The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-09-24
The CASA GRANDE.
Report Upon This Remarkable
Arizona Ruin.
SHERIFFDEsMOND INTERVIEWED.
what He Has to Say Of The CrOnin Case
His Talk with Luke DillOn-AbOut
John DeTOy.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23.-Secretary Noble
has transmitted to the director OF Ihe
Geological survey the report by SpeclaI
Agent Morrison Of the condition OF the
Casa Grande (great house, ruins IN PlnfI
county. Arizona, with instructions that the
necessary steps be Immediately taken to
repair and protect the ruins under the
authority granted in the act OF March :,
1889. appropriating $1,000 for that purpose.
Special Agent Morrison says the front
of the main building measures sixty 1eet
aud has width of &c. ty-three feet. Inc
height of the first stor' is thirteen feet;
Of the second nine feet, and the third and
fourth stories are 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 an almost indestructible
concrete made of fine gravel, sand and
cement closely resembling the granohthlc
now used in Washington. The walls
both inside and out are plastered with
cement which yet clings to them with won
.darful tenacity, that on the inside being as
smooth and CLASSY as the best hard finished
interiors of the present day. The lower
story is nearly filled up with crumDllng
~,iebris and drifting sand.
y 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 the disintegratlon OF the
walls has been so rapid of late years that II
measures are not Immediately taken to
strengthen them the entire mass will soon
fall into a shapeless ruin.
The report says that for miles around the
mysterious Casa Grande many great
mounds, now hardly distinguishable from
the desert sands, bear indisputable evil
dence of having been at some lar remote
period the abode of busy industries.
Morrison says ne is convinced the Casa
Grande was not used for either religious
or Warlike purposes. The superiority OF
the architecture, it having Outlived all
other structures by which it was sur
rounded, the numerous small apartments
into which it was divided and the elegance
II the interior finish, all point to the con
rlusion that it was the palace of ling
or chief who governed the primitive
Americans VINO inhabited these vast do
mains ages before the AEtecs or Toltecs.
The most ancient traditions of the Pima
and I'apagores. who yet live here where
their fathers have lived for centuries, al
Jude TO them as 1.-The ruins
The earliest history record we have OF
\ 1Ae Casa Grande was given by the famous
spanish cavalier and explorer, Cabeza de
Baca who discovered it during his journey
across the continent about 1887. a few
years later the famous explorer, Don iran
caiso de Coronado, governor ofsSNewGalyra,
who led an expedition into New Mexico,
states that the Pima Indians then $50
,ears ago. had no knowledge of the origin
or history of the town which they believed
Jad existed there 1t had always been Il
ruin to them and ID their ancestors.
Fathers Kind and Mango who visited
there in 1894, also gave an account of
twelve other ruins in the vicinity. Father
Pedro FOutin, in IN, 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 40 feet and from east to west 20O
feet
I'VE thus see, " says Professor Morrison,
what havoc the storms of 10 years have
made and the necessity for immediate &C
zion to save this remnant from complete
destruction"
The ruins are regarded as one of the
most interesting remains o. the prehistoric
age 70 be found on this continent.