Preserved prehistoric structure and surrounding ruins offering insight into the ancient Sonoran Desert people's community and irrigation systems.
General Information
Closed: Juneteenth, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas
Last entry at 3:45 PM; all visitors must exit by 4:00 PM
No reservations or passes required
Not permitted inside buildings
Must be leashed (max 6 ft) and cleaned up after
How to Get There
From Phoenix, AZ (50 mi): Take I-10 E to AZ-387 S, then follow AZ-87 S to Coolidge and turn onto W Ruins Drive to reach the monument.
Overview
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Coolidge, Arizona, preserves a group of ancient Hohokam structures from the Classic Period (1150–1450), centered on the “Great House,” a four-story caliche-adobe tower surrounded by a compound wall. The Hohokam farmed the Gila Valley with wide-scale irrigation and traded extensively for more than a thousand years, until about 1450. Father Eusebio Kino was the first European to see the ruins, in November 1694, and named it Casa Grande (“Big House”).
A distinctive modern roof shelters the Great House. The current roof was built in 1932 by architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., replacing a wooden shelter from 1903. Visitors cannot go inside the fragile structure but can view it from outside, and a ball court like the one at Pueblo Grande is also part of the site.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Casa Grande Ruins National Monument", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
Inside Corridor
Inside Window
