Casa Grande Ruins, 2-12-07

Here it is -the Big House, the Casa Grande Ruins! The ruins are actually in Coolige, AZ, 20 minutes from Casa Grande. The US government built the lovely canopy to protect the Ruins, this is the 2nd one. It now costs more to paint the canopy, then it did to build the canopy the first time.
The ruins were originally 4-5 stories high, and were abandoned by 1450 AD. Specualtion is that this building was used as a religious or administrative building, maybe for the thousands of miles of canals that this culture built-using just sticks and stones. The canals controlled water flow by widening/narrowing and sloping the canal a few degrees.On the back of the building there were 3 windows that exactly lined up with winter and summer solstice and another astronomical events. The inside walls are covered with grafitti from the 1800s. Pretty amazing that these people, the Hohokam, completely disappeared by 1450.