Casa Grande Ruins National Monument preserves the remains of a remarkable ancient structure built by the Hohokam people around the mid-1300s. At its center stands the “Great House,” a four-story, multi-room building constructed of thick caliche walls—a concrete-like soil hardened with calcium carbonate—that has endured centuries of desert heat and seasonal flooding. Archaeologists believe the structure served important ceremonial, social, and astronomical purposes, with openings aligned to the sun during equinoxes and solstices. The monument offers insight into the sophisticated irrigation systems, engineering skill, and cultural life of the Hohokam, who farmed the surrounding Sonoran Desert long before European contact.
Hohokam compounds were large, organized residential areas that reflected both daily life and social structure. Typically enclosed by adobe or caliche (hardened desert soil) walls, a compound contained multiple households rather than a single family.
What one of the rooms may have looked like
Our guide is a descendant of the Hohokam people
The walls are marked with graffiti left by some of the earliest European American settlers and travelers to the area, who carved names, dates, and messages into the ancient structure during the late 1800s
You can see three of the four original floors
Astronomical features in the Casa Grande illustrate the ancient civilization’s
Remains of a home
The Hohokam created more than 200 miles of canals, forming one of the most extensive and sophisticated irrigation networks in prehistoric North America. Carefully engineered with gentle gradients, the canals maintained a steady flow of water without causing erosion. This mastery of desert hydrology allowed the Hohokam to sustainably farm corn, beans, squash, cotton, and agave, transforming an arid landscape into productive agricultural land and supporting large, long-lived communities in the Sonoran Desert.
