CASA GRANDE, griin'a (Sp., great house). A ruined structure of prehistoric origin in the valley of the Gila River, near Florence. Arizona, about 15 miles southeast of Casa Grande station (named from the ruin) on the Southern Pacific Railway. It may have heen seen by white nice connected with the Coronado Expedition in 1540; it was certainly discovered by Padre Kino in 1604, and was revisited by him in 1697, when he held a service within it, though it had been un occupied during the period covered by tradition. It was again visited in 1775 by Padre Font, hut remained little known until rediscovered by American emigrants about 1849; it was well described by John Russell Bartlett in 1854. In 1589, on the petition of citizens chiefly resident in Massarlinsetts, Congress provided for the pro tection of the ruin as a monument of antiquity: and in 1892 the structure and the adjacent grounds, bearing less imposing ruins, were set apart as a public- reservation in (-are of a (11A todian. The structure as it stood about 1895
is shown in the plate. It is of eajon or pisf• construction (see A RCILEOLOGY, AMERICA N ) . in walls 3 to 5 feet thick at the ground. thinning upward; the surf:tees were plastered. especially within, with a slip of adobl' clay. There are five in the ground plan; portions of three sto remain, and there rimy have been a fourth in part of the structure. The ruin is not unlike sev eral in Mexico and Central -tmerica, but is the only one of its type in the United States. It was unquestionably erected by an Amerind people of Pueblo affiliations, probably the ancestors of the present Pima tribe. It was described by 31inde Bureau it American Ethnology, I3th port, 1890 and later by :McGee (ib., 15th Report, 1897). It is not to be confounded 1.? ith the still more extensive lint less-known ruin of ('alas Grandes in the State of Chihuahua, :Mex ico.