Arizona republican., 1919-01-15

y
tween Phoenix and Tucson, stands a
Great House OF many rooms, four
stories high, its walls four feet through.
ArchaeOlOgiStS says it stood there five
hundred, possibly eight hundred years
ago.
Who inhabited this prehistoric
apartment house-for such it was
nobody knows; but a study of the
ruins, excavations, articles exhumed
from graves, and the remains of an If
rigation system, reveal many facts
about them.
Cliff dwellings of course, are com
mon. But this is the only house yet
standing in this count built by pre-
historic architects, before Columbus
sailed from Spain. centuries before
hammer and saw had been used in
America Tourists hang desert water
bass to their ears and travel seventy
desert miles to see it. Archaeologists
flock from everywhere to examine ana
( to speculate.
/ Its name-the Casa Grande-sOunds
a little like Armour Boulevard or the
/ Paseo all-packaGes- delivered in the
rear; but this house stands all alone
/ like the Ancient Mariner, just where 1t
stood before there was Il Kansas City
/ or Chicago or New York, in the midst
/ of a wide. level. sandy plain or valley,
surrounded on all sides by mountains
! twenty or thirty miles aWay-barren,
/ reddish-brown, volcanic peaks that
seem to bar out every sound from the
desert solitude.
Surrounding the Great House, as the
Spaniards called it, was once a wall
four feet thick and eleven feet high,
now crumbled and fallen; and within
ho x1r.,n hot y nd bo
a group of 1-story buildings, probably
/ servants quarters; also p ceremonial
house: and at intervals against the IA
side of the wall were 1-story struc =
lures that came within three feet of the
top of the wall. Undoubtedly the expert
fighting men occupied these roofs in
case of attack, and shot their arrows
and threw their rocks, lodging quickly
down behind the three feet of protect
ing wall. If the enemy stOr1ned the wall
and took it, they were but started, how
ever, as look at the Casa Grandc
! shows.
Instead of an imposing archway, in
keeping with the heavy architecture
the entrance is q narrow little door
seven feet above the desert level. A
short ladder had to be used When ev-
erybody was inside, the ladder was
drawn in as Il means of burglar insur-
ance. Besides the door is only a foot
and half wide by n Scant four feet
high, so that only one person at a time
could enter md he must have come in,
stopped over and defenseless. a man
standing beside the door inside could
swing a stone ak and very clever dis
pose of the enemy as they entered.
Safety First appears to have been the
motto.
The massive walls We're built of a
sort of limestone mud, or caliche as it
is called here that solidified almost like
cement when it dried-not in bricks.
like an adobe house but in one solid
wall. They put it up in courses, sixteen
or eighteen inches thick and four feet
wide, allowing one course to dry before
putting on another Finger prints OF
these architects and masons are plainly
visible where they slapped, here and
there, a hunk OF mud that showed a
tendenc- to run.
After raising the walls d the room
partitions to the height of n man, they
needed poles to lay across to form the
floor of the room above. Now, the only
growth in this valley, besides cactus
and sagebrush. is mosquito crooked
scrubby cross between a bush and q
I tree. Not one limb of it is to be found
on a whole section of desert, long
enough and straight enough for these
jOistS. SO they went fifty miles up the
ella River, one of those streams thai
contain water only now and then, anc
cut juniper poles, made them into raft:
and floated them down the stream, car
Iying them on their backs, probably
the six miles from there to the building
site
These poles they crossed with The
/ L..
turn with the small, straight sticks 0
arrow weed. On top OF this floor struc
tlre was placed six or eight inches o
mud. The impression of this agains
the walls shows that they made j
thicker or thinner at one end or TIL
other to obtain a level, the poles no
being laid exactly true
Many, many years ago a fire burnet
out the floor supports of the entir
building In 1892 when Father Kino,
Spanish priest. saw the Casa Grann
and left Il written record of what h
saw, the building had been in ruins s
long that not even the native Indians
who have traditions about everything
had any idea as to when the buildin
was occupied or when the fire occurred
The fire burned the poles and stick
off even with the wall, but imbedded /
the wall were the stubs, charred at tn
end These pieces, splendidly pr
served, show plainly what kind of WOO
thy We're, and the marks of the ston
AK are distinct. They look as though
beaver had gnawed them off. There, al
so, is one of the stone axes.
An augur hole extended through fou
or five of the walls allowed the sun t
shine through and strike a certain spc
on the wall of an interior room once Q
twice a year and this, it is conjectureC
formed their seasonal clock.
The remains Of their old irrigatio
system vet are to be seen. They lie
water six miles or more And one {
their reservoirs is now in use by set
tiers from Kansas and Oklahoma.
Most mysterious of all, perhaps
the fact that the earthen jars, sever;
large specimens having been dug L
complete, bear the same ornament;
designs as those used in the Old Worl
six thousand years before Christ
There is the Wall of Troy design, a
ancient Grecian design, and the Swas
tika, now seen as a trademark on til
end of every box Of crackers.
The United States government ha
thrown reservation around the ruin
has placed a roof over the main build
ing-the original roof having fallen
centuries ago-and has built a nee
adobe cottage near by and installe
therein Frank Pinkley, as CUSTODIAN
Thousands of tourists are his FRIEND
because of the interesting and obligin
manner in which he explains every
thing. From the moment they step ovt
the threshold with him they are mac
to enter into the romances. the trag
edieS and the comedies of n DeODle wi