Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
The largest known structure of the ancestral Sonoran Desert People, the ruins of Casa Grande are today protected from the rain by a huge steel and concrete ramada constructed in 1932. Completed around 1350, Casa Grande was one of many settlements near the Gila river. While we know little about how the Great House was used, it is surrounded by several compounds that appear to have been residences. Several small, circular windows in the walls align with the sun during solstices and equinoxes.