Casa Grande Ruins NM landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Regions 6, 7, & 8 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

Inventory Unit Description: The 472.50-acre Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is found in the Sonoran desert of south central Arizona, near the town of Coolidge. The landscape of Casa Grande has been developed and altered by various cultural groups including an ancient Sonoran Desert people known as the Hohokam, historic explorers and settlers, early archeologists, the National Park Service, and Depression-era work program enrollees. The interactions of these groups with the landscape has resulted in two distinct cultural landscapes—a prehistoric landscape created by the Hohokam and a designed landscape, designed by the NPS in the 20th century. The prehistoric cultural landscape as defined by the Monument boundaries is comprised of a combination of use areas that reflect the spatial organization and design of Hohokam settlements. The Hohokam people inhabited the Gila River area over a span of 800 years, between approximately 300 and 1450 AD. However, at Casa Grande most of the Hohokam development took place between 1150 and 1450 AD, when villages began to be settled with large walled compounds and central plazas. The prehistoric village at the Monument includes numerous development complexes, each with its own clustering of buildings, shrines, courts, and plazas, defined by camp walls and trash mounds. After the abandonment of Casa Grande in 1450, the site was not rediscovered by European explorers until 1694, when Pima Indians told Padre Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit priest, about the hottai-ki or Great House, which Kino called the “Casa Grande”. The Great House ruin and its associated structures and landscape features were recorded, described, and visited by various individuals traveling through the area over the following 200 years. The establishment of the Casa Grande Reservation in 1892 marked the beginning of a series of developments that continued into the 20th century. Although the act largely prevented the landscape from being historically altered by agricultural development, infrastructure was developed, the ruins were stabilized, and a custodian’s residence was built. In 1918, the Reservation was officially declared Casa Grande National Monument by President Woodrow Wilson. Development of Casa Grande continued into the 1920s with NPS master planning efforts by landscape. architect Thomas C. Vint and Custodian Frank “Boss” Pinkley. The result of the master plan was the development of visitor, residential, and maintenance facilities, in addition to a ruins shelter for the Great House designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. Depression-era work crews provided the labor to implement the master plan throughout the 1930s and 1940s and directly influenced the spatial organization of the administrative areas of the Monument that is still visible today.

Casa Grande Ruins NM landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

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