Tuzigoot National Monument (,

Western Apache The Western Apache are an Indigenous people of North America, and a subgroup of the greater Apache identity, who live primarily in east central Arizona, in the United States and north of Mexico in the states of Sonora and Chihuahua. Most live ...

: ''Tú Digiz'') preserves a 2- to 3-story

pueblo Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlement ...

ruin on the summit of a limestone and sandstone ridge just east of

Clarkdale, Arizona Clarkdale ( Yavapai: Saupkasuiva) is a town in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. The Verde River flows through the town as does Bitter Creek, an intermittent tributary of the river. According to th2021 census the population of the town was ...

, above the

Verde River The Verde River ( Yavapai: Haka'he:la) is a major tributary of the Salt River in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is about long and carries a mean flow of at its mouth. It is one of the largest perennial streams in Arizona. Description The ri ...

floodplain. The Tuzigoot Site is an elongated complex of stone masonry rooms that were built along the spine of a natural outcrop in the

Verde Valley The Verde Valley (; ) is a valley in central Arizona in the United States. The Verde River runs through it. The Verde River is one of Arizona's last free-flowing river systems. It provides crucial habitat for fish and wildlife, fresh water fo ...

. The central rooms stand higher than the others and they appear to have served public functions. The pueblo has 110 rooms. The

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

currently administers , within an authorized boundary of . ″Tú Digiz/Tuzigoot″ is a

Tonto Apache The Tonto Apache Tribe of Arizona or Tonto Apache () is a federally recognized tribe of Western Apache people located in northwestern Gila County, Arizona. The term "Tonto" is also used for their dialect, one of the three dialects of the Weste ...

term for "crooked waters," from nearby

Pecks Lake Pecks Lake is a small reservoir, fed by water from the adjacent Verde River, near Clarkdale, Arizona, Clarkdale in the U.S. state of Arizona. The name of the nearby Tuzigoot National Monument comes from an Apache language, Apache word, ''Tuzigoot'' ...

, a cutoff

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

of the Verde River; from Tú Digiz one principal Tonto Apache clan gets its name. The pueblo was built by the

Sinagua The Sinagua were a pre-Columbian culture that occupied a large area in central Arizona from the Little Colorado River, near Flagstaff, Arizona, Flagstaff, to the Verde River, near Sedona, Arizona, Sedona, including the Verde Valley, area around ...

people between 1125 and 1400 CE. Tuzigoot is the largest and best preserved of the many Sinagua pueblo ruins in the

. The ruins at Tuzigoot incorporate very few doors; instead, the inhabitants used ladders accessed by trapdoor type openings in the roofs to enter each room. The monument is on land once owned by United Verde/

Phelps Dodge Phelps Dodge Corporation was an American mining company founded in 1834 as an import-export firm by Anson Greene Phelps and his two sons-in-law William Earle Dodge, Sr. and Daniel James. The latter two ran Phelps, James & Co., the part of the ...

. The corporation sold the site to

Yavapai County Yavapai County ( ) is a county near the center of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 236,209, making it the fourth-most populous county in Arizona. The county seat is Prescott. Yavapai County comprises the Pr ...

for $1 so that the excavation could be completed under the auspices of federal relief projects. The county in turn transferred the land to the federal government. Tuzigoot was excavated from 1933 to 1935 by Louis Caywood and Edward Spicer of the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

, with funding from the federal

Civil Works Administration The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was a short-lived job creation program established by the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States in order to rapidly create mostly manual-labor jobs for millions of unemployed workers. The j ...

and

Works Project Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to c ...

. In 1935–1936, with additional federal funding, the ruins were prepared for public display, and a Pueblo Revival-style museum and visitor center was constructed.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

designated Tuzigoot Ruins as a

U.S. National Monument In the United States, a national monument is a protected area that can be created from any land owned or controlled by the Federal government of the United States, federal government by Presidential proclamation (United States), proclamation ...

on July 25, 1939. The Tuzigoot National Monument Archeological District was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on October 15, 1966. The ruins are surrounded by the

tailings In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...

pond of the former United Verde copper mine at

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

. The tailings have recently been stabilized and revegetated.

Climate

Tuzigoot National Monument has a

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

: ''BSk'') with cool winters and very hot summers.

Gallery

Image:tuzigoot.jpg, Tuzigoot National Monument Image:Tuzigoot, pond 1945.jpg, Tuzigoot, viewed from across the old tailings pond, 1945 Image:Tuzigoot Museum near (Clarkdale, Arizona).jpg, Tuzigoot Museum

References

External links

* * * * {{authority control National Park Service national monuments in Arizona Archaeological sites in Arizona Archaeological museums in Arizona Museums in Yavapai County, Arizona Native American museums in Arizona Ancient Puebloan archaeological sites in Arizona Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona National Register of Historic Places in Yavapai County, Arizona Protected areas of the Sonoran Desert Protected areas of Yavapai County, Arizona Former populated places in Yavapai County, Arizona Ruins on the National Register of Historic Places 1939 establishments in Arizona Protected areas established in 1939 Sinagua

Climate

Gallery

See also

References

External links