Disrespected, Then Protected

The Great  House near 1900, some preservation work done but no roof yet.

NPS

In the 1700s and early 1800s, only a trickle of travelers came by the Casa Grande. First Spanish explorers, and then Mexican and American travelers wondered who built this ruin and why. More people visited after 1879 when the railroad first reached the town of Casa Grande 19 miles away. Travelers scratched their names into the walls. Some took away artifacts, even pieces of the walls, as souvenirs.

In 1889 Congress voted to protect Casa Grande Ruins from further vandalism and looting. They voted to pay for clearing away debris and repairing the eroded foundations. The wooden beams and metal rods you see today were installed in 1891 to brace up some of the walls. Three years later, the federal government made Casa Grande the nation's first archeological preserve.

Who named the Casa Grande?

A Jesuit missionary, explorer, and mapmaker, Eusebio Francisco Kino (1645–1711), was the first known European to document these ruins—in 1694. Father Kino called the building 'Casa Grande,' Spanish for 'great house.'

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A PDF of the wayside (29,861 KB) is available.

 

• Preservation

  
  

  Dr. Jerry Howard, archeologist and curator of anthropology at the Arizona Museum of Natural History, explains how the Casa Grande Ruins were preserved.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS, movie outtakes, thanks to volunteer editor Jenise Cook

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  [Dr. Jerry Howard] Well we really are fortunate that we have the Casa Grande here today where visitors can come and see this unique structure. It could easily have been destroyed. But it was the first archeological monument put aside by the Federal Government to preserve it for people to see and appreciate into the future. It took a lot of foresight by some early researchers lobbying Congress and trying to tell them that these were important pieces of the past. Things we just had to preserve for the future.