CASAS • GRANDES, Ica'sas gran'dis (Span. egreat houses"), a town in Chihuahua, Mexico, on the Casas Grandes or San Miguel River, 35 miles south of Llanos, and 130 miles southwest of El Paso, remarkable for a num ber of ruins, apparently relics of an aboriginal race. These ruins are found about half a mile from the small Mexican village, partly on the declivity of a small hill, and partly on the plain at its foot. They consist chiefly of the remains of a large edifice of the pueblo type, built en tirely of a substance resembling adobe, mud mixed with gravel and straw and formed into blocks 22 inches thick and about three feet long. The portions which must have been con structed of wood have entirely crumbled away. The outer walls are almost all prostrate, except at the corners, and were probably only one story high; the inner walls are better preserved, varying in height from 5 to 50 feet, and being in some cases five feet thick at the base. The portions remaining erect seem to indicate an original height of from three to six stories. The doorways have the tapering form noticed in the ancient structures of Central America and Yucatan, and over them are circular open ings in the partition walls. The stairways were probably of wood and placed on the outside. Clavigero, in his (History of Mexico,' tells us that the building, according to popular tradition, was erected by the Mexicans in their peregrina tion, and that it consisted °(of three floors, with a terrace above them, and without any entrance to the lower floor. The door for entrance to the building is on the second floor, so that a scaling ladder is necessary." The main features of the edifice seem to have been three large structures connected by ranges of corridors or low apartments, and enclosing several court yards of various dimensions. The extent from
north to south must have been 800 feet, and from east to west about 250 feet. A range of narrow rooms lighted by circular openings near the top, and having pens or enclosures three or four feet high in one corner, supposed to be granaries, extends along one of the main walls. Many of the apartments are very large, and some of the enclosures are too vast ever to have been covered by a roof. About 200 feet west of the main building are three mounds of loose stones and 200 feet west of these are the remains of a building, one story high and 150 feet square, consisting of a number of apart ments ranged around a square court. The in habitants of this communal structure seem to have disappeared long before the Spaniards noticed the ruins in the latter part of the 17th century. Throughout the northern part of Mexico the name Casas Grandes is applied to deserted buildings of a similar type.
For some distance south the plain is covered with tracts of ancient buildings, and for 20 leagues along the Casas Grandes and Llanos rivers are found artificial mounds from which have been dug up stone axes, corn-grinders and various articles of pottery, such as pipes, jars, pitchers, etc., of a texture far superior to that made by the Mexicans of the present day, and generally ornamented with angular figures of blue, red, brown and black, on a red or white ground. The best specimens command a high price in Chihuahua and neighboring towns. On the summit of a mountain, about 10 miles from the ruins above described, are the remains of an ancient stone fortress, attributed to the same people who built the Casas Grandes, and prob ably intended as a lookout. See PUEBLOS.