Montezuma Castle National Monument, Fort Verde

On the way to Camp Verde for church at the local Calvary Chapel, as we get to the intersection of North Arena Del Loma and North Montezuma Castle Highway, I look over and see a large cave-like area in the cliffs.  I get the camera out and zoom in a little and what do I see…Montezuma Castle.  After church, which we thought was just wonderful, and after lunch at a restaurant near the church, and after a drive-by visit to Fort Verde there in town, we drove over to Montezuma Castle National Monument.  The NPS Senior Pass got us in for free, and they have a nice visitor’s center, and the path to the Castle is paved, not very long, and easy to walk for me, drive for Marcia.

  

Knowing that we have limited time because we had doggies awaiting us at the motorhome (we try not to be gone longer than 4 hours), we did not get out of the car at the fort.  The park tries to display what the fort was like during the Apache war time period.  The bronze plaque, which if you click will open in a large picture, contains the names of the soldiers who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for action seen with the Apaches.  Perhaps next time we are through the area, we will take the time to visit the fort, it seems like it would be interesting.

At Montezuma Castle, you enter the Visitor’s Center and pay the fee (or show the senior pass as we did).  There are some nice displays in the center, including this one showing Teddy Roosevelt.  Roosevelt proclaimed Montezuma Castle one of the nation's first four national monuments on December 8, 1906, along with El Morro and Petrified Forest.  Devils Tower in Wyoming was the country's first national monument.  We have now been to 3 out of the 4 first National Monuments…going to have to put El Morro on our list so we can see all four.

   

The path is very nice, and very quickly after leaving the visitor’s center, you can see Montezuma Castle.  It is easy to see, and easy to imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago when the Sinagua people built and used the dwellings.  The main structure comprises five stories and twenty rooms, and was built over the course of three centuries.

European-Americans first observed the ruins in the 1860s, by then long-abandoned, and they named them for the famous Aztec emperor Montezuma in the mistaken belief that he had been connected to their construction.  However, the dwellings had been used, and abandoned well before Montezuma was born…but the name has stuck despite this fact.  Also, it is not really a Castle, but more like a condo-apartment type of complex…it is a series of living quarters.

There are also some dwellings close to, but not physically connected to, the ‘Castle’. 

    

In this area, to the left of the Castle, there are many other dwellings…the Park Service calls this "Castle A".  They estimate that the last time any Sinagua occupied the area was around 1425 A.D.  They can only speculate as to why they built the dwellings in the cliffs (heat comes to my mind), and they have no idea why they abandoned the area.  Several Hopi and Yavapai trace their ancestries to early immigrants from the Montezuma Castle area.

 

Beaver Creek runs right near the complex, and yearly flooding could have been the reason for building up on the cliffs.  There is a lot of evidence of farming, and not too far away is the Montezuma Well, a natural limestone sinkhole through which some 1,500,000 US gallons of water emerge each day from an underground spring.  This source of water provided water to the crops then, and now.  As early as the 700 AD time period water was being diverted through a canal.  We did not visit this area…again, the puppy dogs.

Along the path back to the visitor’s center, there is a audio visual display of what it looks like inside the Castle.  In 1951 they stopped allowing access to the dwellings due to damage caused by those visiting.  One had to climb a series of ladders to get into the dwellings.  My parents said that I have been here before…when I was around two years old, perhaps the summer before I turned two.  Of course, I don’t remember any of it, except for seeing pictures on slides which have long ago been destroyed….

Montezuma Castle is just a few miles off I-17 at exit 289.  It is an easy, accessible walk, and within an hour you can be back in your car…or you can take your time in the Visitor’s Center and be back on the road in two hours.  This is another one of those “driven by the sign on the Interstate” many times without stopping, or even looking at what it would take to see this National Monument. 

(Ok family and friends...how many of you saw Marcia in one of the pictures?)