Uncle Sam Dresses up Casa Grande Ruins

Uncle Sam Dresses Up Casa

THE CASA GRANDE RUINS, in the heart of the Gila Valley, one finds a strange mixture of the old and the new. Skirted by the most modern of modern highways, the express highway between Phoenix and Tucson, the ruins of an ancient civilization lie nestled close to the floor of a fertile valley used by ancient and modern alike for agriculture, to feed an every-growing population.

Covering the main building of these ancient ruins, protecting it from weathering, preserving it for future generations, is a new roof. The building of the roof would in itself be worthy of only casual mention were it not for the fact that consummate skill in civil engineering, archaeology, electrical engineering, architecture, and many other sciences was needed to complete the task.

ering, preserving it for future generations, is a new roof. The building of the roof would in itself be worthy of only casual mention were it not for the fact that consummate skill in civil engineering, archaeology, electrical engineering, architecture, and many other sciences was needed to complete the task.

For the new roof is not “just a roof”. It is a thing of beauty, utility, and durability all combined in one. It has now been completed some two years, but the building program at the ruins which was ushered in with its beginning is still in process of construction, so that, particularly by comparison with the age of the ruins which it covers, we may say, honestly, that it is new.

This roof is made of steel and concrete, and, believe it or not, much of it is sunk in the ground! It replaces the roof which the government built in 1906. The old roof was built of corrugated iron, supported by 10 by 10 inch redwood posts which had rotted through. The old roof detracted materially from the view of the ancient ceremonial house because it closed down over it like a tight lid, leaving neither light nor air above.

The new roof is 82 feet wide by 98 feet long and is 46 feet high at the eaves. The center ridge is 59 feet high, and the bright metal ball in the center which is to attract lightning, is 69 feet and three inches from the ground level. This leaves ample space above the top of the ruin for both light and air so that it hardly seems to be covered, but is, at the same time, protected from the weather. In the top are four huge skylights which help to light the center room. This room has, heretofore, been dark and dismal.

The roof proper is constructed of a special combination of asbestos and cement, corrugated in sheets 4 by 10 feet and held in place by steel. Four huge steel posts, one at each corner, support the whole.

But the roof, in size and weight, is as nothing compared to the anchorage which had to be built, to support it, even in a 100-mile an hour wind. Four excavations, 10 feet deep and 12 feet square, were made and 300 tons of concrete were poured into them. Not only do these anchor the roof, support it in the manner described, but they also serve in an intricate but simple manner to ground the structure so that the roof can never be destroyed by lightning. Each post is grounded to a copper plate sunk in a 3-foot square pit, 10 feet deep, of charcoal and salt, which is always kept wet by a specially constructed irrigating system.

So broad is the valley in which the ruins sit that even with its great height, it seem to hug the ground.

Grande Ruins New Roof Serves Variety of Purposes— Recent Discoveries and Models of Com-pounds Added to the Museum

The maze on the inside of the north wall. This design has not been reported from any other North American ruins, but the same design is found on certain copper coins in the Isle of Crete in the Mediterranean, the coins being about two thousand years old. No theory of connection which will stand analysis has been broached.

Many other improvements have been made at the ruins, along with the construction of the roof. The entrance way has been moved so one approaches the ruins over a broad sweeping curve, and enters the reservation through an imposing gate. On either side of the entrance way, ocotilla cactus have been planted to forma rence of great beaut. After the entrance way is passed, a broad, well constructed highway leads to the ruins proper. Here a new museum and administration building has been built, where visitors may inspect the artifacts of the ancients which have been taken out and preserved, and where they may register in the great book which is kept. Here, too, parties of tourists are formed which are taken through both the museum and the ruins by competent National Park Service guides who recount in thrilling but accurate word pictures the story of the Hohokam, or “those who went before,” who built and lived in the compounds within the reservation. Ample picnic facilities are also provided.

In the center room of the top story are nine holes through the walls, one each at the north and south, two on the west and five on the east side. The use of these holes is unknown, and no plausible theory of their purpose has been advanced.

archaeologists or “pot hunters”, a most valuable find from a scientific stand-point. It is difficult to separate the different kinds of culture of the ancients as well as to separate their lives chronologicly, so that pottery types as well as house types are usually used. The “red Prominent in the center of the museum is a model of the whole ruin, made up of several compounds, which gives the visitor a birdseye view of what he is to see, and helps materially to orientate him. Ranged around the wall, in chronological order, are the artifacts which have come from the compounds. Pots and bowls of intricate design and workmanship, fashioned from clay; arrow points of stone, bone and obsidian, and innumerable other household articles and impliments of war are on display.

Housed here also is a new collection taken out on the Gila River Indian Reservation by Carl A. Mooseberg from ruins to be destroyed by the furthering of the irrigation project there under the Coolidge Dam. Many interesting as well as unusual pieces are in this group.

Much archaeological work has been carried on at the ruins in the last two years. Russell Hastings of the Gila Pueblo at Globe has done a great deal of work, discovering, among other things a new site of pure “red on buff” pottery which has never been worked by either