Casa Grande: Big House, Little Blog

I saw the brown National Park Service sign driving from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to Tucson.  So, I found a few extra moments.  Wandering off the beaten path by 12 car minutes, I found Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.  It's a hidden gem.

Casa Grande is a smallish park with a fascinating force to it.  It's a set of built ruins built by a people who lacked domesticated animals to help them.  It represents the possible peak of an era in a civilization -- and holds mystery of its use and its demise.  Be sure to watch the overview film and talk to a docent -- the helpful volunteer I met explained the preservation of the site well.

It's attracted visitors for years, some of whom literally left their mark on it with carvings -- helping you to reflect on how history is remembered, honestly.  The preservation structure over the ruins dates back to the early 1900s.  Bonus: If you also visit Mission San Xavier del Bac, you will discover a connection with the modern-day naming of Casa Grande.  This wonderful mission site was recommended to me by the same helpful volunteer I mentioned above.

I'd been reading The Secret Token by Andrew Lawler on the plane out, thinking about our cultural fascination with the history of the lost colony of Roanoke.  Stay with me here: Lawler in part argues that our connection with Roanoke relates to the complexity of the idea of assimilation.  We are both fearful and hopeful that the lost colonists simply joined nearby indigenous groups.  It turns out the Ancestral Sonoran Desert People honored at this site have in part rejected their previous name, Hohokam, because it means those who have vanished.  Their argument?  Movement, assimilation, and the like do not "end" a group -- and they are still here, both among the ruins and living in the region today.

If you are like me, you didn't know this site was here.  Now, you know better.

Things to Know

• This is a fee-free National Parks Site.  You are off the beaten path but not far from the rest of the world -- I could hear children playing at the nearby school.  Why would you not stop, right?
• There is a small gift shop and museum.
• The ruins are outside with a short loop trail around them -- I'd estimate I walked about .25 mi to take a first look at the ruins.
• Reminder:  This site is not all that far from Phoenix Sky Harbor if you are landing there.
• This trip is poppy approved!  So, for the self-described intellectually curious, this is a great place to ponder human history and its remembrance.  Come, history and social science folks.

For Further Exploration

• Mapquest tells me Montezuma Castle is just 2 hours, 16 minutes away.  These two National Parks would pair particularly nicely.
• I was pleased to see Finders Keepers by Craig Childs available in the gift shop.  I discovered this book on a previous trip and think it gives depth to the conversation around preservation in the US Southwest.