Agua Casa

Mankind will always have things restricting their ability to reside anywhere it wants.  One of these restrictions is water.  Whether its living more than a day’s walk from a water source in prehistoric times, or traveling to Mars, people are always looking for ways to move water to new destinations.  The Tohono O’odham tribe built a complex at what is now Casa Grande National Monument.  They provided water for this settlement by digging miles and miles though hard packed clay and gravel to provide those living there with water for drinking and irrigating fields.  Supposedly Casa Grande is the birthplace of many tribes.  According to the tour guide, one possible cause of the people’s split from the centralized location was a flood that wiped out the canal system, causing the fields to die.  Since the population was able to grow larger due to increased wet, fertile land provided by the canals, the population size was unsustainable. 

The settlement at Casa Grande, near the Salt River, consisted of one large great house surrounded by a complex of smaller houses enclosed by a wall.  People would get into the smaller houses though a hole in the roof.  This allowed the cool mud-concrete material to completely shade the house in the summer heat.  The big house itself was constructed in an utterly amazing time of under four months.  The house was built with amazing precision.  There are windows that align with the moon at certain times of the year, and with the sunrise.  But much about this house is a mystery, as we have no written details about its use.  First witnessed by Europeans in 1694, it was named Casa Grande by none other than Father Kino.  In the 1800’s visitors from the East carved their names, and took parts of the building and potter found back home.  Luckily, Casa Grande became the first prehistoric and cultural reserve in the US by Woodrow Wilsons order in 1918.