills and moun- tains, and the construction of their houses. | hat they had enemies and that by the hand | 'f those enemies they perished It is not | improbable that the Apaches were the ene- nies who caused their destruction. Indeed he Apaches have legend that such is the ase. The ruins of towns. arms and irrigating canals that are to be cen on every hand over this vast Territory i've abundant proof that this was once ountry densely inhabited by an agricultural eople, and that is probably about all We hall ever know of them"
 Evidences of the existence of this ancient eople are numerous in this immediate vii inity; we have examined some of them but nd no further testimony than simply that hey lived and built houses such as no Indi- ms of modern times construct.
 Here the ruins are all of stone, or if tim CT was used it has long since returned to he dust from whence it sprang.
 Mir. J. M. Sanford, an Arizona pioneer who as had large opportunities for observation. nd given the matter much intelligent bought, IS of opinion that what has been 'rmed look outs in the foregoing extracts . ere temples of worship, and that the orshippers did homage to the sun This plnlon he bases upon the fact that all the ilns he has visited on the tops of high ountains and cone shaped hills are built due C lst and west with the appearance of an tar in the west end, from which he infers , at it was purposely so arranged that the , ,votee could stand or kneel at the altar and ce the rising sun.
 1t IS not probable that they were built for 'tenses against an enemy, as many of them v e ten miles from water, and they would c rdly be supposed to build so substantially 1 r mere look out stations. We are inclined t believe these elevated ruins were built '' r purposes of devotion, though as we inti- c ated in the outset the design of this arti- lC , is simply to enlist others to join us in a 'ndering who built the ruins, and with no V pc of solving the mystery lc