Back Road Adventure

Lured by a faded wooden sign four miles northwest of Fort Apache, I lurched along a road of red clay that cut through fields of yucca and short grass brightened by wildflowers: lavender thistle, Indian paintbrush, and elaborate white blossoms of sacred datura. At the edge of a deep arroyo stood a crumbling multistoried sandstone structure which looked like a remnant of a prehistoric Indian pueblo set against the inscrutable backdrop of Sawtooth Mountain.

KINISHBA: THE RUIN THAT REFUSES TO GO AWAY Text by Sam Negri Photographs by Jerry Jacka

Kinishba is an Anglicized version of Apache words meaning "brown house." Between A.D. 1300 and 1400, an estimated 500 to 1,000 people loosely described as part of the Mogollon Culture, sometimes referred to as the Anasazi called this place home. Today it is a vacant partially excavated and partially reconstructed ruin, or at least one man's vision of what the structure originally looked like. One visitor who saw it about 10 years ago called it a ruined ruin. During a trek through Arizona in 1883, Adolph F. Bandelier, a Swiss-born artist and anthropologist, was the first non-Indian to record a visit to Kinishba.

"It stands on both sides of a deep ravine in the bed of which pines are growing," he wrote. "The village appears to be a compact small-house settlement, and there are, outside each of the two groups, scattered smaller buildings. The wide valley in which the ruins are situated is without water for irrigation, and I did not observe any provision made for storage, nor did I notice estufas [stoves]."

Between 1883 and 1931, Kinishba was visited by other anthropologists, but it was never excavated systematically until Byron Cummings, the first head of what is now the University of Arizona's Anthropology Department, adopted it as a major project. In 1931, when Cummings was 70 years old, he started excavating and reconstructing a small portion of Kinishba with the help of his students and Apache laborers.

The work was prodigious, but the resulting structure has in recent years been all but dismissed as historically irrelevant and architecturally inaccurate. The ruins of the original Kinishba that still lie below the ground on both sides of the arroyo are considered valuable, but Cummings' recreation has been reduced to the status of a quaint novelty that no one wants to buy. Although the ruins are on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, the Apache are not related to the people who lived there, and they have vacillated for years over what to do about the place. In 1968, tribal officials said the reconstructed ruin was in such dilapidated condition that it was dangerous. They erected a fence around Kinishba and told people to keep their distance.

That first visit, many years ago, provoked more questions than the voiceless landscape could satisfy. During a more recent trip to the site northeast of Globe in eastern Arizona, I discovered the old wooden sign, as rough as the ruin itself, had disappeared. Its absence suggested that perhaps Kinishba, too, had been swept away finally by a summer's febrile winds. But sandstone and limestone, the main ingredients at Kinishba, do not weather as rapidly as some believe. For the last 20 years, various experts have predicted the imminent demise of this ambitious reconstruction of a prehistoric apartment house. Kinishba what's left of it still stands alone like a daub of lion-colored paint on a wide green palette.

Ronnie Lupe, chairman of the White Mountain Apache, said

Back Road Adventure

Kinishba is a dramatic site worth seeing, and it's easy to get to. From Tucson or Phoenix, drive about 100 miles to the junction of U.S. Routes 70 and 60 in Globe. Head north on Route 60 for 63.1 miles, crossing the cavernous Salt River Canyon, to the cutoff for State Route 73 near Carrizo Creek. The road goes south and curves to the east through an undulating countryside of heavy red soils and cedars.

It's exactly 22.9 miles from the State 73 cut-off at Carrizo to the cut-off, on the north (or left) side of the road, for Kinishba Ruins. Coming from the northwest, there is no sign on the highway alerting travelers to the road for Kinishba. There is one on the road, however, if you're coming from the other direction.

Turn north on the road to Kinishba. Stay on the road to the right. After 2.5 miles, a sign for Kinishba appears at a fork; bear left here. The ruins are a half mile from that sign.

If this "ruined ruin" is a shambles, it is an evocative one, the kind of place where artists and photographers and other visitors will spend hours.

Author's Note: While Kinishba is a marvelous and important ruin, it is very dangerous to enter the site, itself. Cummings' reconstruction is collapsing, and the ruin is in a state of collapse. Heavy undergrowth also has taken over, perfect cover for rattlesnakes. And dry undergrowth offers fire danger. For safety's sake, view the ruin from beyond the old fence. See travel tips on page 13.

the tribe would like to see the site stabilized and restored, but funds are lacking.

For years the only people who went into the structure were Hopi religious leaders who brought eagle feathers from mesas of northern Arizona to leave for the spirits of those they believe were their ancestors.

University of Arizona anthropology Professor J. Jefferson Reid, who prepared a report on Kinishba for the National Park Service in 1989, when the place was being considered for designation as a national monument, said only 200 of the estimated 800 rooms at the pueblo have been excavated.

"Cummings partially reconstructed some rooms and completely reconstructed others," Reid said. "What he wanted to do was to erect a national monument."

Reid's report, as delicately as possible, informed the park service that the portion of the pueblo that Cummings reconstructed had little scientific value. On the other hand, the majority of the site, which remains unexcavated, is very valuable, Reid concluded.

The official park service file on Kinishba shows that it was first considered for status as a national monument 47 years ago, but every time the subject has come up, it has been rejected.

Anthropologist Emil Haury, who visited Kinishba the year before Cummings started his work there, observed recently, "Any house will go to pieces if you don't take care of it. I don't care how good a mansion it is, it needs steady maintenance, and there's been nobody up there after Cummings did his work to give it that attention. It's been terribly neglected."

Eventually, the 45-acre site was designated a national landmark, and Cummings' dream - he wanted to see it developed as a museum and visitors center evaporated. Over time, climate, animals, and vandals have taken their toll on the site.

A few years ago, the park service said horses and cattle were literally eating the place into extinction. The animals have been licking away at the fragile walls in the arroyo to get at the salt in the soil, undercutting the embankment below the ruin.

Despite its forlorn history and ramshackle appearance,