Tuzigoot National Monument, February 6, 2007

Welcome to Tuzigoot, a spectacular spot, and one that combines the old with the new. You can see some of the rooms (there are about 110)that the ancient Sinagua Indians built between 1000AD and 1425 AD, on this hilltop. The CCC 'restored' the rooms- they restacked the bricks and remortared them, which today is a big time archeological no-no, but was ok in the 1930s'. The Verde River runs along the bottom of the hill in the center of the pix. At the time the Sinagua Indians lived here, this was a lush, fertile valley- No one knows why the Sinagua abruptly left all of their large community dwellings- here and in Casa Grande, and Palatki. The theory was a long drought, which altered their extensive canal systems, followed by flooding. The Sinagua here and in Casa Grande built over 800 miles of canals diverting the Verde, Salt and Gila rivers, and they dug all these canals with sticks with little sharp rocks tied to them. The Sinagua lived on the hilltop and grew crops on the land by the river. See the yellow grassy area on the right? Here comes the new, and picture that American Indian with the tear in his eye that used to be on that TV ad. To the right of this pix, hanging off the sides of the mountain, is the mining town of Jerome, where most of the world's copper came from. The Jerome smelter is at the middle of the mountain, and cleverly piped all of the smelter slag down onto these fields, burying 90% of the unexcavated pueblos, artifacts, etc. For years it was a smelly, red, oozy, poisonous mess on all of the fields to the right of Tuzigoot. There is another rubber lined lagoon further up. In the last few months, they have poured some fill dirt on top, seeded it and covered it with straw, but the goo is still down there in all its mercury and arsenic wonder, minutes from what's left of the Verde River.