The name that can not be pronounced....

Still in Arizona, we headed to a National Monument called Tumacacori. Pronounced just like it is spelled (Tuma-ca-cori). Located south of Tuscan, was a Pima indian settlement. Built in approximately 1701 by Spanish Jesuits, the mission was constructed as much for protection as religious reasons.  In 1767, King Charles III of Spain, for political reasons, banished all Jesuits from the realm and replaced them with the Franciscans who took over the missionary effort. About 1800, Fray Narciso Gutierrez began to build a church to replace the modest Jesuit structure. The poverty and Mexican revolution slowed construction. With Mexican independence, the last Spanish priest had to leave, ending the 157 year thread of continuity.  The last residents left Tumacacori in 1848 and the land was purchased as part of the Gadsden Purchase and became part of the U.S.

 This photo is a representation of what the church looked like when it was in operation.

Beautiful colors in the midst of the desert. The National Park decided to keep the monument in situ or in the same state it was found when it was purchased by the National Park System.  There are several such sites around the southwest.

Next stop was on the way to Phoenix.  Casa Grande National Monument is not far off I-10 in the farming town of Coolidge, AZ. You drive down a two lane highway through farms and rural towns.  As you drive through Coolidge, you look to the left and here is what you see.

 
Until we arrived at the visitor's center, we really couldn't tell what was what. As it turns out, the monument is the building created out of caliche that is the only ruin of a multi-story building constructed by the ancestral Sonoran Desert Indians. Built it about 1350 C.E., its purpose remains a mystery.  These people built the Casa Grande developed wide-scale irrigation farming and extensive trade connections that lasted over a thousand years.

  

Here are the Cliff Notes.  The Casa Grande was abandoned around 1450 C.E. and the inhabitants left no written history behind.  Written historic accounts of the Casa Grande begin with the journal entries of Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino when he visited the ruins in 1694. In his description of the large ancient structure before him, he wrote the words "casa grande" (or "great house") which are still used today. More became known about the ruins with the later visits of Lt. Col. Juan Bautista de Anza's expedition in 1775 and Brig. Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny's military detachment in 1846. Subsequent articles written about the Casa Grande increased public interest. During the 1860's through the 1880's more people began to visit the ruins with the arrival of a railroad line twenty miles to the west and a connecting stagecoach route that ran right by the Casa Grande. The resulting damage from souvenir hunting, graffiti and outright vandalism raised serious concerns about the preservation of the Casa Grande.

 

Several important construction projects were undertaken during the 1930's. The main part of the visitor center building with adjacent parking lot and entrance road, and a new steel shelter roof over the Casa Grande, were completed in 1932. Between 1937 and 1940, the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed a number of adobe buildings to support park operations. All of these structures remain in use today and are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As a result, the general physical appearance of Casa Grande Ruins has changed very little since the 1940's.

Next stop, Phoenix!