Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-09-24
CASA GRANDE.
ArizOna's Most Interesting
Prehistoric Relic.
STEPS FOR ITS PRESERVATION.
The "Great House" of q Long Ex-
tinct People Slowly Crumbling
Into Ruins.
Associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD

Associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD.
WASHINGTON, September 23.-Secre-
tary Noble has transmitted to the Direc-
tor of the Geological Survey, report by
Special Agent Morrison on the condition
of the Casa Grande (Great House) ruins
in Pinal county, Arizona, with instruc-
tions that necessary steps be imme-
diately taken to repair and protect the
ruins, under the authority granted in the
act of March 2, 1889, appropriating
$4,000 for that purpose. Special Agent
Morrison says the front of the main
building measures sixty feet, and the
width is forty-three feet; the height of
the first story is thirteen feet, second
story nine feet and third and fourth
stories eight feet. The greater part Of
the upper story has disappeared. The
walls are between four and five
feet thick, and the material of
which they are constructed is almost in
destructible concrete made of fine gravel,
sand and cement, closely resembling the
granolithe now used in Washington. The
walls both inside and out are plastered
with cement, which yet clings to them
with wonderful tenacity, that on the in
side being as smooth and glossy as the
best hard. finished interiors of the pres
ent day. The lower story is nearly filled
up with crumbling debris and the sand
Of the plains. The holes in which the
ceiling timbers were placed are plainly
visible, but every particle of wood has
been carried away by relic.hunters, and
~ hn 11o
80 rapid of late years that if measures are
not Immediately taken to strengthen
them, the entire mass will soon fall into
shapeless ruin.
The report says that for miles around
the mysterious Casa Grands many great
mounds, now hardly distinguishable
from the desert sands, bear indisputable
evidence of having been at some far re.
mote period the abode of busy industries.
Morrison says he is convinced that the
Casa Grande was not used for either re.
ligious or warlike purposes. The supe-
riority of it's architecture (it having out.
lived all the other structures by which it
was surrounded), the numerous small
apartments into which it was divided
and the elegance of the interior
finish, all point to the conclusion |
that it was the palace of the King
or chief who governed the primitive
Americans who inhabited those vast do |
mains ages before Aztec or Toltec. The
most ancient of the traditions of the
Pimas and Papagoes, who yet live here
where their fathers haved lived for CEN
turtles, allude to them as "the ruins"
The earliest historic record we have Of |
Casa Grande was given by the famous
Spanish cavalier and explorer, Cabeza do
Baca, who discovered it duing his jour
ney across the continent about 1887. A
few years later the famous explorer Don
Francisco de Coronado, Governor of New
Galicia, who led an expedition into New
Mexico, states that the Pima Indians then
$3.50 years ago. had no knowledge of
the origin or history of the town which
they believed had existed there. 1t had
always been ruin to them and their an
cestors. Fathers Kino and Mango, who
visited there in 1894, also gave an &C.
count of twelve other ruins in the vicin-
ity. Father Pedro Fout in 1777 found
them in much the same condition. He
describes the main building as an oblong
square, facing the cardinal points
of the compass. The exterior walls
extended from north to south APO feet,
and from east to west 260 feet. "We
thus see, 'says Morrison, what havoc the
ITO years have made, and the necessity
for immediate action to save the remnant
from complete destruction. The ruins
are regarded as one of the most interest
ing remains of the prehistoric age to be
fOund IN this crntiuant