On Dec 3rd we left Palm Creek Resort and drove east 19 miles to the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument which preserves the remains of the largest known structure of the Ancestral Sonoran Desert People, the Great House. It was built in 1350, and stands four stories high and 60 feet long, with a platform mound filling the first floor. The steel and concrete canopy built in 1932 continues to protect the Great House. We took the tour of the ruins and then watched the video about the history of the Ancestral People who left the area in the 1400s due to major floods. In 1694 when the Spanish missionaries arrived they found only an empty shell of the once flourishing village of the Casa Grande, and in 1892 the Casa Grande became the nation’s first archeological reserve. To this day the Great House keeps within its walls the secrets of the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert.
