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| THE RUINS OF |
| TUZIGOOT |
| Tuzigoot National Monument
Crowning a desert hilltop is an ancient pueblo. From a roof top a child scans the desert landscape for the arrival of traders, who are due any day now. What riches will they bring? What stories will they tell? Will all of them return? From the top of the Tuzigoot Pueblo it is easy to imagine such an important moment. Tuzigoot is an ancient village or pueblo built by a culture known as the Sinagua. The pueblo consisted of 110 rooms including second and third story structures. The first buildings were built around A.D. 1000. The Sinagua were agriculturalists with trade connections that spanned hundreds of miles. The people left the area around 1400. The site is currently comprised of 42 acres. |
| Tuzigoot is located on land once owned by United Verde/Phelps Dodge. The corporation sold the site to Yavapai County 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, with funding from the federal Civil Works Administration and Works Project Administration. 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 designated Tuzigoot Ruins as a U.S. National Monument on July 25, 1939. Within it, the Tuzigoot National Monument Archeological District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. |
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| Tuzigoot National Monument preserves a 2 to 3 story pueblo ruin on the summit of a limestone and sandstone ridge just east of Clarkdale, Arizona, 120 feet (36 m) above the Verde River floodplain. The National Park Service currently owns 58 acres, within an authorized boundary of 834 acres (3.38 km2).
Tuzigoot is Apache for "crooked water", from nearby Peck's lake, a cutoff meander of the Verde River. Historically, it was built by the Sinagua people between 1125 and 1400 CE. Tuzigoot is the largest and best-preserved of the many Sinagua pueblo ruins in the Verde Valley. |