The Opelousas courier., 1890-08-23
THE CASA GRANDE RUINS.
RELICS OF AN ANCIENT RACE IN
ARIZONA.

1 OC 6N AGAOlGN4 161SA
ARIZONA.
A Great House That Was in Ruins
Hundreds of Years Ago-A Kings
Palace.
Special Agent Morrison, who was sent
by the United States Interior Department
to examine into the condition OF the ruins
in Pinal County, Arizona, in his report
saws that these venerable relics OF prehls-
toric America stand in a great undulating
plain, about midway between the station
of Casa Grande and Florence, seven or
eight miles from the ella River. He
| saws that the front of the main building
measures ~sixty-six feet, and the width
forty-three feet. The height of the first
story is thirteen feet, the second nine
feet, and the third and fourth stories
eight feet each. 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 i~ndestructible concrete made OF
fine gravel, sand and cement, closely re-
sembling the granolithic % used in
Washington.
This was laid in the walls in great
| blocks. One of these measured seven feet
three inches in length, four feet three
inches in width, and two feet six inches
in height. The walls both inside and out
| were plastered with. cement which yet
clings to them with wonderful tenaeity,
that on the inside being as smooth and
glossy as the best hard finished interiors
of the present day. All of the rooms, OF
! which there are four now intact, are of a
uniform buff color which is very pleasing
to the eye. The largest of these rooms is
thirty-four by nine feet. The extreme
| height of the building is nearlyforty feet.
| The lower story is filed up with crumb-
ling debris and the drifting sand of the
plain to the height of thirteen or fourteen
| feet. The holes in which the ceiling
timbers were placed are plainly visible,
! but every particle of wood has been car
ried away by relic hunters, and the disin-
teoration of the walls has been so rapid
of late years that if measures are not i'm
mediately 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 distiuguishable from
the desert sands, bear indisputable evil
dence of having been at some far remote
period, the abode of busy industries. Mr..
Morrison says he is convinced that the
Casa Grande was not used either for re-
Igious or warlike purposes. The SUI
periority of its architecture, it having out
| lived all the other structures by which it
! was surrounded, the numerous small
apartments into which it vas divided,
and the elegance of the int or finish, all
point to the conclusion thai it vas the
| palace of the king, or chief, who governed
the primitive Americans who inhabited
these vast domains ages before Astec or
| Toltec.
The most ancient of the traditions of
the Pimas and Papagoes, who yet live
here where their fathers have lived for
| centuries, allude to them as stthe ruins. !"
The earliest historic records we have of
Casa Grande was given by the famous
Spanish cavalier and explorer, Cabeza de
Baca, who discovered it during his jour
ney across the continent about 1857. A
few years later the famous explorer, Don
Francisco de Coronado, Governor of New
Galicia, who led an expedition into New
| Mexico, describes the ruins as being four
stories high, with walls six feet in thick
ness. As 8 proof of its great antiquity
he says the Pima Indians then, $50 years
ago, had no knowledge of the origin or
history of the town which had existed
there. II had always been a ruin to them
and to their ancestors.
Fathers King and Mango, who visited
| the place in 1894, found the remains of
the great ediice. They also gave IN ac-
count Of twelve other ruins in the vi
cinity. Father Pedro Fout, in 1777,
found them in much the same condition.
He describes the main building as an
ohlong square facing the cardinal points
of the compass. The exterior walls ex-
tended from north to south 400 feet
and from east to west $50 feet. "We
thus see,n says Mr.. Morrison, 'swhat
havoc the storms of 10 years have
made and the necessity fe immediate
action to save the remnant from com
| plete destruction" The ruins are re-
garded as one of the most interesting re-
mains of the prehistoric age to be found
on this continent.